Not dead
I'm posting less and less on this thing...
I've noticed the music lyrics I listen to have a powerful impact on the rest of my day, so I've been doing my best to focus on upbeat music. It's amazing how little of that exists.
I'm sick, and while I only feel that way a little of the time I'm also sleeping 15 hours when I'm not at work. It's bad the first thing that popped in my head when I realized I was sick was I wondered if I caught MRSA from one of my patients.
Last night I had a dream I was talking with my currently nonexistent daughter. She wasn't allowed to tell me her last name or if she had brothers and sisters and she was a little older than I am now. Apparently to her I had died not too long ago, she was facing some hardship and was pleading to talk to her mom. She was disappointed when she was finally able to talk to her and got me who doesn't know the first thing about her. But we talked for a good hour or two about God, what it means to be yourself, timing, strategies to work with what she had. She said she was able to understand a lot about her mom from her conversation with me. The strange thing is I can still remember almost the entire conversation, normally that's not the case.
After my internship I landed myself a job in orthopedic trauma on night shift. Like any job there are
Pros
-- The people. I feel really comfortable around everyone there despite being the youngest employee and they're generally a fun bunch.
-- I love the way the hospital feels at night, during the day I feel claustrophobic with all the hustle-and-bustle of doctors, social workers, student nurses, student doctors, student pharmacists, physical therapy, nutritionists, tons more family members etc. At night everything settles down and it's a slightly more relaxed atmosphere.
-- There's a certain routine which makes learning basic nursing a little easier.
-- We aren't usually telling people they're dying, the crowd is mainly elderly folk who tripped and broke something, car accidents and men 20-40 that tried something stupid and failed. There are exceptions certainly, but I'd say that's the majority.
Cons
-- LPNs. I love the nurses I work with but there are two types of nurses, RNs (which is what I am) and LPNs. LPNs are limited in what they can do, a lot of them can't give IV medication, nothing to do with PCAs (patient controlled pain pumps, which is very common on our floor) and admission assessments. An RN has to go through all LPN charting and sign off on orders, narratives and the like. So I'll have 4 patients, then cover an LPN's 4 patients. That's 8 patients under my license, and if the LPN and I both miss something, that's both of our careers. 4-5 patients is enough of a workload in itself, especially without a tech during the week, 8-10 just makes me nervous.
-- The majority of the time there is no secretary to put orders into the computer. Any time a patient is admitted or comes back from surgery there are pages of orders and we have to learn to put those in on top of our regular nursing job.
-- We are desperately short staffed. At least once a week they have only 1 RN on the floor, making them responsible for all 23 beds. Also I was eligible to be charge nurse as soon as I got off orientation. Thankfully they said they'd wait a couple months for that, but none of it feels remotely safe. I don't want to lose my license over something so stupid.
-- While I love night shift it also wreaks havoc on my body and any sort of social schedule I have. I may still adjust to that though.
-- I miss sick patients.
I would like this to be a position I stay at for a while, but right now I'm waiting to see if getting used to the routine and patient type will make me feel this is a less dangerous position. If not then I will certainly stay between 6 months - 1 year since I feel it only fair to them, but may consider other options when my one year commitment to the hospital is up.
Even though I don't post often I still read my friend's page almost every day. I'm still here, just a wallflower for the time being.
I've noticed the music lyrics I listen to have a powerful impact on the rest of my day, so I've been doing my best to focus on upbeat music. It's amazing how little of that exists.
I'm sick, and while I only feel that way a little of the time I'm also sleeping 15 hours when I'm not at work. It's bad the first thing that popped in my head when I realized I was sick was I wondered if I caught MRSA from one of my patients.
Last night I had a dream I was talking with my currently nonexistent daughter. She wasn't allowed to tell me her last name or if she had brothers and sisters and she was a little older than I am now. Apparently to her I had died not too long ago, she was facing some hardship and was pleading to talk to her mom. She was disappointed when she was finally able to talk to her and got me who doesn't know the first thing about her. But we talked for a good hour or two about God, what it means to be yourself, timing, strategies to work with what she had. She said she was able to understand a lot about her mom from her conversation with me. The strange thing is I can still remember almost the entire conversation, normally that's not the case.
After my internship I landed myself a job in orthopedic trauma on night shift. Like any job there are
Pros
-- The people. I feel really comfortable around everyone there despite being the youngest employee and they're generally a fun bunch.
-- I love the way the hospital feels at night, during the day I feel claustrophobic with all the hustle-and-bustle of doctors, social workers, student nurses, student doctors, student pharmacists, physical therapy, nutritionists, tons more family members etc. At night everything settles down and it's a slightly more relaxed atmosphere.
-- There's a certain routine which makes learning basic nursing a little easier.
-- We aren't usually telling people they're dying, the crowd is mainly elderly folk who tripped and broke something, car accidents and men 20-40 that tried something stupid and failed. There are exceptions certainly, but I'd say that's the majority.
Cons
-- LPNs. I love the nurses I work with but there are two types of nurses, RNs (which is what I am) and LPNs. LPNs are limited in what they can do, a lot of them can't give IV medication, nothing to do with PCAs (patient controlled pain pumps, which is very common on our floor) and admission assessments. An RN has to go through all LPN charting and sign off on orders, narratives and the like. So I'll have 4 patients, then cover an LPN's 4 patients. That's 8 patients under my license, and if the LPN and I both miss something, that's both of our careers. 4-5 patients is enough of a workload in itself, especially without a tech during the week, 8-10 just makes me nervous.
-- The majority of the time there is no secretary to put orders into the computer. Any time a patient is admitted or comes back from surgery there are pages of orders and we have to learn to put those in on top of our regular nursing job.
-- We are desperately short staffed. At least once a week they have only 1 RN on the floor, making them responsible for all 23 beds. Also I was eligible to be charge nurse as soon as I got off orientation. Thankfully they said they'd wait a couple months for that, but none of it feels remotely safe. I don't want to lose my license over something so stupid.
-- While I love night shift it also wreaks havoc on my body and any sort of social schedule I have. I may still adjust to that though.
-- I miss sick patients.
I would like this to be a position I stay at for a while, but right now I'm waiting to see if getting used to the routine and patient type will make me feel this is a less dangerous position. If not then I will certainly stay between 6 months - 1 year since I feel it only fair to them, but may consider other options when my one year commitment to the hospital is up.
Even though I don't post often I still read my friend's page almost every day. I'm still here, just a wallflower for the time being.