A Nurses Guide To Nursing

LVNs care for the sick, injured, convalescent, and disabled under the direction of physicians and registered nurses. Most provide basic bedside care, taking vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiration. They also prepare and give injections, monitor catheters, apply dressings, treat bedsores, and give alcohol rubs and massages. To help keep patients comfortable, LVNs assist with bathing, dressing and personal hygiene. Experienced LVNs may supervise nursing assistants and aides.

LVNs are required to pass a licensing exam after completing a practical nursing program that typically lasts a year. Most such programs require a high school diploma.
Read the rest of this entry »

For those not attracted to a nursing career, there are other fields also experiencing phenomenal growth. Some courses, in fact, can transform your career in a matter of hours.
You can sign up for a $195 EKG Technician class and in one day of instruction learn the intricacies of administering an EKG, enabling you to earn $10 to $15 an hour.
Or you can enroll in a program to become a pharmacy technician. This $995 course combines 168 hours of classroom instruction with 120 hours of training in a pharmacy. Projected earnings range from $10 to $20 an hour. Job prospects are excellent, Chegia emphasizes, since pharmacies are also experiencing a labor shortage.
Read the rest of this entry »

There are many resources which provide information on getting into nursing school, studying for and passing boards, getting into new graduate employment programs, summer exploratory programs, etc. But for traditional nursing work (bedside nursing) in a hospital or long term care facility (traditionally known as a nursing home), it really would do some good if you had a reality TV type experience. Reading books and articles exclusively, won’t prepare you for what the profession is like.

During my first nursing clinical rotation, I knew instantly that I didn’t like hospital nursing. However, I loved research, collecting data, writing papers, and so forth. Since I had a science background and had worked in various laboratory settings (e.g., a dairy plant testing milk to biotechnology company testing, human sera, a county environmental health lab testing water sample on a mass spectrophotometer, a food plant testing spaghetti sauce), going into nursing research seemed like a natural progression. The rude awakening: No one ever told me about the 5-6 years of med-surg hospital experience needed, before an employer would even look at me. It was not anyone else’s responsibility to tell me this. Clearly, the lesson is to do all of your homework.

After graduating from nursing school, I combed the Internet, help wanted ads, journals, and even enlisted a network of friends to be on the lookout for any nurse research employment opportunities. Positions in nursing research were scarce. My diverse science background, along with my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Rochester, weren’t a powerful enough combination to hurry me into the interviewing seat. Hence, I never landed an interviewing spot for any nursing research positions.

Contact your local hospitals and other employers that hire nurses, and ask to speak with the human resources or personnel manager. The manager will be able to provide you with information on nursing and may be able to connect you with one of their employees who would speak with you about the profession.

The last task you need to complete is to try to volunteer at a hospital or nursing home. You don’t have to commit to a lifetime of volunteering; many organizations need volunteers to sit with patients or residents as companions. Volunteering in the mail department of any facility won’t help, so concentrate your efforts on volunteering in a patient care setting, and then you can have a direct visual of the nurse-patient interaction. This experience will be invaluable for you.

Many hospitals, under pressure to lower costs, are using licensed vocational nurses (LVN’s) in place of registered nurses wherever allowed.

California LVNs work under the supervision of physicians and registered nurses in jobs that require medical knowledge and technical training. They take patients� temperature, pulse and blood pressure, change dressings, draw blood for testing, and give intravenous fluids.

An increase in the aging population needing long-term care is fueling the need for more LVNs. To meet the demand, training for this career is offered at vocational schools and many community colleges.
Read the rest of this entry »

The fundamental problem may not be supply of graduates but retention. Nurses are leaving the profession because of the stress of working in woefully understaffed facilities and because they lack administrative support or control over their environments. In many settings, nurses are responsible for coordination and continuity of their patients’ care, yet they feel they have little authority for many aspects of their job.10 Fifty-five percent of nurses would not recommend a nursing career to their children and friends.7 In a recent survey, 41% of respondents indicated job dissatisfaction, 43% showed strong indicators of burnout, and almost 25% planned on quitting their jobs in the next year. Of this last group, one third were not yet even 30 years old.11
Read the rest of this entry »

Most people assume that once a nurse has completed her education and has become registered, that is the “end” and that no more learning or education is required. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s more to nursing then just tending and looking after patients.It is highly critical that a nurse maintain and continue her ongoing education and is kept current on her profession. This is an integral part of maintaining her registration.

A nurse�s life in the 21st century is extremely fast paced. There are medical advances in precedures almost on a daily basis and it is essential that a nurse is kept abreast and is at the forefront of these improvements. This requires a high level of time management and dedication to improve oneself in addition to spending long hours in clinics and hospitals. Of course this is much easier said than done.

It is in the best interests of a good hospital to provide everything needed for nurses to continue their education. A good hospital will also more than likely pay for the education of their nurses. A lack of funds should not be a deterrent to a nurse continuing her education.

Of course let’s not forget that just as important to success is the keeping of portfolios and timely documentation detailing all the training and education received throughout the nursing carreer. This written journal also serves as a method of organizing in an orderly manner, all the continuing education undertaken.

Admittedly, there exists a challenge with regards to access to this education for nurses, namely the expense, since nursing is still not considered to be among the better paid professions. This challenge to accessibility can perhaps be met by employers coming forward and funding the continuing education of registered nurses.