School nurse to corrections...

PinkRocksLikeMe · Apr 8, 2011

First of all I am sure you haven't lost your medical knowledge, it will just be streched to cover a different kind of work. I am a EMT-I at a county jail I wanted to clarify I am NOT a nurse. I do however understand the hiring process as I have been there for a LONG time. They will probably will give you a scenerio something like...You are doing pill pass and a fight breaks out among inmates....What do you do? ALWAYS remember they are looking to see if you will remove yourself from that situation. SAFETY is KEY! They don't want you to be so caught up in passing pills you forget you are in a jail and that dangerous situations are the NORM there. They also will probably ask you to get fingerprinted and run a background checl. drug test, etc...

You will do fine, answer each question with confidence. and always remember your safety is the MOST important thing!!

Good luck!!

Jenn

ddunnrn · Apr 9, 2011

I can't give you any advice on what questions they might ask, but I can tell you what it's like to work in a jail/prison. I worked in the Philadelphia county jail system, which is actually larger than some state prison systems--9000+ total capacity. The main thing I can advise you about is that you really have to be flexible. You may not have the resources you think you should have; you may have to follow security rules that seem too severe; and most of all you will be taking care of a population composed of society's throw-aways. The population at large doesn't believe they should have to pay for prisoners' medical care which is often better than they themselves can afford.

On the other hand (and you'll need a few extra hands!), many of the inmates are sociopaths, who will try to get anything they can get--they will lie about being diabetic just to get an extra snack or different food; they will lie about having seizures so they don't get an upper bunk; they will steal anything they can get their hands on for reasons you probably would never think of.

The saddest thing for me in the 9 years I worked there (all on the psych units), was how much of a waste it was to have all of these people incarcerated. Most of the people are in jail for drug-related charges or stupid stuff like public urination. Can you imagine winding up in jail for a couple of years because you pee'd on the sidewalk, got arrested, were found incompetent, were assigned a public defender, and never went to trial? Only a fraction of the people were in jail for violent crimes, but it is not a priority for the public to rehabilitate them.

I could go on for quite a while, so if you have any more questions, please feel free to email me at [email protected].

By the way, what is the size of the jail you are going to be working in? Do you know how acute the types of problems have to be before the inmate is shipped out to an outside facility? That can have a lot to do with how difficult your working conditions will be.

Dee_RN · Apr 28, 2011

I just had my interview with the Medical Director, and mainly they ask you

Why did you want to be a nurse?

Why did you pick corrections?

Your beliefs on giving care to inmates?

What would you do if someone asked you to bring in contraband?

Those are the basic questions, or at least that is what I was asked. You will really win them over if you do some research on the facility prior to your next interview, it shows that your willing to go the extra mile. It's funny bc you've done school nursing and are about to do corrections, I recently was hired at a correctional facility and a school. So we will see how this work out....lol!!