Published
Ok I'm currently working in a Radiology Special Procedures lab, but in April I will be going to work in the CCU. I have been doing the Radiology gig for 2 and a half years now. Before that I was in the ER for 9 and a half years. I forgot that I used to moonlight in corrections too.
12 hour shift (usually ave 14 hrs after charting) overnight med-surg with mixed geriatrics and pre/post surg pts in one of two large city hospitals in Ozland. Nurse-pt ratio at night 1:8-10. Track shoes. Pedometer usually shows 12 miles or more. Often no break and no "lunch". Pay is better at night and there is shift bidding for extra shifts, but feeling a bit burned out after four months there. However, there is usually help when someone has some sleepers but you get a tough draw like one or two transfers from an ICU who shouldn't have left ICU yet (like a "chronic" w/ a trach who starts throwing up after arrival from ICU at 2100 med time). We have one young nurse off to California soon for the sun and much better ratio. I'm a Blue Stater by nature and miss some of the reported benefits of unionization back East.
I often find and are complemented on my ability to refrain from the drama of the day. I dont enroll in conversation with the chatty nurses who want to find out whats going wrong or scandalous in some one elses life. I have been told that I could have the tendency to be cold, yeah so we laugh at some of the circumstances of our traumas but dont we all?
burnt40
4 Posts
I started in med/surg. for only 9 months
ER for 4 years
chest pain nurse clinician for 1.5 years
just transferred to SICU
will be going to CRNA school next fall.