In need of friendly feedback... (rental, attorney, employment)

[Keeper]

Originally Posted by mquintana

You can apply for certain areas of the hospitals, right??

My xDIL did right out of school with an AS worked in the neonatal unit at St. Joe's. She then went on to get her BS and now her Masters degree. She liked working in neonatal and that is her specialty. She didn't want to work with older babies or younger children.

She is now in San Fran and just got her Masters degree. I think she may go for a MD next.

[BucFan]

Some hospitals (can't tell you which ones) offer tuition assistance. VA pays your tuition if you commit to a certain number of years working in their facilities. Good option for people who have difficulty funding their education.

[Aconite]

I worked as an RN for over 20 years, some of that in labor & delivery, nursery and mother/baby.

It's a high burn-out profession, and a high burn-out specialty, for a reason. After a certain number of nights taking verbal abuse from the docs who can't get to a delivery in time and want you to keep the patient from pushing until they do (never mind the baby has other ideas), it gets old. Many OBS are very different with the staff than they are with their patients.
And then there are nurse: patient ratios, which are better in some facilities than others. When I worked at Women's they were way outside national guidelines, but maybe they've improved. (I certainly hope so, anyway.)
I'll freely admit to being burned out. Consider it a cautionary tale, and if you do go into the profession, be good to yourself, insist on professionalism, and don't let them take advantage of your starry-eyed idealism. You don't want to get to the point where you have nightmares about your job.

[BucFan]

curious if you're still working - and in what type of setting-

outstanding advice/commentary

[Aconite]

Thanks, Buc.
I went into a different nursing specialty, and then back for more education/certifications so I could work in private practice. I've been out of nursing altogether now for awhile. Took me about three years after I quit hospital nursing to stop having nightmares of having to juggle three simultaneous deliveries, all with July medical residents. <g>

[BucFan]

Originally Posted by mquintana

Is it that bad that you would want to leave it for good? I understand that the hours are really less than desirable, I mean 12 hours straight is a little grueling, but apparently anestetic nurses average around $113,000. I would rather be in the mother/baby unit, but then again I would re-consider for the greater pay...

The hours aren't the problem - mostly the staffing is the biggest problem in nursing overall. Having the right ratio of staff to patients has always been a big problem anywhere I've worked. Being treated appropriately by physicians is also another problem we face a lot - although some physicians are outstanding to work with.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by mquintana

Thanks for the advice. I had all intentions of getting my bachelor's after working for about 6 months or so-if that. I know that after I get my AS from SPC, I can take online courses for my BS through SPC as well. It'll work out nicely. I even thought about pursuing my Master's after I get my bachelor's. I want to be more than qualified. Maybe I will start out in the mother/baby or something. You can apply for certain areas of the hospitals, right??

I don't know if nursing schools still advocate this, but mine did back in the dark ages and I think it was wise: work a year of med-surg before specializing.
We chafed against it, threw hissy fits, and ultimately, many of us didn't (because hospitals were desperate enough to hire new grads into specialties). And hey, we knew we were going to be L&D or pedes nurses forever and ever, so it was all good, right?

Well, no. The problem is that pregnant women also still get gall bladder disease, or pneumonia, or get hit by cars. Psych patients need their blood sugars monitored if they're diabetic. Two year olds are considerably less forgiving, medically, to learn on than forty year olds. The nurses who immediately specialize are just fine, 85% of the time, but that other 15% they range from less-than-desirable to useless-as-****-on-a-bull. As a nursing director in a small mental health facility there were nights I had to come into a unit to assess a patient because the docs weren't in-house and the nurse on the unit had no medical experience. She was damn fine with schizophrenics and alcoholics, but give her a delusional 85-year-old having a medical crisis and fuggedaboudit.

Aside from what this means to the facility, to you as a nurse, it directly translates into your paycheck and your hireability. If I had to choose between three candidates, all else being equal, I'd pick the one least likely to have to call me out at 3AM to look at a patient she couldn't handle.
And of course, you'll be more likely to get assigned as charge nurse or promoted to nurse-manager, down the road, if you're able to handle curve balls.

Were I a new grad, wanting to be a really good mother/baby nurse, I'd take my newly minted degree and work med-surg for a year. Then I'd apply for an internship at Bayfront or Tampa General-- because while other hospitals have a wide scope of practice, I still wouldn't get the variety and the need to think fast that I would with clinic patients who are not uniformly overeducated healthy thirty-year-old primips...and the internship will allow me to ease into the role more comfortably and more safely. After the internship, I might go off to Suburbia General's maternity department if that's what I still wanted. But I'd be a better nurse for having a wider scope of practice to start with.
The other thing with an internship or a larger hospital is that mother/baby nurses don't always work only with mothers and babies. You still may end up with overflow patients from antepartum or GYN, or patients awaiting a morning induction for whatever reason, or a bunch of other little oddities. Better to know going in how to care for them.

Originally Posted by mquintana

it that bad that you would want to leave it for good? I understand that the hours are really less than desirable, I mean 12 hours straight is a little grueling, but apparently anestetic nurses average around $113,000. I would rather be in the mother/baby unit, but then again I would re-consider for the greater pay...

Well, yeah, a nurse-anaesthetist can make some decent money. Nurse-practitioners, in general, make tidy incomes. As a new grad, or a nurse who gets caught up in daily life and doesn't go on to a whole lot more education than just her ADN or even BSN, you're nowhere near that. It's roughly analogous to the divide between a kindergarten teacher and a school administrator, only with more body fluids.

[mquintana]

WHOA!

Aconite-that's a lot to take in...but I think I can handle it. I really appreciate your input though. It's good to hear all aspects and opinions...

I really didn't know about possible overflow and not just dealing with mother/babies.

I honestly believe I can handle being a nurse regardless if the doctor is screaming at me or what have you. Maybe the labor and delivery sounds less desirable as the mother/baby, but either way I believe it would be ok with me.

I know some people must look at this profession as though it is glamorous or maybe an ideal job with awesome pay. I, on the other hand do not look at it this way. I realize that the nursing field has been going through a major shortage as it still is and will be in the future-this means I will have to bust my butt more. I also realize that I won't be making boo-goo's money-average starting pay is around $47,000-49-000, right? I guess I don't nessesarily need to work in a hospital, I just figured the pay might be a little better in a hospital rather than a doc office-but I know a doc office the hours are more desirable.

I don't think I will be having nightmare's about that job though, because I have nightmare's of my job now and all I am is an assistant manager for an apartment community (I LOATHE my job). I love to help people and I took care of my great-grandmother before she passed away as well as my terminally ill grandfather who was a diabetic. I can handle the bad.

Aconite-please do elaborate for me-how is it to work in a private practice? What do they average?
Also, as I mentioned I considered taking my education further and maybe being a nurse practitioner or anestetic nurse. What does the nurse practitioner average?

[mquintana]

This is a major downfall and maybe it would burn me out because I may have to work twice as harder. I know I won't mind because I would rather be too busy than bored. I am pretty good with work over loads and pressure.

Originally Posted by BucFan

The hours aren't the problem - mostly the staffing is the biggest problem in nursing overall. Having the right ratio of staff to patients has always been a big problem anywhere I've worked. Being treated appropriately by physicians is also another problem we face a lot - although some physicians are outstanding to work with.

[mquintana]

I don't know how I would go about getting tuition assistance before I enter nursing school. Could you please fill me in on how that works?

Originally Posted by BucFan

Some hospitals (can't tell you which ones) offer tuition assistance. VA pays your tuition if you commit to a certain number of years working in their facilities. Good option for people who have difficulty funding their education.