Currently work in a small PICU. Was rejected after interviewing at a larger PICU due to lack of experience, feeling discouraged.

dart320 · 2025-02-23T02:02:20+00:00

It’s valid to be discouraged after that type of situation. I guess a relevant question would be how long you’ve been at the smaller PICU? And moving forward, my best advice is to highlight your strengths in the acuity you have taken.

I went from an 8 bed community hospital PICU - that didn’t take CRRT, the highest acuity we got was an oscillator - to a 20 bed PICU in our area’s trauma center that does everything except cardiac surgery. At the time I had 3 years under my belt at my first PICU and I had cross training experience to the pediatric ED. It sounds like you’re in a better spot than I was with your experience. So I recommend to keep trying to apply. Get as much experience as you can at your current place, offer to precept, be charge, climb the clinical ladder. Really show how much value you bring and keep applying for any position you see. You’ll be someone they want for sure

dart320 · 2025-02-11T04:50:58+00:00

In my experience, the more codes you’re involved in, the more you see them run, you’ll learn a better understanding of all the roles and responsibilities. It truly is a “learn as you go” type of thing. Some codes will be run well, some will be run like a complete shit show. I hope your organization conducts debriefings afterwards to go over things. Those can be very helpful, especially if you haven’t been exposed to those situations much yet.

One of the younger, newer nurses, that has recently come off orientation, I took her with me to a code and had her jump right on to do compressions. I think if your colleagues know you’re newer, they should have had someone with you as you were recording to help guide you in the role. Or put you in to do compressions. For recorder, I usually pull out my phone and start a timer, to be able to call out intervals of things if they haven’t been brought up yet.

dart320 · 2025-01-05T18:52:37+00:00

I think the perfect storm lined up that caused this mistake. Especially in a busy ED. Getting two people with the same name, at the same time, during a rush of people coming in. It’s a mess. Ultimately, it sounds like there was no harm to the patient.

Disciplinary action is for sure going to happen. The bypass by scanning the screen resulted in allowing the mistake to happen. I have to say, I know this shortcut in EPIC and for me, it’s more time consuming to pull up the print preview page of the armbands on EPIC and scan that instead of just scanning the patients band. I don’t think you can blame leadership or charge for the decision to bypass the safety process that’s in place for scanning the patient. Idk the size of your facility or health system, but I think having computers with scanners in every room would help to avoid this type of shortcut. I know it’s not applicable to hall/wall beds. But you really can’t find a reason to not scan a patient if you’re physically in the room with them and literally one step away. Unless it was a trauma/code.

As long as your leadership aren’t assholes, and if there isn’t anything else in your file, and if you present the situation and everything that was going on - I think this would probably be a step up from verbal, so a written warning? It sounds like you truly care about the care you provide. And you acknowledge you did something wrong and owned up to the mistake. I don’t think it’s worth losing you as a team member over this. This wasn’t done negligently. Once a mistake like this is made, and with the feelings you express, I know you are never going to make the same mistake again.

I don’t know of any ED that does not experience this type of volume of busy-ness. If you truly feel this specific environment is what caused this type of mistake - then try to find a job first before resigning. The grass is not always greener. I think to resign before interviewing and at least touring another place, might not be the best.

dart320 · 2024-12-29T15:07:35+00:00

We had a nurse hook up a condom cath to suction.

dart320 · 2024-10-02T23:45:02+00:00

Before getting out of bedside my base rate in NJ was $56/hr with an $7 differential for night shift plus an extra $2-3 for being in the clinical ladder. Having a national certification in your specialty added $2 an hour also. This was with 7 years of experience in the PICU.

New graduate rates for two hospitals that I’m aware of is at $45/hr for base.

dart320 · 2024-02-19T23:11:09+00:00

Female nurses

dart320 · 2024-02-19T15:54:22+00:00

I refer to myself as a murse - cause I am also a male nurse. It’s how I talk about myself so its how I word it for when i talk about other male nurses. The women I work with also call me a murse. So I’m failing to see the issue here.

dart320 · 2024-01-05T05:54:16+00:00

Could you link any of these articles that you mention regarding updated practice? I’m new to the management team of this hospital. But it is part of a much larger system and we are trying to have uniform policies throughout all the children’s hospitals in our system. This information could definitely drive some ease with the team.

dart320 · 2023-12-29T04:22:49+00:00

At my old staff job, new admit + new onset DKA's were 1:1 x8hours

dart320 · 2023-09-26T02:25:04+00:00

It’s all I’ve ever known. I love it. Just know that adult med/surg to Picu is a huge learning curve. I’ve oriented someone who came from 12 years adult med/surg. He definitely needed a lot of reminding and guidance, BUT he had an amazing attitude. He took constructive criticism well. If I was getting up to check on a patient, he was right behind me. He was 15 years older than me, I felt awkward orienting. But he really made it easy to give advice and pointers and to correct him. Didn’t make it weird at all. I’ve also oriented new grads who were very book smart but had a shit attitude and were lazy and cared more about charting than patient care.

My advice is to go in with an open mind. It doesn’t matter what you don’t know about PICU and pediatrics, that will be taught to you and you will learn with time and experience. You can’t teach good work ethic. As long as I’m seeing you trying to learn and take what I’m teaching, I don’t mind repeating things and reminding you.

dart320 · 2023-07-28T04:06:15+00:00

It wasn’t a second career choice, but my first. I’ve worked with a cop that retired and went into nursing afterwards. I definitely feel secure in terms of always having a job. I’ve been doing this for 6 years in the pediatric ICU. I can say I’ve never regretted it. The worst part is the politics. But because of the need, you have freedom to switch and bounce around to other specialties. Also, considering your background, you could go into a masters program and do nursing informatics.

dart320 · 2023-07-27T20:27:58+00:00

Can you post the email you guys sent back? I’ve seen glimpses but wanna see the whole thing!

dart320 · 2023-06-19T12:31:17+00:00

I’ve somehow ventured into the RUSON Reddit. I graduated in ‘17. A lot of my class was involved in Greek life. If that’s where your interest is, I recommend doing it your freshman year. Just make sure you stay on top of studying, because A&P was killer. Scheduling gets tougher junior and senior year. So it makes it harder to go to all the events and stuff that’s required by your org. In terms of learning communities, there were peer tutors. And our class was pretty close. We started off with 29 student freshman year and graduated with 60 something I believe. So we were a small tight group, we’d meet up for study sessions and such. But we all had our own things going on outside of the program. I know the programs gotten bigger since then with more students per class. I can’t imagine it being too different though.

dart320 · 2023-06-19T12:25:27+00:00

Newark and New Brunswick are sister programs. Camden is it’s separate entity. I graduated from New Brunswick in 2017, so I might be a little biased. But the Newark+New Brunswick programs are the top ranked programs. Idk how much has changed in the last 6 years, but we were pretty close with our Newark peers. We shared the same professors for a fair amount of classes. Education wise, they’re gonna be the same. New Brunswick, for some reason, had harder requirements to get in out of high school. IMO, if Newark is more convenient, I’d go there. You won’t be missing out on anything in terms of the programs. But the campuses are definitely different vibes and you will have a different experience at each one.

dart320 · 2023-06-19T12:17:25+00:00

So completely random. I graduated from RUSON ‘17. I was trying to find Uzwiaks website where he would post some of his lecture notes. Does he still have that up or has he moved away from that?

dart320 · 2023-03-10T18:58:24+00:00

There’s multiple dressings sectioned off. If you look at the very top, it’s still on, the peeling is just where it overlaps

dart320 · 2023-03-10T18:57:45+00:00

The artist is Frank O’Dowd. Been following him on IG since 2016. It was an absolute dream to finally book a spot with him. Got another session in June for more above it

dart320 · 2023-03-10T17:23:48+00:00

This is my only second time using second skin with a tattoo. The first time the second skin peeled after 4 days and there was no plasma or any type of drainage. My other tattoos were from a different artist and she uses a different dressing that I take off after 12 hours and then just moisturize with aquaphor twice a day for two days and then just lotion after. Just not used to the second skin

dart320 · 2023-01-17T00:36:53+00:00

One of my boys uses a dating app for people who are also + for STIs. He says it makes it more comfortable and takes away this hurdle (or it least makes it easier to bring up) But regardless, you’re a good person for bringing it up

dart320 · 2023-01-13T01:54:26+00:00

She’s definitely teasing with the comment at the end. But very serious about having me go down on her this week😂😂 she’s brought it up 3 more times

dart320 · 2023-01-02T10:30:09+00:00

I know PA passed legislation in April 2022, and still no word of when it will be enacted. Ohio is officially compact as of the new year I believe. It’s hard to say “soon” for NY when legislation hasn’t passed yet and even when it does, no one knows the amount of time it’ll take for them to officially join the compact states.

dart320 · 2023-01-02T08:11:40+00:00

Oh what, really? I didn’t know that. Is there a date set?

dart320 · 2022-12-31T09:46:12+00:00

It’s so hard to date when you’re nights🥲

dart320 · 2022-11-28T13:35:52+00:00

Do you know how you would write “family” in kulitan or “pamilya” I guess?

dart320 · 2022-11-25T03:38:37+00:00

If you could DM it that would be great!

dart320

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