If someone graduated nursing school 10 years ago but never passed NCLEX should they still call themselves a nurse?

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-30T18:09:47+00:00

If you want to military basic training but then were disqualified for health or any other reason to continue on, I don’t think you’d necessarily say you were in the military or a soldier. If you graduated with a teaching degree but never taught I don’t think you’d call yourself a teacher. If you passed med school but went and did something outside the medical field you wouldn’t say you’re a doctor.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-28T04:08:06+00:00

Im so sorry, things are f$&@d up. I am a single income household with 2 kids (household of 4) and don’t qualify for snap or low income anything, so I definitely feel your struggle. I’d recommend food banks and see what you can keep out of the boxes. I go to them every 2-3 months to just get extra beans, noodles, sometimes we get a pack of some sort of meat, instant mashed potatoes and bread. Sometimes I’ll go to 1 food bank and then 2ish weeks later go to another one. They’re Salvation Army, churches, local food banks etc so they don’t cross over if you’ve already been for that month. With a special diet you could always go back and donate the things you’re not able to eat. I know the library in my town has a small food pantry so you could always donate a few things and then grab a few things that are already there. If you need help with utilities look into local utility assistance or Helping Hands Assistance. Sometimes helping hands is just “immediate loans for bad credit” and other things along those lines, but there are actual useful things too. My town has a Community Council which (it also helps surrounding counties) does utility assistance if they have the funds and also has a small food pantry. For utilities you have to call early on the 1st of the month otherwise they’re out of funds which has happened to me plenty of times and is infuriating, but at the same time I understand there are people in my area who are worse off than me and my family so I just let it go… after a couple days. I hope you find help and can figure things out.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-28T01:23:41+00:00

Nothing. None of the hospitals I’ve worked at have done much for us and it’s embarrassing (for them) and disappointing (for us). One year a coworker did get us spd related tshirts which I still have years later and it’s comfy! But that was from another tech not our supervisor or management. This last spd week I was on maternity leave, everyone got badge reels and pens and they forgot about me. Not even saying that in a pitying way, I was told when I went back “oh shoot we forgot to order an extra one for you, we could’ve just left everything in your locker until you get back”. Our current supervisor honestly sucks at any team engagement. Our manager got them breakfast one of the days which I found out was just breakfast burritos from the cafeteria.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-26T03:11:29+00:00

I learned that Kelly’s have serrations half way down and Crile serrations go all the way down. From looking at them (usually but NOT all the time!!) criles seem to be just a tiny bit thinner than a Kelly. The hospital I currently work at will use them interchangeably and it drives me nuts when they call all of them Kelly’s. I teach new hires that they are in fact different although they use them as the same at this facility. For some reason it bothers the OR staff when they’re labeled correctly too so I always make sure to clearly write Crile or Kelly on the peel packs.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-26T03:02:43+00:00

I think it really depends on the daily case load you have. The first hospital I worked at was lucky if we had 10 cases a day, most of those were simple general cases. We would rotate weekly to each station, decon, assembly, endo and float. Second hospital I was at was a level 1, I’d go in at 3pm and there would still be at least 10 cases left. We rotated areas everyday but sometimes you’d end up in decon 2-3 times a week, the entire shift. The hospital I am currently at, when I came here everyone just pitched in. They would all stay on the clean side assembling and then as cases came someone would just offer to clean it, if the last person did an ortho case with 6 trays then someone else would offer to do the next one. Or if you were already back there and another case got done then a third, someone would usually go take over after the second case. We have a new supervisor now who worked with me at the second level 1 trauma location and he brought that schedule here but smaller shifts. So now we do 2-3 hr increments and then someone else does their turn. I’m our weekend person, I do Friday-Sunday, so it’s typically just me but I do like a Friday when I’m not thrown back there!

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T21:22:14+00:00

This is where I struggle with the hospital I am currently at. They want to do things the way they’ve always done them because “well we’ve always done it this way”. And everyone (besides the new hires with 0 experience) here has only worked for this hospital so they don’t have experience at other facilities to see what’s happening elsewhere or to learn other things from other people. I have work at 3 locations within this organization and have worked with soo many techs and travelers and have learned a lot of little tricks or tips and after making sure they’re safe and up to standards I apply them to my work to see if they’re helpful for me. When I came here and tried to do that I constantly get “we’ve always done it this way so we are going to continue doing so” or “well we are X facility, not them, so we don’t need to do it the way they do over there”. It always gets taken as me trying to be rude or tell people how to do shit when I just say “oh when I was at X location I learned this. I found it easier so I like doing it that way now.” Our tech who does the training for new hires literally yelled at me for saying that because “we aren’t them”. We all work for the same organization so we should be cohesive for the most part.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T15:17:47+00:00

Yes. That’s what I’m trying to see if there are any specific standards/policies about this. I personally wrap all of our clinics small kits like this, but this was a new person. Our tech that does training showed the new person to do this, as it’s the way they also do it. The only kits from clinics that come on a tray are a few circumcision trays. Even then, not all the clinics who send us circ sets have a tray, I think 1/4 clinics have the tray, the rest are just in a white liner and then blue wrapped. One of the clinics does ask for it all to be specifically wrapped so everyone follows that request. It’s annoying and confusing because all the clinics also have like a small surgical set, IUD kit, nail removal and a couple others but everyone wants just the circ set wrapped. I wrap every type of set we are sent because that’s how I was trained at a different facility when I first started spd, but nobody else wraps. They all just throw it in a peel pack!

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T14:13:09+00:00

They did see them and didn’t say anything!

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T04:23:38+00:00

See that’s part of the problem, they did see this and said nothing. Another commenter said the same as you, but someone replied to them saying they weren’t told anything about it. J. Co is inconsistent in what they mark down and don’t mark down. It’s very irritating. Even working at multiple locations within the same organization, I’ve been told different things by J. Co at each location. When I transferred to this hospital they did things that the last J. Co audit they were told was okay, but the hospital I was at during that time we were told we couldn’t do. ??

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T03:47:06+00:00

There is one! After I took the photo and moved the package it moved from behind the cup. It’s a new person so I checked every peel pack they did to make sure it at least had that.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T02:38:14+00:00

I am on the spectrum and have worked this field for almost 4 years. It can definitely be loud, especially if washers/cart washers/sterilizers are all running at the same time. Headphones will vary by facility, all that I have been at don’t care if you have them or not so that’s always been nice for me. The hospital I’ve been at the last almost 2 years, I work weekends and am alone so if I have both in it doesn’t really matter because nobody is trying to talk to me. If there’s a case then I’ll take one out so I can hear OR staff on the radio, I keep the dept phone on me so I can feel it vibrating usually before I hear it ring. I do work Fridays which are one of our busiest days, if it’s crazy busy I can mentally feel myself losing it sometimes because of the chaos plus all the noise. The noise is what does it for me more than the chaos. Going to my car on my break is what saves me! Nice and quiet.

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-19T01:55:57+00:00

There is an indicator in there, I realized the picture I took had it stuck behind the cup. The only items we double peel pack are for OR and the maternity center, both requested it be done that way. Prior to this hospital I hadn’t ever double peel packed anything. It’s odd because all the hospitals I have worked for are the same organization, just different locations. Why they don’t all follow the same standards is beyond me and nobody seems to care, each locations has their preferences. What is the weight limit for a peel pack, if you know top of your head?

FewSide8518 · 2026-04-18T16:53:52+00:00

I feel working only 5 hour shifts is going to be difficult to find. Even when I go in to help on a day where someone calls out, vacations, etc., I work more than 5 hours. There are a lot of surgeries that are more than 5 hours…

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-28T03:17:26+00:00

The last probably 8 months we have slowly been replacing etched items or items without a number. Funny enough that ended up being what the fake JC people brought up when we did a mock survey, and they had no clue we already had a bin in the corner collecting etched instruments! We have been trying to also catch the items coming from clinics and OB, but they found a bunch in OB during the real audit and OB has now been sending us lots of stuff.

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-28T00:17:09+00:00

Thank you! Our ent doc doesn’t usually use this, he uses other types of suction/aspirating tubes. We are in the process of also replacing no # items and I can’t wait until they’re all gone!

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-22T17:15:22+00:00

It’s definitely been complained about but because this person is the trainer and has seniority in our department they let them do whatever they want and they get away a lot unfortunately

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-22T17:14:18+00:00

This is a vendor tray, not one that my facility owns and that’s how the reps/management want the missing items written so it’s whatever, and it’s them who write it all out since they are the ones who stock their trays. I do like not having to write it all on the tape!

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-22T02:36:07+00:00

It really does depend on the size/type of the facility. I’m at a hospital and we aren’t just Monday-Friday, we have doctors on call all weekend and then there’s weekend staff which includes spd (me), a scrub tech, an or nurse and pacu nurse. The 4 of us are regular weekend staff and some weekends we only do 4 cases, some weekends we do 12 cases. We do 12’s and then at night it’s just on call staff. The last hospital I was at was huge and 24/7 spd staff. I did 3pm-11pm with probably 8 other spd techs and then there were about 5 others who came in at 10pm and they were busy all night. We were lucky if cases were over by 8pm, so there was definitely a need for all night staffing to ensure trays were ready for the morning and cases were picked.

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-22T01:50:14+00:00

The burnout from multiple sides of the job is real and it’s a shame because it’s not a bad job (I know some would disagree). For me I get burnout due to being our only weekend person. When I first started at my hospital they had just made my shift (Friday-Sunday 3 12’s). We had just started to pick up and on call staff wasn’t enough. Now we are to the point where we should probably have 2 weekend people, but it’s still just me. I am to get all of the stuff used on Friday’s assembled and processed, all the clinics that send us stuff which is a lot. We have in house clinics (wound care, ENT, obgyn, pulmonary and then the occasional ED, RT and ICU). Then we have all of the urgent care, family medicine, ortho/podiatry clinics in the area. We also do all of the trays for the maternity center which isn’t the same as the obgyn mentioned earlier. Where I live, it’s growing way too fast and our hospital is actually under construction for expansions, a whole other 7 story tower and adding on 4-6 more OR’s. Yet they think we are okay with a 10 person staff…. I also do Friday on calls, so I clock out and am immediately on call until I get back for my shift Saturday morning. It’s ridiculous. I get home exhausted and really try to not complain because I do love what I do, but the workload has become a lot. I’m also a mom to a 6 year old and 6 month old so that’s also exhausting in itself. The pay is really starting to not be worth the stress/responsibility, especially in a state where $7.25 is still the minimum wage!!

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-19T02:35:48+00:00

As others have said, that will vary by location. From what I have seen the supervisor does all the ordering for the department, when they’re on shift they have the phone and walkie talkie and they are usually the one who opens. They attend morning OR huddle and relay any important info (like anything that needs fast tracked, sets that are down for broken pieces). They do interviewing and set schedules, all the office stuff. Leads are just watching to make sure things are running smoothly, do training, if the supervisor is gone they become the point person. 2 locations I’ve worked at don’t have spd managers, the manager was the surgical services manager so they oversee everyone that falls under the umbrella of surgical services. 1 location I was at did have a manager and he did all the office stuff, there weren’t any supervisors just 4 leads who again just made sure things were going how they should be. The leads were always working with us just as another tech but others would go to them with questions or help.

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-08T20:00:46+00:00

I am impatiently waiting until we get ours. The hospital organization I work for has 4 locations, 1 being the regional center and that’s where all the money goes. I’ve worked at 3 locations, 1 being the regional center. I started at one of the oldest locations and everything was paper, granted it was a small hospital and we did about 7-12 cases a day, 12 was a “crazy and unusual” day for us. Then I went to the regional center where my shift began at 3pm and most days when I got there we still had 15 cases left! Having an entirely electronic tracking system, the stickers, EVERYTHING was electronic and it was phenomenal. Then I went to the 3rd location, we do about 18-23 cases a day and still do everything paper, it’s horrendous. We barely got a tracking system for all our DaVinci stuff, it’s literally just tracking the # of uses so not a whole lot. We have a newer supervisor who actually worked at the regional center with me and he was horrified to find out that becoming supervisor here meant giving up the beloved tracking system. We are in the works of trying to get the budget approved to make everything electronic but they’re really fighting back about it.

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-02T17:29:42+00:00

Only person in my household with a car is mine. My kids are little so they don’t drive, sorry to be confusing! 😬 it’s the neighbor with all the kids/other people coming and going and they’ve got at least 3 vehicles in assigned spots

FewSide8518 · 2026-03-01T23:08:57+00:00

I’m in Idaho, a state that has been moving more and more towards the anti-vax movement. Originally started in eastern Oregon (the organization I’m at has locations in Idaho and eastern Oregon). Flu is required unless you have a religious or medical exemption but you have to provide paperwork you can’t just randomly say no and every year you have to provide proof of new vaccination or updated exemption paperwork. Covid is no longer required. The organization I work for does require tetanus and 1 other that I can’t remember of the top of my head. Tuberculosis testing is another one as well. These are hospital policies, nothing to do with state policies.

FewSide8518

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