I am blogging over on Tumblr now about nursing and have been since I graduated almost four years ago!! Come join me there! There's lots to read and you can ask me questions!
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospital. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
New blog
Whew.... long time no post!! I completely forgot I had this blog until I was trying to answer a question about my NCLEX study habits... And then I had to jailbreak myself back into this blog. Anyway...
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Where have all the nursing jobs gone??
Where have all the nursing jobs gone?!?
I don't know if it's some horrible combination of the economy, the affordable care act, general panic or what... but the hospitals around here are just plain not hiring. Or at the very least not hiring new grads.
I don't know if this is widespread but in my, large midwestern, city there are few RN jobs to be had for new grads. The hospitals have been laying off nurses for months now. They're rarely posting new jobs and the ones they do post are not for new grads.
When I got into nursing school everyone assured me there would always be jobs! "Oh you're going into a career where you'll always have a job!" "Oh there's always a shortage of nurses!" HAH. Yeah, sure.
Until now apparently.
Veteran nurses, my instructors, and pretty much everyone keeps saying, "Don't worry. It'll turn back around. Nursing does this all the time. They try something new. It doesn't work. They'll hire more nurses again. It'll only take 12-18 months."
12-18 MONTHS! Because I just have that kind of time to sit around unemployed.
Needless to say I'm quite perturbed. I got into nursing, yes because I actually like it, but also because... they always need nurses! Always! You can't get rid of us. And yet...
I'm hoping that the situation is not as dismal as it looks. I'm hoping that things will turn around by the time I take the NCLEX and start looking for jobs.
In the meantime I'm considering moving to other states, doing some certifications to make myself look more appealing... and well.. praying.
How long did it take you to get a nursing job after you graduated? Does the nursing job market suck everywhere??
I don't know if it's some horrible combination of the economy, the affordable care act, general panic or what... but the hospitals around here are just plain not hiring. Or at the very least not hiring new grads.
I don't know if this is widespread but in my, large midwestern, city there are few RN jobs to be had for new grads. The hospitals have been laying off nurses for months now. They're rarely posting new jobs and the ones they do post are not for new grads.
When I got into nursing school everyone assured me there would always be jobs! "Oh you're going into a career where you'll always have a job!" "Oh there's always a shortage of nurses!" HAH. Yeah, sure.
Until now apparently.
Veteran nurses, my instructors, and pretty much everyone keeps saying, "Don't worry. It'll turn back around. Nursing does this all the time. They try something new. It doesn't work. They'll hire more nurses again. It'll only take 12-18 months."
12-18 MONTHS! Because I just have that kind of time to sit around unemployed.
Needless to say I'm quite perturbed. I got into nursing, yes because I actually like it, but also because... they always need nurses! Always! You can't get rid of us. And yet...
I'm hoping that the situation is not as dismal as it looks. I'm hoping that things will turn around by the time I take the NCLEX and start looking for jobs.
In the meantime I'm considering moving to other states, doing some certifications to make myself look more appealing... and well.. praying.
How long did it take you to get a nursing job after you graduated? Does the nursing job market suck everywhere??
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Summer Part 2: Pediatrics!
Pediatrics was my only clinical of the last 7 weeks of summer!
Well Peds has been over for a couple of weeks but I only had 4 days off in between my summer and fall semesters so I feel like I'm still playing catch up.
We did our clinicals on a general pediatric floor with kids of all ages and diagnoses. I worked with a 2 week old, 1 year old, 10 year old and 11 month old on my weeks there. They were all in for various diagnoses like fever, seizures, short gut, etc.
Procedures accomplished:
- Vitals
- Med administration
- Swab/culture on newborn
Care plans:
Still required. These ones were better than others. They required less info overall, although more about cognitive and developmental stages obviously. I did my three early on so I was done with them.
Observations:
Pediatric Clinic
I observed in the peds clinic run by the hospital where they see all the kids that don't have insurance or are on the state insurance. It was a pretty routine doctor's office routine. Bring kids back, get vitals, height, weight and then get them in a room. I did watch them do a couple lead tests, other blood tests and vaccinations. Super cute kids, but I think I would be bored working there.
Pediatric ER
I really enjoyed my pediatric ER observation. They weren't super busy while I was there but I got to observe them triage, assess, treat, etc. They attempted to put an IV in a 6 month old who was actually diagnoses with an intussusception (which I had just learned about so that was cool). It was interesting to see how the child life specialist helps the nurses by trying to distract/entertain the child.
Overall Peds was fine... although nothing spectacular. When I was younger I always though I wanted to be a pediatric nurse but I don't really think I do. I could possibly do Peds ER, but not floor work probably. It's just like doing procedures on adults, but they're smaller and they scream more. Also most children come with parents.
Well Peds has been over for a couple of weeks but I only had 4 days off in between my summer and fall semesters so I feel like I'm still playing catch up.
We did our clinicals on a general pediatric floor with kids of all ages and diagnoses. I worked with a 2 week old, 1 year old, 10 year old and 11 month old on my weeks there. They were all in for various diagnoses like fever, seizures, short gut, etc.
Procedures accomplished:
- Vitals
- Med administration
- Swab/culture on newborn
Care plans:
Still required. These ones were better than others. They required less info overall, although more about cognitive and developmental stages obviously. I did my three early on so I was done with them.
Observations:
Pediatric Clinic
I observed in the peds clinic run by the hospital where they see all the kids that don't have insurance or are on the state insurance. It was a pretty routine doctor's office routine. Bring kids back, get vitals, height, weight and then get them in a room. I did watch them do a couple lead tests, other blood tests and vaccinations. Super cute kids, but I think I would be bored working there.
Pediatric ER
I really enjoyed my pediatric ER observation. They weren't super busy while I was there but I got to observe them triage, assess, treat, etc. They attempted to put an IV in a 6 month old who was actually diagnoses with an intussusception (which I had just learned about so that was cool). It was interesting to see how the child life specialist helps the nurses by trying to distract/entertain the child.
Overall Peds was fine... although nothing spectacular. When I was younger I always though I wanted to be a pediatric nurse but I don't really think I do. I could possibly do Peds ER, but not floor work probably. It's just like doing procedures on adults, but they're smaller and they scream more. Also most children come with parents.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Take a peek inside my clinicals bag!
Take a look inside my clinicals bag! (so that i can procrastinate on studying)
left to right
- purple clipboard that I can store stuff in (care plans, paperwork, etc)
- notebook
- striped pencil case
- stethoscope
- bag of random lab goodies (tourniquets and other stuff that i don’t use)
- drug reference book!
- my pocket notebook to write down important info
- my gloves that i accidentally left in there yesterday
- kleenex, pretezels
- nu skin (awesome liquid bandaid)
- extra batteries for my pen light
- pen light (crappy white one and expensive but actually usable black one)
- pen
- chapstick, watch, gum
- bandage scissors
What do you keep in your bag? What should I add to mine?
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Med surg 1 - Ortho
Well my clincials for Med surg 1 are over! We were on the ortho unit at the hospital for four weeks and my general feeling about ortho is that it's not for me.
I guess if you really like learning about ortho procedures and assisting patients with PT it might be fun. Just not my favorite. Most of the patients are simply post-op and therefore not especially "sick", so there's not a whole lot of things to do.
Procedures accomplished:
- Med adminstration
- Charting
- Head to Toe assessments
- Pain assessments
- Safety checks
- Bed baths
- Linen changes
- Physical therapy assistance
Procedures witnessed:
- Fellow student put in a foley catheter
- Assessment on a patient that appeared to have possibly had a stroke.
Care Plans:
They're still annoying but they seemed easier this time. I knew what was expected of me and it seemed easier to express my thoughts. It also helped that my instructor didn't want pages and pages of care plans. Short and sweet is much easier.
OR observation:
I got to do a day of OR observation this 8 weeks which was fun. I've observed in an OR before but I got to see a craniotomy this time which was really neat. I like being in the OR but I don't think that I'd want to be a nurse in the OR, honestly they don't get to do very much. Being a scrub nurse might be fun, but both times I've observed in the OR there have been surgical techs instead of scrub nurses. Being a circulating nurse is just kinda boring to me. I was amazed at how fast the nurse put the patient's foley in. It was amazing!
I guess if you really like learning about ortho procedures and assisting patients with PT it might be fun. Just not my favorite. Most of the patients are simply post-op and therefore not especially "sick", so there's not a whole lot of things to do.
Procedures accomplished:
- Med adminstration
- Charting
- Head to Toe assessments
- Pain assessments
- Safety checks
- Bed baths
- Linen changes
- Physical therapy assistance
Procedures witnessed:
- Fellow student put in a foley catheter
- Assessment on a patient that appeared to have possibly had a stroke.
Care Plans:
They're still annoying but they seemed easier this time. I knew what was expected of me and it seemed easier to express my thoughts. It also helped that my instructor didn't want pages and pages of care plans. Short and sweet is much easier.
OR observation:
I got to do a day of OR observation this 8 weeks which was fun. I've observed in an OR before but I got to see a craniotomy this time which was really neat. I like being in the OR but I don't think that I'd want to be a nurse in the OR, honestly they don't get to do very much. Being a scrub nurse might be fun, but both times I've observed in the OR there have been surgical techs instead of scrub nurses. Being a circulating nurse is just kinda boring to me. I was amazed at how fast the nurse put the patient's foley in. It was amazing!
Friday, December 21, 2012
Clinicals
Since I'm in an accelerated program, my first clinicals took place this last semester. We had 5 weeks of clinical in the lab at school and then 3 weeks in the hospital (twice a week). Mostly the stuff at the lab was pretty boring, but we did learn how to do all the basic skills: bed baths, changing an occupied bed, vital signs, ROM, assessments, giving meds (not IV or IM), etc.
The check off's were nerve wracking... but I passed them all. I know that you have to learn the things somehow, but it seemed like things were so different in the hospital that I'm not sure how useful it all was. There's only certain things you can learn by pretending to do them on a fake patient..
My clinicals were on a general med-surg floor that also included some renal and trauma patients. Overall most of the nurses that I interacted with were really nice. Some of them were more willing than others to teach, let us in on cool procedures and take the time to help us out. The most recent graduates seemed to be the most willing to help us out and teach us, since they were just in school not that long ago. Mostly the nurses were grateful to have another set of hands, since we were basically the ones taking care of our one patient.
It seemed to me that clinicals (for fundamentals at least) pretty much consist of getting your feet wet, getting used to going into patient's rooms and talking to them. You try to see what else is going on on the floor to see if there's something interesting to see, but otherwise you feel like you're in your patient's room or stuck in the hall trying to find something to occupy yourself. The worst was that there was literally no place we could go that was out of the way, where we could sit or chart if we had free time. This was sort of okay for a 5 hour clinical but it may kill me when we start 12 hour clinicals the second 8 weeks of the spring semester. Ugh.
Procedures accomplished
- Bed baths. Managed to get lucky on my first two patients and they were ambulating and didn't need help bathing, but I helped a fellow student with a bed bath on her patient the second week and that was just plain tiring because the woman basically couldn't help us at all. My third week I had a partial paralysis guy who didn't do much of anything for himself so I had to give him two full bed baths, luckily with help from fellow students. He was also a complete gem in the fact that he was so out of it. I couldn't figure out if he had dementia (he was being treated for it), was trying to be funny, or was just that inappropriate. Whatever the reason, he was a challenging patient.
- Flushed an NG tube on a patient
- Passed oral and transdermal patch meds to my patient the last week. Not super hard... but I got to use the Pyxis so I guess that was exciting
- Sort of assisted my instructor with an ostomy. We didn't put the new one on because the ostomy nurse was called for it.
- Vital signs twice a day on each of my patients.
Procedures witnessed
- Nurse pulled a foley catheter on a woman after I got to deflate the balloon.
- Watched the nurse give IV and IM meds, give meds in the NG tube
- Watched my instructor empty a J-P drain.
- Changing out an ostomy which the ostomy nurse did (after my patient's ostomy bag exploded all over the floor while I was with her. Twice. Have I mentioned I'm a figurative and literal shit magnet?)
Care plans
Yup, they suck. They're an epic waste of time in my opinion. But they're apparently a necessary evil in nursing school and perhaps after. The hospital we're at actually has nurses doing a sort of care plan for their patients. Really they're just stating nursing goals and interventions and that stuff...
Care plans are just time consuming and boring. But whatever, they must be done and so I do them.
The check off's were nerve wracking... but I passed them all. I know that you have to learn the things somehow, but it seemed like things were so different in the hospital that I'm not sure how useful it all was. There's only certain things you can learn by pretending to do them on a fake patient..
My clinicals were on a general med-surg floor that also included some renal and trauma patients. Overall most of the nurses that I interacted with were really nice. Some of them were more willing than others to teach, let us in on cool procedures and take the time to help us out. The most recent graduates seemed to be the most willing to help us out and teach us, since they were just in school not that long ago. Mostly the nurses were grateful to have another set of hands, since we were basically the ones taking care of our one patient.
It seemed to me that clinicals (for fundamentals at least) pretty much consist of getting your feet wet, getting used to going into patient's rooms and talking to them. You try to see what else is going on on the floor to see if there's something interesting to see, but otherwise you feel like you're in your patient's room or stuck in the hall trying to find something to occupy yourself. The worst was that there was literally no place we could go that was out of the way, where we could sit or chart if we had free time. This was sort of okay for a 5 hour clinical but it may kill me when we start 12 hour clinicals the second 8 weeks of the spring semester. Ugh.
Procedures accomplished
- Bed baths. Managed to get lucky on my first two patients and they were ambulating and didn't need help bathing, but I helped a fellow student with a bed bath on her patient the second week and that was just plain tiring because the woman basically couldn't help us at all. My third week I had a partial paralysis guy who didn't do much of anything for himself so I had to give him two full bed baths, luckily with help from fellow students. He was also a complete gem in the fact that he was so out of it. I couldn't figure out if he had dementia (he was being treated for it), was trying to be funny, or was just that inappropriate. Whatever the reason, he was a challenging patient.
- Flushed an NG tube on a patient
- Passed oral and transdermal patch meds to my patient the last week. Not super hard... but I got to use the Pyxis so I guess that was exciting
- Sort of assisted my instructor with an ostomy. We didn't put the new one on because the ostomy nurse was called for it.
- Vital signs twice a day on each of my patients.
Procedures witnessed
- Nurse pulled a foley catheter on a woman after I got to deflate the balloon.
- Watched the nurse give IV and IM meds, give meds in the NG tube
- Watched my instructor empty a J-P drain.
- Changing out an ostomy which the ostomy nurse did (after my patient's ostomy bag exploded all over the floor while I was with her. Twice. Have I mentioned I'm a figurative and literal shit magnet?)
Care plans
Yup, they suck. They're an epic waste of time in my opinion. But they're apparently a necessary evil in nursing school and perhaps after. The hospital we're at actually has nurses doing a sort of care plan for their patients. Really they're just stating nursing goals and interventions and that stuff...
Care plans are just time consuming and boring. But whatever, they must be done and so I do them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)