sasparilla

I went from straight out of school to the MICU at our hospital, had a 12 week orientation plus a year of critical care class and have spent the last year working nights. I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything. It's what you make of it. If you are fine with constructive criticism, know that it's a good thing to ask questions when your aren't 100% sure, get in on as many different experiences as possible and always do your best, the IMO you can make it in the ICU straight from school. I didn't have the greatest preceptor and have realized once I was on my own that in some ways I have been at a disadvantage so I took it upon my myself to learn what I didn't get taught. I found the nurses who I respect and ask them questions when I don't understand something. And they are ok with that, they know I am working on making myself a better nurse. I didn't have much experience, I've been a lab tech, worked as a unit secretary for a year before starting school and did a few months of NT before graduation. But I am a person who thrives on activity and like to work my brain, I like excitement. Plus a group of 6 of us new grads all started around the same time and I can tell you, we are a team! Most of the nurses in our unit don't hesitate to help and on nights we are short (often enough), even the charge nurses will take patients. Has it been hard, yes. There are still days that I feel dumb as a stick. It just makes me work harder. Like others have said, I think if I'd had to spend time in M/S I probably would end up hating nursing, it's just not for me and I know that. I have a lot of respect for the M/S nurses, their job is HARD with the nursing shortage in our hospital and sometimes having to take a large number of patients. I like knowing that I know my patients, their histories and their families. I'm right there watching over them. I think a lot of time in M/S, you don't have time to do that, you are too busy getting your 40+ meds each for your 6 (or more) patients, all in an hours time plus deal with all the patient and family requests for another blanket, a coke, free food for their family member, etc. Call me a bad nurse, but that would just frustrate me, THAT is what would burn me out. So take a good look at your hospital and how well they support new grads, make sure you won't just be thrown to the wolves once your orientation is over. If you are satisfied that you will be in a good place, then go for it.

I went from straight out of school to the MICU at our hospital, had a 12 week orientation plus a year of critical care class and have spent the last year working nights. I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything. It's what you make of it. If you are fine with constructive criticism, know that it's a good thing to ask questions when your aren't 100% sure, get in on as many different experiences as possible and always do your best, the IMO you can make it in the ICU straight from school. I didn't have the greatest preceptor and have realized once I was on my own that in some ways I have been at a disadvantage so I took it upon my myself to learn what I didn't get taught. I found the nurses who I respect and ask them questions when I don't understand something. And they are ok with that, they know I am working on making myself a better nurse. I didn't have much experience, I've been a lab tech, worked as a unit secretary for a year before starting school and did a few months of NT before graduation. But I am a person who thrives on activity and like to work my brain, I like excitement. Plus a group of 6 of us new grads all started around the same time and I can tell you, we are a team! Most of the nurses in our unit don't hesitate to help and on nights we are short (often enough), even the charge nurses will take patients. Has it been hard, yes. There are still days that I feel dumb as a stick. It just makes me work harder. Like others have said, I think if I'd had to spend time in M/S I probably would end up hating nursing, it's just not for me and I know that. I have a lot of respect for the M/S nurses, their job is HARD with the nursing shortage in our hospital and sometimes having to take a large number of patients. I like knowing that I know my patients, their histories and their families. I'm right there watching over them. I think a lot of time in M/S, you don't have time to do that, you are too busy getting your 40+ meds each for your 6 (or more) patients, all in an hours time plus deal with all the patient and family requests for another blanket, a coke, free food for their family member, etc. Call me a bad nurse, but that would just frustrate me, THAT is what would burn me out. So take a good look at your hospital and how well they support new grads, make sure you won't just be thrown to the wolves once your orientation is over. If you are satisfied that you will be in a good place, then go for it.

For those who've taken the CCRN exam, what books, study guides or review courses best helped in passing? I've been an RN for 10 months (not long I know) and while I've learned a lot so far, I realize how much more I still have to learn. I've been working in the medical ICU at our hospital since graduation. I've heard from others who have taken it that the CCRN exam asks you to look at the scenarios more from a medical standpoint (diagnoses, etc) rather than a nursing standpoint. So I am looking for some study aids to help me get ready. Any suggestions?

For those who've taken the CCRN exam, what books, study guides or review courses best helped in passing? I've been an RN for 10 months (not long I know) and while I've learned a lot so far, I realize how much more I still have to learn. I've been working in the medical ICU at our hospital since graduation. I've heard from others who have taken it that the CCRN exam asks you to look at the scenarios more from a medical standpoint (diagnoses, etc) rather than a nursing standpoint. So I am looking for some study aids to help me get ready. Any suggestions?

Actually, the money for these goodies is built into the student's tuition, so the students are the one's paying for it. I wonder if anyone of them would have rather have kept the money and had to add even more to their student loans?

Look up on the internet "horizontal violence". We had a guest lecturer come to talk about this just a few days ago. It happens in all fields, and nursing is one of them. It's sad that it's already happening while still in nursing school. These same folks will likely carry on this same behavior into their jobs after graduation. The lecturer was doing her MSN research on this topic. It's where there is a work environment of harassment, abuse, emotional abuse, bullying, bellitling, etc. You get the picture, it sounds like this is happening to you. I applaud you for being proactive in addressing this in front of your class. The instructors ought to be the ones who put a stop to it. It's never happened in our class, but I had a friend who experienced it a few years ago in this same school. A clique decided they didn't like her because she asked a lot of questions in class, which interfered with their right to get out of class early, lol. It was hard for her and she's a perfectly nice woman as well as a great nurse now. The hospital where I do my clinicals is trying to do something about this by labelling these personalities as "low performers" on their eval's. If they refuse to change, it is supposed to end up with them being fired at some point. We'll see, with the nursing shortage who knows if admin. will back it up. Of course, they don't take into account nurse turnover and nurses not wanting to work on floors that have this kinds of toxic environment.

I just wanted to get opinions on a practice I recently became aware of in my city. It seems that one nursing school provides to any nurse who agrees to be a preceptor to any of their students who are hired as GN's a palm pilot, a laptop computer and $1000. This is the only nursing school out of three programs here that do this. Do you think this gives incentive for facilities to hire more of their new nurses from this particular school? How fair do you believe this to be? Also would this practice create a disadvantage to any new hires from the other schools who do NOT do this? If this was offered to you, do you think that you might not be as rigorous with any student that came from this school due to a sense of obligation for the gifts that you received? I believe that the hospitals give extra pay to their nurses who agree to precept, which I can understand since precepting can make a nurses life a lot more complicated. But I'd never heard of this before. Is this common?

If those nurses were at the end of their shift, weren't there already other nurses present to take over for the next shift? Did they leave before anyone else showed up or were they being forced to work beyond their scheduled shift? There's got to be more to this story, otherwise I can't see how they abandoned their patients. The facility surely had other staff where getting ready to begin the next shift. It sounds, as is, like they broke their contract and that's all.

Oops, double post!

Having higher pass rates while in nursing school helps ensure that those that take the NCLEX will be more likely to pass it. A good pass rate for a nursing school brings in students. Our RN nursing school has much higher NCLEX passing rates than the BSN program in the same town, that's one of the reasons I chose to go this route. As far as not increasing the number of students allowed into nursing school, that's because there aren't enough instructors to teach them. Nursing instructors have to have their Master's or be working on it and the pay stinks. Generally a $10,000/ year pay cut when switching from hospital nursing to nursing instructor. Not everyone can do that. So until there is more funding for hiring and paying instructors, there won't be more entry slots into schools. Plus foreign nurses are extremely happy to work in the US for our wages and who can blame them? I know a Filipino doctor who makes more here as a nurse than he did in the Philipines as a doctor. He's darn good too.

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate the info. I interviewed for and got the job in MICU to start after I graduate and am looking forward to being in there. I'm excited!

Hi, I'm a nursing student in my last semester who is really interested in working in either MICU or SICU. Luckily, our hospitals here will hire new GN's and train us. I've had one rotation in MICU, loved it but don't feel like I really know what types of patients end up in an MICU. Can you give me any info on what to expect that I would see if that is where I end up? I also like SICU but there is a high turnover rate in the hospital that I do my rotations in that makes me kind of leery of working there as a new nurse. The MICU is very stable, they hardly ever have people leave. That sounds like a good unit.

Hmmm, will any of these advanced degrees include an increase in salary? If I'm going to have to go to school longer and spend a lot more money doing it, I'd better make more money so I can pay back my student loans.

West Texas, $19.25 base pay with night and weekend differentials as an RN. Not sure what the diff's are as I haven't started working yet. Plus I'll get a $5000 sign on bonus. Looking at others salaries, it's really not bad considering our cost of living around here is pretty low.

I've been struggling with where to work as well. I graduate in May and have never liked my med-surg rotations. I run around all day and when its time to go home, I can't even remember what it was I did. I agree with those that mentioned feeling like a waitress. I've accepted a job with a new hospital in town that is a long term acute care hospital. The management says that it will be a mix of vent patients with other more stable patients that need to be in the hospital anywhere from 5-25 days, plus ratios of 4-5 to one nurse due to acuity. I hope that turns out to be true. I really like the ICU where I'm doing my clinicals and am still wondering if I ought to just go for that, but then I hear stories from a friend who just left there about how they often give newbies 3 ICU patients when they are understaffed (a common occurrence), even though they aren't supposed to. Hearing about them crying in the hall from the stress kind of scares me from going ahead and applying. But I figure ICU is where I'll end up in the next year or so, I get so much more satisfaction from dedicating my care and full attention to a few people who really need it than I ever do caring for a bunch and then feeling like I didn't do a very good job at the end of the day because I couldn't do it all.