by Sarah Jividen | Dec 21, 2017 | Pregnancy, The-Motherhood
I had a spontaneous placental abruption when I was 33 weeks pregnant with my daughter.
A placental abruption occurs when the placenta (the lifeline delivering blood, oxygen and nutrients to our baby) peels away from the uterus. It deprives the fetus of oxygen and causes the mother to hemorrhage internally.
Luckily for us, I was able to have an early emergency c-section and we had a very happy outcome. After spending some time in the NICU our 33 week preemie daughter came home with us as a healthy 4 lb, 3 oz baby.
At my baby shower, one week before I had our daughter via emergency c-section at 33 weeks.
But it almost didn’t end up that way. Unfortunately, most mothers who have a placental abruption are not so lucky, according to our neonatologist. The reason, he said, is that babies end up being deprived of oxygen, sometimes within seconds. Mothers also end up losing a lot of blood, although they usually do better then the babies.
We still don’t know why it happened because I had no risk factors. Thankfully, I was able to have an emergency C-section in time and it was life-saving for the both of us.
I got the flu about 5 days before the placental abruption occurred.
As a nurse I already knew that just being sick doesn’t hurt the baby and may even give her a few extra antibodies. I decided the best thing to do was rest and drink lots of fluids.
But to my surprise, two days later I was feeling so much worse.
I called the OB floor at our hospital and was directed to an advice nurse.
After a 30 minute phone interview I was told NOT to come to the hospital as there was nothing they could do for me. I just had the flu, they said. I was told to stay home, rest and drink lots of fluids.
Two days after that I felt even worse! So again, I called the OB unit at the hospital to see what I should do.
I spoke with both the on-call OBGYN on the unit and another advise nurse. Both told me again NOT to come in. I explained that I was extremely weak and short of breath when walking more then 20 feet. I had no fever but I had never felt more sick in my life. They told me I just had the flu and needed to “ride it out.”
I laid in my bed and cried for 30 minutes because every inch of my body was hurting so much that I could barely stand it anymore. I had a hard time catching my breath.
(Later we found out that the reason I felt so horrible was that my hemoglobin was extraordinarily low due to the placental abruption already having started. My hemoglobin (the oxygen carrying component of a blood cell) at that time was 6 grams per deciliter. The normal level is 12.0 to 15.5 grams.)
I laid down for an hour and started doing “kick counts.”
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that you time how long it takes you to feel 10 kicks, flutters, swishes, or rolls. Ideally, you want to feel at least 10 movements within 2 hours. Usually a mom can feel 10 movements in less time than that.
But I only felt 4 or 5 movements in that hour period. My body was so sick and achy though that I wasn’t sure exactly what I was feeling, so I drank two large glasses of orange juice and ate a small bag of gummy Lifesavers. I was determined to sugar-shock my baby into giving me more fetal movements.
I began counting kicks for a second hour. But after about 40 minutes I still only counted about 3-4 pretty weak kicks. At that point I decided I wanted to see a doctor, even if they thought I was overreacting.
I called my husband and asked him to come home and drive me to the hospital.
When we arrived at the labor and delivery unit I was immediately given a mask and asked why I came to the hospital after I was specifically told not to. I was reminded that I was bringing my flu into the hospital.
I tried to explain again that I just didn’t feel right and that I thought the baby should be kicking more. They put me in a room and we waited for the on-call OBGYN.
When she arrived she did an ultrasound and was immediately concerned. She explained that:
A) I had almost no amniotic fluid.
B) The little amount of amniotic fluid that was there was the wrong color and she couldn’t explain why.
C) Our baby’s fetal heart rate was “not reassuring” which is another way of saying that our baby is alive but in distress.
D) It was likely I would have an emergency C-section imminently.
She didn’t know at that time I was actually having a placental abruption. Apparently it is very hard to diagnose on ultrasound.
(We later found out that the amniotic fluid was showing as the wrong color because it was actually blood, not amniotic fluid. I had already been bleeding into my uterus and our daughter was swallowing blood the whole time. After the C-section they pumped 15 cc’s of blood out of our daughter’s stomach and she pooped blood for the next few days.)
A team of preemie doctors came in to prepare us.
After finding out that a c-section was imminent, a team of preemie doctors came in to prepare us for what to expect after Zoe was born.
The preemie MDs explained in detail what would most likely happen to our daughter since she was coming out 7 weeks early. They said it was likely that our daughter would not be able to breathe on her own and that she would need to be intubated (using a machine that breathes for her). It the case that my baby didn’t cry after delivery, they wanted to make sure I was prepared for that possibility.
We were also told to prepare for 30 days in the NICU, which was the average length of stay for a “33 weeker.”
Within a few hours things got much worse.
Soon, I started hemorrhaging and was having what felt like one long contraction that wouldn’t stop.
Our OB determined that I was not actually in labor as my cervix was completely closed. She thought it was best to take the baby out right then because something was very wrong, but she didn’t know exactly what yet. I was wheeled across the hall for the emergency C-section.
Our daughter, Zoe Grace, was born.
Zoe came out at 4 pounds, 3 ounces. After being suctioned, she let out a tiny little cry that I will never forget. It was the best and most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life.
The doctor was able to confirm during the c-section that I had a placental abruption. My placenta was 30% detached from my uterus.
The next day our neonatologist told us that Zoe had no signs of brain damage and we had a “very healthy baby considering the circumstances.”
He then let me know bluntly, and in no censored way that “babies born after a placental abruption usually don’t survive and the mothers don’t do that well either, although they do better then the babies.”
It was hard to have our baby in the NICU, but we were so grateful for the excellent care she received.
It was hard to have my baby in the NICU but we were so grateful for the excellent care she received.
The first time we saw her we were shocked. She was in an incubator hooked up to so many IV’s and tubes, and so tiny.
I wasn’t allowed to hold her yet. That part was so hard! But I could put my hands in the incubator and place one hand on the top of her head and one her feet. I remember telling her how proud we were of her. She was a tough baby right from the start.
Zoe had an oral-gastric feeding tube for nutrition since she was unable to eat for the first 7 days on her own. I would pump breast milk and give it to the nurses so they could feed her through the OG tube.
She was also receiving TPN (IV nutrition) and lipids (fats) through 2 IV lines. That was probably the most difficult part to watch- preemies veins are so tiny that it would often take an hour of poking to get the IV in. And they didn’t last very long so she was constantly being stuck with needles.
She was on oxygen and a cpap machine for the first week to help her continue breathing on her own. Since she also was very jaundiced, she had to be under a bilirubin light for 5 days.
Zoe got a little stronger every day.
As a preemie Zoe earned the nickname “tiny but mighty” from her doctors. This was taken during week two in the NICU.
Zoe started doing more on her own, like eating through a preemie nipple and no longer needing the IV nutrition.
We were shocked on our 9th day in the NICU when we were informed that Zoe would be discharged the next day. I knew she was doing well but we were told that due to her stage of prematurity that she would stay for at least a month. She was so tiny I couldn’t believe they were letting us take her home.
My experience taught me a few things…
A) Mothers need to trust their instincts. We know much more then we give ourselves credit for.
B) At 28 weeks gestation it is important to start doing fetal kick counts.
C) It is so important to be grateful for the miracle of having a child.
I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if I hadn’t gone into the hospital that evening, especially after being instructed not to. It is so important to trust your instincts!
I am so blessed that I get to be a mom. Not everyone gets to have healthy baby, or a baby at all for that matter. Whenever I find myself getting frustrated with the difficulties that come with parenthood, I think about how close we were to not getting to have Zoe at all. That puts it all into perspective for me.
Zoe, 2 years old. Spunky, hammy and giggling as usual.
Our daughter turned two today. And we are so grateful everyday for her presence in our lives.
Thank you for reading!
Sarah, Mother Nurse Love
by Sarah Jividen | Dec 20, 2017 | ER Nurse, Nurse Career, Nurse Life
Have I mentioned how much more I love my job now since I started working as an emergency room nurse?
A year ago, I was a per diem resource nurse who worked on multiple different med/surg and telemetry floors all over our hospital. Being a resource nurse works well for me due to the flexibility it gives me as a working Mom.
But unfortunately, I was becoming incredibly burnt out. Bitter even. I was losing my passion, and I started to wonder if I was due for a career change-up.
I even went so far as to interview for a few medical device companies as a Clinical Nurse Specialist (I was a medical device salesperson before my career change into nursing). I am so glad I decided not to accept any of those positions!
Instead, I adopted a new specialty as an RN in the emergency room and reignited my passion for nursing and healthcare. When the opportunity came up for me to interview for cross-training into my own hospital’s level 1 trauma center, I jumped on it. I started my ER journey on Easter Sunday, 2017.
I have always thought of the ER as a scary portal into the hospital. We are often overbooked with patients, and the load can be relentless. There are sometimes grim patient situations, and sometimes patients die, despite every life-saving effort.
You will be hard-pressed to find medical professionals who deal with more stress and pressure then emergency room nurses. But I am grateful to expand on my med/surg and telemetry knowledge base and learn a new specialty.
Here are my top 6 reasons that I love being an emergency room nurse:
My IV start skills are so much better.
Since becoming a nurse in the emergency room, my IV start skills have gotten so much better.
In an emergency, we need to be able to start IV’s fast for testing, various medications, pain and nausea relief, IV hydration, and antibiotic therapy, among other things.
Fortunately, in the ER, I get the opportunity to start anywhere from 5 or more IVs in a single shift. So I have the chance to perfect my skills frequently on many patients who are difficult IV sticks.
Many of the nurses I work with have been in the ER for a decade, or longer and their IV skills are unbelievable. Several nurses are even trained to do ultrasound-guided IV starts on patients with hard-to-stick veins.
There is an enormous variety in our patient population.
Every day is an adventure. Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but never boring. I have had patients ranging in age from 2 days to 108 years. Patients have arrived with complaints from hiccups, to every type of accident you can imagine and everything in between.
As one would expect, many of our patients are really sick or critically injured. Our patient loads include various types of trauma patients, septic patients, elderly patients, organ transplanted patients, patients with cancer or autoimmune diseases, psych patients, and small children and babies, and so much more. There is rarely a dull moment and always something new to learn.
The teamwork in the emergency room is impressive.
The coordination when a trauma patient arrives is impressive. Patients come into the ER in urgent situations where the cause of injury or disease isn’t yet known. Doctors, nurses, techs, pharmacists, and other medical professionals cohesively work together to give fast life-saving medical treatment.
Also, emergency room nurses often have their own sections, but there are also many “resource” nurses on the floor to assist with additional patient care. When a patient arrives with a more serious condition, there are always nurses who come in to help.
For example, we call a “code” for septic, stroke, and head trauma patients. It is an overhead call to other nurses in the ER that a particular room needs additional help. Within seconds there are a handful or more nurses in the room helping with triage, initial assessments, IV sticks, blood draws, and many other nurse protocols and procedures.
The emergency room moves fast.
Many call it “organized chaos.” The emergency room is a fine-tuned machine with each nurse component working semi-gracefully around one another. From the outside, it might look like craziness, but the madness always has a method.
I am constantly learning.
I am a closet science geek. And I love the cerebral stimulation that I get as an emergency room nurse. I have had the opportunity to see more disease states, complex injuries, and unusual diagnoses then I ever could have imagined even existed.
It would not be an exaggeration to say I learn ten new things every day at work. To top it off, I am surrounded by some of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Many of my co-workers have the same drive for helping people I do. They motivate me to keep learning.
I just have to laugh at some of the stuff I see.
Nursing is a work of heart.
Please forgive me for saying this. This may seem inappropriate, but it is how I maintain my resiliency.
The emergency room is a very emotional place. Patients never want to be there and usually don’t understand, for example, why they have to wait in the hallway an hour or even much longer until their test results are completed, or the medical team decides on a plan for them. They get upset and tired of waiting.
Sadly, sometimes they take out there frustrations on the people working the hardest to get them the medical treatment they need: the nurses.
Sometimes things just get so odd that I can’t help but laugh. There are days when I see people come into the ER saying that they feel like dying, but end up having a diagnosis of constipation. Once I had a college student come in for a temperature of 99 degrees. I’m like, seriously? How do you even get through the day?
I have had so many “I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried” experiences in the emergency room to last me a long time. But that’s one of the reasons I like being in the ER versus other parts of the hospital. It can get weird, but I’m always learning. And I’m so grateful for the opportunity to keep learning.
Additional recommended reading: 5 Best Trauma Shears For Nurses
by Sarah Jividen | Dec 20, 2017 | Body, Mind, Nurse Health Tips, Nurse Life, Nurse Yoga, Self Care For Caregivers
(This post may contain affiliate links. My disclosure page is super boring but you can find it here.)
Many nurses are very good at encouraging patients to follow a regular exercise routine and at teaching ways to manage stress for optimal health. Taking their own advice about healthy lifestyle behaviors though, well, not so much.
As an emergency room nurse who has worked as a resource nurse on various units all over the hospital, I see first hand the outstanding care that is being given to our patients. The nurses I work with bend over backwards. At times they even risk their own health and safety to care for total strangers.
The work can be back-breaking, literally. Most days are very physically demanding with little rest. Over time, the work is depleting to an RN. Sometimes even resulting in permanent injuries (hello, chronic back pain!), extreme burnout or even depression.
How much work does it take to be a nurse?
Being a nurse in the hospital demands a lot on the body. The job often requires moving non-stop for grueling 12 hours shifts (or longer). It can include lifting and turning patients several times throughout the day. In addition to physical stress, nurses are often multitasking multiple patients with unique medical issues and making clinical decisions in potentially life-threatening situations.
Yoga can help nurses take better care of themselves.
To say that being a nurse causes wear-and-tear on the body is an understatement. As a result of years of heavy lifting many RN’s are suffering from chronic back problems. I know several who have had to go out on disability and sadly still suffer from permanent chronic back pain.
In nursing school we are taught “proper body mechanics” that are supposed to prevent back injuries while moving, lifting or turning patients. Recently however, there is new evidence suggesting that their really is no safe way for nurses to lift patients.
In addition, being a nurse often requires walking up to 15,000 steps or more in a single shift. A study found in the National Library of Medicine reported that many nurses walk up to five miles in an average 10 hour shift. However, in the Emergency Room and on many other units, I would argue that we actually walk much more then that. In fact, I wear a pedometer at work and I have logged up to 35,000 or more steps in a single day. That is the equivalent of walking 14 miles in a single shift!
The emotional and physiological drain of being a nurse can be overwhelming.
Being in the hospital is stressful. As a result, sometimes patients or families take their stress out on the people they are in contact with the most: the nurses. Yet it is our job to remain compassionate and continue to advocate for our patients in spite of this.
Burnout in the profession is common. Even I have questioned my decision to become a nurse for this reason on a few different occasions. I’ve tried to explain to friends and family how incredibly complex and stressful being a registered nurse can be. I think it is just one of those things that you really can’t understand unless you experience it for yourself.
All venting aside, I’m not going to run off and chance careers, or encourage anyone from not becoming a registered nurse. I derive an immense amount of pride and passion for what I do. I also enjoy working with intelligent people who have the same drive for helping people that I do.
It is, however, not a career for wimps.
Nurses need to practice yoga.
There are so many physical and mental benefits to practicing yoga regularly.
Nurses need to make self-care a priority. Not only does self-care result in better overall patient care, but ultimately it replenishes our depleted reserves. Yoga helps us take better care of ourselves and our families.
There is an endless amount of studies on yoga and its amazing benefits on physical and mental health. The Mayo clinic has stated that “yoga may help reduce stress, lower blood pressure and lower your heart rate” among many other benefits.
For the purpose of this article I am focusing on three of the biggest nurse health related issues. But don’t be mistaken, there several more benefits then I am not mentioning here.
Benefits of yoga for nurses:
Stress management
As I mentioned earlier, nurses have a high workload in many hospital wards. The stress is compounded by managing patient healthcare needs and treatments, daily occupational stressors and even the many frequent changes in technology.
A study published in the National Institute of Biotechnology Information investigated the effects of yoga on stress coping strategies of ICU nurses. After only 8 weeks of yoga the results showed that the participating ICU nurses had significantly better focus coping strategies and a major reduction in perceived mental pressure. If that is what can happen after only 8 weeks, imagine the impact a regular, permanent yoga practice could have on stress management levels.
Prevent or eliminate chronic low back pain
Chronic back pain in the nursing population is a common ailment. An evidenced based review at the Texas Women’s University reported that estimates of chronic low back pain among nurses range from 50%-80%. Fortunately, the review also presented an overwhelming amount of studies that found that regular yoga significantly reduced symptoms associated with chronic low back pain and greatly improved overall physicality.
Yoga stretching not only increases flexibly, but increases muscle strength and prevents injuries such as chronic lower back pain. In a career as physically demanding as nursing, the more physically stable we are, the better care we can give to ourselves and our patients.
Prevent burnout and compassion fatigue
Urban Zen Integrative Therapy Program training at UCLA Medical Center. Nurses are learning how to integrate holistic healthcare like yoga with traditional medicine.
Lack of self-care can easily result in burnout and compassion fatigue in the nursing profession. As much as I hate to admit it, even I have questioned how long I can continue with the immense workload and emotional drain that is required of me as a nurse. Thankfully, I have found a productive way to manage this is through yoga and meditation.
A study published in Workplace Health & Safety on yoga for self-care and burnout prevention of nurses found that yoga participants “reported significantly higher self-care as well as less emotional exhaustion upon completion of an 8-week yoga intervention.” While the control group demonstrated no change throughout the course of the study, the yoga group showed a significant improvement in scores for self-care, mindfulness, and emotional exhaustion outcomes.
Yoga is good for you!
Yoga is a productive way to prevent some of the most common health ailments among nurses. Empowering nurses in self-care helps to create a happier, healthier and more productive work environment.
For better or worse, nurses serve as role models in the healthcare community. We need to practice what we preach. Why would a patient listen to our advice on how to life a healthy life if we are not living one ourselves?
Sarah, Mother Nurse Love
Additional reading:
Recommended Reading
8 Ways Nurses Can Stay Healthy
Pregnant Nurse Precautions To Consider At Work
3 Crucial Reasons Nurse Need Yoga
by Sarah Jividen | Dec 19, 2017 | Nurse Life, Nurse Money Goals
In March 2013, I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing- and a $36,000 tab.
For my first 2 years out of nursing school, I made the minimum student loan debt payment of about $420 a month. But when I finally sat down and looked at how much of that was going towards interest and how long it would take to finally pay off (13 years, yikes!) it made me sick to my stomach.
After the birth of our daughter, I decided to get aggressive about paying off my student loans.
By that time I was down to $27,000. Becoming a Mom made me realize that being debt-free AND having money in my bank account was way more important than spending money on stuff I didn’t need.
Prior to starting my BSN, I had pretty nice savings account set aside. Because of that, I was able to pay for 1 year of my prerequisite classes and the first few months of my nursing program upfront in cash. If it wasn’t for that I would have had well over 50K in student loan debt at graduation.
While I was on maternity leave, I started listening to financial podcasts specifically focused on paying off debt. Most of this was done while my daughter and I went out for walks and she was napping. It motivated me to change my thoughts about my current student loan status.
I took everything I had learned from those podcasts and formed my own simple plan: Don’t spend any money on anything that is not an actual need. At that time, my true needs included grocery shopping, pet food, and nanny. That’s it.
How I Paid Off All My Nursing School Loan Debt In 9 Months!
My Student Loan Payoff Plan: Pay off $27,000 in student loan debt from February 1 to November 1, 2016.
I am happy to announce that I hit my goal right on target! Here is how I paid $27,000 off student loan debt in 9 months:
I realized that student loan debt is NOT good debt.
There is no such thing as good debt. I don’t care if there is a 0% interest rate. Debt is debt. It is still a black cloud handing over your head that never goes away unless you force it to.
I trimmed my budget.
This photo was taken halfway through my payoff schedule.
So long $5 Starbucks coffee (lucky for me my husband loves to make great coffee at home). Bye-bye restaurant meals. Farewell clothing budget.
I also forbade manicures and pedicures (unless done by me). Also, I cooked all of our meals at home, packed all my lunches for work and made all my daughter’s baby food.
If there was something that I thought I needed but wasn’t sure, I gave myself a week to think it over. Even if it was something small. 99% of the time I ended up deciding that it wasn’t important enough to buy.
When I met with friends, instead of going to lunch, we would go for walks or to the park. Fortunately, this is easy when you have babies.
I contributed 90% of my paychecks to my loans.
After taxes, retirement and taking out money to pay the nanny, I took the rest and threw it at my loans. It was anywhere from $1500 to $3500 every 2 weeks depending on how many shifts I worked.
I did the math to figure out my payoff date.
I started on March 1st, 2016 and my goal was to be completely paid in full by November 1, 2016. To make sure I stayed on track I planned a celebratory family trip to Palm Springs for the 2nd week of November.
I listened to financial podcasts to keep me focused and motivated.
As a new mom, it is hard to find time to read books or search the internet for resources on paying off student loans. Listening to financial podcasts was my single most important way to motivate myself during this process. I could multitask by listening to them while out for walks with my daughter.
Some of the podcasts I listened to included Paula Pant at Afford Anything, The Money Guys, Stacking Benjamin’s and Dave Ramsey.
I picked up a few extra shifts at the hospital.
As a per diem float nurse I have the option of working as much or little as I want. For the purpose of paying off my loans as fast as possible, I tried to work at least 3 shifts a week. Since I was a new mom I didn’t want to go overboard though. The reason a became a nurse was so I could spend more time at home once we had children.
I made many short term sacrifices and got used to being uncomfortable.
No longer was I spending money on anything that wasn’t a necessity. I did this by taking a look at the things I could reasonably live without. This was the first time in my life I stopped buying clothes and shopping for things I didn’t need. To my own surprise, I’m still alive. In some ways, life is actually easier now because I don’t have a ton of extra stuff hanging around cluttering my house. I spend the time I would have spent shopping on doing other things that are more important to me.
After I became debt-free I kept my new lifestyle so that I could keep saving and investing at a significantly larger rate.
My motivation for paying off all my nursing school student loan debt.
While this is not a repayment strategy, it does help me find the motivation to continue down the right financial pathway now that my loans are gone. Having money in the bank is so much better than having debt. It feels amazing! And my savings gap gets bigger and bigger every month because I focus on growing my assets instead of buying unnecessary stuff that will probably end up in a dump in 5 years anyway.
Advice for anyone going to college:
- Get the best education you can while spending the least amount of money possible.
- Don’t take out more loans then you need to.
- Live as frugally as you can while in school. It’s temporary and you will thank yourself for it in the long run.
- Make an aggressive plan to pay off your student loans as soon as you graduate.
Don’t be the sucker who spends their entire life paying off student loans. They will NEVER go away if you don’t make them, even if you file for bankruptcy.
Do you have student loan debt? If you work hard and focus on what is actually important in your life, living student loan debt-free can be a reality for you too. Now get to it!
Additional recommended reading:
by Sarah Jividen | Dec 18, 2017 | ER Nurse, Nurse Career, Nurse Life
Two weeks ago I was writing about how I wanted focus on trying to relax a little more and work a little less.
But life is so unpredictable. Just when you think things are going to be a certain way, a new opportunity spontaneously presents itself.
For the past year my RN title has been Resource Nurse, Float Pool. Essentially this means that I am a resource nurse for short-staffed units and I can float to any Med/Surg or Telemetry unit in the hospital. Soon my skill set is going to get an upgrade.
Soon I will be training to be an Emergency Room Nurse.
Emergency Room nursing is a whole new challenge for me.
I was recently selected to be in a new cross training program in our Emergency Department. Apparently they have some staffing issues and want to make sure they have trained Resource Nurses to help fill in the gaps.
In a few months I will be an Emergency Room Nurse at a Level 1 Trauma Hospital! Yay! Wait, wasn’t I just talking about not working so hard? Yup. Isn’t this program going to be stressful, exhausting and require a lot more work? Yeah, pretty much.
But opportunity is knocking and I’m going to go ahead and open the door. This is the first time this kind of cross training opportunity has ever been available at my hospital and I would be remiss to pass it up. In return, I get to expand my nursing prowess and make myself more marketable in my field.
I’m a nerd. I admit it.
If I’m not constantly learning or doing something new I get board pretty easily.
That partially explains why I left a lucrative career to go back to college for a second bachelors degree in nursing at the age of 32. I talk a little more about that here.
Back in my nursing school days I wanted to go directly to working in the ER or ICU after graduation. I had the desire to challenge myself right off the bat by caring for the most critical and vulnerable patient populations. But first I needed a job.
Nurse Residency programs are the place to be for a new grad.
As graduation approached I was frequently reminded that most new grad RN’s had a slim chance of getting excepted into a nurse graduate residency program. In fact, I knew of many RN grads who had been out of school for over a year and were still waiting to get their first job. This was due to the fact that there was a large surplus of graduate BSN’s coupled with a very limited number of nurse graduate residency programs available. From what I hear from new grads today, the problem still exists.
Patients never forget how their nurses made them feel.
To not have employment after 3 years in nursing school was definitely not OK for a gal graduating with 35k in student loan debt!
Since there are more Telemetry and Med/Surg Floors in most hospitals I thought I would have a better chance of just getting my foot in the door if I started there. So to maximize my chances for employment I asked to interview for ANY Telemetry unit position that was available in the entire hospital.
Fortunately my gamble paid off. Shortly after I applied to the nurse residency program at UCLA I started my nursing career on a Neuroscience and Stroke Telemetry Unit. I stayed on this unit for about 4 years and became certified in the specialty.
I still love Neuroscience and I’m so glad I started my nursing career there. Even though I have moved on to other things, I still feel like it is my home.
I’m back in school again. Sort of.
I’m back in student mode. I’m quickly finding out that becoming an Emergency Room Nurse requires an extraordinary amount of study and training. Just this week I completed Pediatric Advanced Life Support Certification (PALS) and Adult Certified Life Support Certification (ACLS).
Last week I shadowed two RN’s in the Liver Transplant ICU and Pediatric Unit to briefly introduce me to the specialties. This is because in the ER I will be working with Pediatrics as well as doing Trauma and Critical Care. Both are new specialties for me.
Next week I start orientation and will meet the preceptors who will help train me for the next 3 months. Then I start the 50+ hours of additional classroom training. I guess I will be doing a lot of studying after I put my daughter down to bed in the evenings.
Training to be an Emergency Room Nurse in a Level 1 Trauma Center will be very challenging to say the least. But I’m ready for it. It is amazing what opportunities arrive when you are least expecting them.
I’m sure I will have many tales to tell about the madness as an Emergency Room Nurse. Stay tuned!
Sarah, Mother Nurse Love
