Student nurse questions...

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So I'm new here and not totally sure the best place to post/ask these questions but here goes: I am a prenursing (doing prereqs currently) student, who has also worked as a CNA and med tech for about 4 years before I had my daughter. I developed a love for high pressure and high responsibility situations and I really want to go into critical care/ER specialties. My ultimate goal is flight nursing. I think I'd like to do long range fixed wing transport, but I havent been able to find anyone to talk to who has experience in this. My husband is director of matinence for a long range air ambulance company that does things like bring transplants from Hawaii to the mainland, pick up US citizens from overseas and transport them home etc. This is very intriguing for me due to the travel element and also the fact that they tend to transport stable patients (they're falcon 50s so they're not going to accident scenes or anything.) Anyway, does anyone have experience with being this type of long range flight nurse? 

 

Second, I have a one year old who I'd prefer to homeschool and certainly don't want to send to preschool or anything sooner than I have to. My husband is very supportive but works all day and my mom lives out of town so I don't have alot of childcare options. Has anyone managed to go to school in a situation like this? I know it may be more possible now with online schooling but I'd like to do in person as much as possible. Do nursing schools do evening classes or accommodate home situations at all? Has anyone managed to go to school while also being an involved parent? How is it done?...

thanks!

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Specializes in ICU, Trauma, CCT,Emergency, Flight, OR Nursing.

Hey there,

Whether you plan to do FW flight nursing one day or RW, the requirements in terms of education and experience are the same. I'd highly recommend you read through all the other threads here in this specialty page as the answers to your questions posed, are all there and have been answered in previous posts ( I answered these questions several times myself).

On FW transports, these patients are not always stable. Many are critical care transfers so having extensive and varied experience in the critical care specialty is essential as you draw upon that when you are taking care of patients on your own , outside of the hospital environment. You shoulder the legal responsibility for care of these patients entirely as well, so remember that. 

Most  FW services that I know , expect their RN's to be on call and available for several days in a row with the ability to depart on a flight at a moments notice, so reliable childcare which you trust is essential.

You have a long way to go though so , don't worry about those issues as you have years ahead of you before you will need to even think about those matters. You need to get your BSN, then get into an ICU for at least 5 years , complete your CCRN as well as ACLS, PALS, NRP, TNATC courses before you will be eligible to apply for any flight nurse position. Enjoy the Now and being a nursing student; soak up all the experiences that you are exposed to and keep your mind open to the many areas of nursing that are out there and don't box yourself in to one specific super specialty at this stage of your life. Best of luck on your journey!

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Specializes in Student, Grad: ‘21.

Ditto what Ricky said! Like you, I am a goal-oriented planner, but as an almost new grad I can assure you the only thing you can plan on is change. Some programs do not offer evening classes, but I imagine that varies by location. Some of my peers are really struggling with their children doing distance learning while they need to be studying themselves, so I think that comes down to a person by person basis. Focus on doing well in your pre-reqs so you have many programs to chose from when it’s time to apply, then go from there ? good luck!

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

Once you get through nursing school, I'd suggest trying to land in an ICU rather than an ED, just for the critical care experience.

Large, urban EDs will generally provide a fair amount of critical care experience but not compared to the ICUs in that same hospital. The smaller suburban hospitals, though, may not have so much critical care in their EDs, even if it's a level 2 trauma center.

If you're going to be a flight nurse, you really need to have substantial experience with critically ill patients and most EDs are not going to provide that.

My view from 12 years as an ED nurse in 4 different hospitals of different sizes... level none to level 1.

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