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Thursday, January 31, 2008

 

extremely quickly

I have been getting up way, way, way before dawn to go to clinical this week. What I've learned: I really like mentoring the first quarter students. I am flattered and encouraged by the confidence the faculty is placing in me. And I really, really don't want to be an RN in a nursing home, because it is all about paperwork and hardly any patient care. That is actually good information for me, because I previously thought that I would be interested in nursing home work.

I have two interviews at Big County Hospital tomorrow morning. One for med-surg, one for telemetry. Both are for new graduate RN positions, which I imagine will have a long & thorough training and preceptorship period. I will know more about that tomorrow. I do know how much their starting pay is, and it is not too shabby. Also, both of the units I'm interviewing with have day shift positions available! That's pretty great, considering that most new grads end up working nights until they earn some seniority.

More tomorrow.

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

 

clinical coming up

First of all, I want to say hi to rosebuttons and Z* and SN Jack. Thanks for your comments and ideas! Especially about preschool waiting lists... I'm sure every decent preschool in Seattle is already booked for the next 3 years. Also, Z*, you are welcome to write a book on my blog anytime you want. I think it's so cool that we're on this same nursing journey.

I had a good series of conversations with my coworker nurses at work on Saturday. They all urged me to take a new grad job at a hospital in order to establish a good experience base and take advantage of the extra coddling that new grads receive during residency. I said, "but what about if I get pregnant and can't finish a full year of work?" They laughed at me... and said that it happens all the time, and I would most likely be welcomed back or transitioned to another position (like the float pool? or a per diem position?). So. That's what I will try to do. I'm applying to several different hospitals' residency programs for med-surg type jobs, and I'll just have to see what happens.

As for school, I went with one other classmate today to do our "self-orientation" at the long-term care facility where we are doing our management clinical starting next week. What does that mean? We will be there Monday & Tuesday mornings with first-quarter students, supervising & mentoring them along with one of the first-quarter instructors. Then Wednesdays and Thursdays, we'll do an entire shift independently... and I believe it will be as though we are additional supervisory nurses. We're not replacing or shadowing a nurse on the shift. We're supposed to be assessing residents, directing resident care by LPNs and CNAs, passing meds to a whole set of residents twice, performing treatments like wound care... and doing a whole lot of paperwork. I think the idea is to immerse us in the world of an RN in long-term care.

I'm feeling surprisingly not anxious about this clinical. The staff made us feel very welcome today, and I'm looking forward to mentoring the new kids in the program. It makes me realize that I'm come a really long way in a really short time. That's cool.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

 

licensure

In class today we filled out applications for the college for graduation, got the contact info for the state nursing commission so we can start sending them information about ourselves, got the contact info for the testing company so we can go ahead and send them a pile of money for faster test authorization now, and got the order forms for our pins. I think we all started to hyperventilate a little.

My biggest issue right now is that I don't know what kind of job I want to look for. One reason I wanted to go into nursing is because of the flexibility, but now that I'm getting ready to step into the work world again, I feel like there are too many choices. Most nurses & teachers have told me that getting a year of general med-surg experience is smart because it allows greater adaptability going forward, but I've also heard people say that if you're interested in critical care, go ahead and take an ICU job as a new graduate. I have ruled out some things - I don't want to work in labor & delivery, I don't want to work in the ER, I'm not very interested in working in ortho (although it would be a decent new grad job). But I don't have a burning passion for one particular area of practice. Some of the nursing students I know have a thing that they want to do, like oncology or trauma or NICU or psych or whatever. I don't have a thing like that.

Additionally, I am trying to balance the whole finding a new job thing with the whole spawning a smolt thing. We're not trying to have a baby just yet, but neither of us are getting any younger. So I feel kind of pressured to get work ASAP, so I can get a good chunk of work experience under my belt before I take time off for having a kid. And I would like to be able to go back to work part-time in a per-diem position or on a "traveler" contract, so we wouldn't have to put our baby in day care. I don't know how to balance all the variables.

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o hai

welkum to mythbusters

It takes a very special kind of nerd to appreciate this one. I laughed so loud I scared the cat.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

 

hello again

I've been neglecting my poor blog! As my pathetic short posts have probably hinted, I've been just overwhelmed with everything that's been going on, both good and bad. So here's a quick update on several things in my life:

  • School. This is this first week of 6th quarter, which is my LAST quarter of nursing school. Graduation is scheduled for March 20. I have two courses with two clinicals - advanced med-surg and nursing management. For med-surg, I'm going to the big downtown location of my employer, which will be interesting. For management clinical, I'm going to a nursing home where half the week I will supervise first-quarter students during their first clinical, and the other half of the week I will manage care for the residents and also manage the staff (CNAs et al) who work there. I am scared to death about the management part - I feel like I don't know enough to tell other people what to do!

  • House. We're getting settled into the house. I rearranged the kitchen cabinets today, and found a place to plug in the dustbuster. One of our friends asked R* if we were happy in the house, and his answer was "Um... happier than at the apartment? We haven't lived at the house long enough to know." I concur. I think the house is going to be fine but I haven't been here long enough to be sure.

  • Apartment. I probably shouldn't talk too much about this, but suffice to say that we've found a lawyer and are investigating our options.

  • Health. Remember how I signed up with Weight Watchers October 1st? Yeah. I stuck to it just fine until the whole Sh*tland thing got underway. And when we were worrying about where we were going to sleep that night or whether we'd have poo in the bathtub, I didn't give a crap about what I ate. So I haven't lost any weight. At least I've managed not to gain any, either. I worked out today for the first time since we moved into the house... I am really out of shape. But it felt good.

    Also, remember how I was having too much anxiety? I finally got my act together (and powered through my anxiety about making phone calls) and saw a psychiatric nurse practitioner who specializes in medication management and counseling. After discussing my symptoms and my family history, she agreed with me that I seem to have a biochemical issue that is probably genetic, and changed my medications. It's only been a few weeks and so far, so good.

  • Kitty. Our Kismet kitty has been such a trooper through all of this upheaval. She didn't like the night she spent in a hotel with us, but she was well-behaved. And she was downright cheerful about staying in the rental condo for a week, even though she didn't understand why we were bothered by her clawing the upholstered chair. (She doesn't do that at home!) Today I took her to the vet for her annual checkup, and the doctor told us she's perfectly healthy, but Kismet registered a complaint with the vet techs. I have never heard her hiss, growl, or yowl before, but she did all three while she was getting her nails trimmed. Goodness. She is a furry purring ball of love at home.

  • Car. The dealership service center patched my tire and charged me $19. And they vacuumed my floor mats and left me a new bottle of water. Awesome.

  • Books. I've read a lot of books during my time away from school. The kind you read for fun. You can read about the books I've read and what I thought about them on my shelf at Shelfari.

  • Las Vegas. R* and I went to Vegas for 3 days right before Christmas. We stayed at the Bellagio and saw 4 shows and ate lots of fantastic food and drank way too much and played slot machines for no apparent reason and generally had a great time. We pretty much avoided the skeevier parts of the Vegas experience altogether. I'm just a little bit bummed that I didn't see any Elvises. (Elvisi? Elvi? Elvoose?)

  • Christmas. We went to my parents' house and they made Christmas for us. They'd gotten a tree and decorated and put up lights and Mom even got stockings and stuff to put in them. We played games and cards and ate homemade food and took naps and went to see "The Golden Compass" and went for a walk in the snow and generally had a lovely family time. It was really good.

  • Leavenworth. Because I worked New Year's Day, I didn't want to do anything major on New Year's Eve, which turned out to be just fine since the Space Needle fireworks didn't go off as planned. At all. We had planned to spend the night in a hotel downtown with a view, but we cancelled it in advance. Thank goodness. It would've been a real letdown! So this past weekend before school started, R* took me to Leavenworth to see the winter wonderland. It was so snowy and beautiful! It's not like city snow - everything was covered in this thick puffy blanket of marshmallow cream snow. Because the town is so small, the snow doesn't get all dirty and gross from air pollution and lots of traffic. We went for a walk on the grounds at Sleeping Lady prior to having dinner there, and it was so neat. The snow was about waist deep and they dug out paths between all the buildings. I felt like a mouse in a burrow. The stars came out and they looked so huge and bright because we were out in the mountainy woods - so pretty!

    Anyway. I've got to get to bed. I've got clinical orientation tomorrow, oh joy. Oh snore.

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  • Wednesday, January 02, 2008

     

    AAA

    When you go outside and discover that you have a flat tire and it's getting dark and raining, it is very nice to know that you can call AAA and they will send a nice guy out in a tow truck to put the spare on for you.

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