I don't remember how I started getting these emails from Nursing Link (Monster.com, maybe?).  But I'm tryin' it out! 

I am in my last semester of nursing school at MTSU, taking Leadership, Community Nursing and Mental Health Nursing.  I'm so excited to graduate.  Next week I start the classes and find out where my clinicals will be.

I don't have an exact decision as to where I'd like to start but my heart has definitely been with the O.R. ever since I observed the first time in my 2nd semester in my Intro course.  I would love to be a CRNA, but nursing school's been so hectic...I am trying to fall in love with the idea of going back to school for 2 more years (and then some), and I'm considering getting into CCU after graduation if I can.  Otherwise, I believe my goal will be the O.R.  Let's see how Psych nursing impresses me, though...

So besides this, I'm a mom to a new Kindergartner, and she and my partner (her dad) and I live in Nashville.  Nursing will be my 2nd career after about 20 years of "customer service" (*ulk*, call center, sales, stores, car dealership office, etc.....).  I work part-time at night while I go to school (yes...it sucks!  I don't recommend it!!!  It's a wonder my family doesn't hate me by now, I've been so nuts!  I've been so fortunate, somehow, that I can still keep my job there, the way my schedule's needed to be adjusted...they gave up adjusting it for me last semester!)

And once I am a nurse I hope to be involved in some activism and some volunteering.

That's all for now :)

~ Lori

If CRNA is your goal.. by all means get an ICU job upon graduation. And , if you think nursing shool is hectic....CRNA school is WAYYY beyond that. Do not do it until you are completely ready to take on the challenge.

If you become a CRNA it will probably be the best career decision of your life.... the job is incredible...

mrbrownrn49 says ...

Agree with Sevo on the ICU in principle but I would suggest a year in Med/Surg. Learn the disease process. Learn to prioritize and learn time management. Then go to ICU for another year to learn crisis management and emergency intervention.

I have circulated in OR at a Level I trauma center and at an ambulatory surgery center before that. Going into an OR as a new nurse is to invite frustration and setting yourself up for possible failure.

Watch Sevo go off here but I hate anesthesia at times because of their repeated use of their favorite word "Hurry, hurry".

Their next favorite phrases:

"Are we ready? Can we bring the patient in now?"

"What is the delay?"

"Why is this taking so long?"

"Why couldn't pre-op have ordered this antibiotic we are waiting on?"

 

 

I am not going to go off but I would like to explain why we are hurry hurry....

OR nurses are paid by the hour... when the shift is over.. they usually relieved and go home... Anesthesia is usually not on a shift schedule and we do not leave until  the work is done. In addition.. we are not making money unless we are in the OR doing anesthesia... Anesthesia services are a money maker... the hospital bills for our services directly.. on the order of $200 an hour.if i recall correctly.. the other staff of the OR are a cost..... SO it is a lot more efficient to be in the OR than cooling our heels in the pre-op area.

At least that is the way it is where I work...... big level 1 tertiary care trauma center.

It is a difference in work cultures.