Posts Tagged ‘nursing

The Grind

July 9, 2009

At work we do self-scheduling. Every month there is a calendar posted in the break room and we are supposed to fill out what we WANT our schedule to be for the next month by a certain date. Then our boss will take and finalize it, usually giving us what we want but not always. I have had the same schedule since I started working here, which looks something like this (repeating every two weeks): (OMG I could never be a graphic designer. It took me entirely too long to create this image and it made me want to throw my computer across the room.) Well last month I forgot to fill out the self-schedule calendar, so my boss did…
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#33. Get Promoted!

July 2, 2009

I am just knocking these goals out all over the place! Now I need to work on getting some more of the easy ones out of the way so I can get cracking on the time-consuming and difficult ones. Yesterday I was promoted! I knew that I would achieve this goal, because it happens after one year of employment. But it wasn’t just like all I had to do was stick around for a year. There was a very lengthy process involved before I was ready to have my evaluation. I’m so glad to have it behind me! Now I am officially a “clinical colleague”. The evaluation itself wasn’t too intimidating; all the work had been done previously. I had to rate myself in about…
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Diary of a Rookie Camp Nurse

June 28, 2009

I’m back from camp and it’s good to be home. I’m going to attempt to sum up the week I had for you, and I’m going to start by getting a few points out of the way: >If you grew up going to camp every summer as a kid, then worked all summer at camp until you graduated from college, and even wanted to work full-time at camp for awhile, and therefore you are very excited about going back as the camp nurse, know this: it will NOT be the same thing. It won’t be what you remember. Especially if it’s a different camp than the one you grew up with and you don’t know that many people. Being the…
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When Even A Looming Vacation Is Stressful

June 19, 2009

On Wednesday I finally gave my presentation at work entitled “Blood Products in Oncology Patients.” I have worked hard on it for months and it has been hanging over my head for even longer. It went well, so I would have been relieved except that only six people showed up to hear it. Thankfully two of those people were my director and my manager. It’s almost impossible to get all the nurses from the unit to be away from their patients for 30 minutes to hear an inservice. But since I am evaluating the effectiveness of my presentation via a pre- and post-quiz, I need more people to hear it than six. So I’ll probably have to give it again,…
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#31. Take the Charge Nurse Class

June 11, 2009

I went to the 8-hour long class at Methodist the other week that supposedly taught me how to be a charge nurse. What is that, you wonder? Well, a charge nurse is basically like a supervisor. Except that we already HAVE a supervisor on our unit. Two, in fact: our director, and the nursing manager. The manager acts as the charge nurse Monday through Friday, and she doesn’t have a patient assignment. But on the weekends, we’re on our own. Someone has to charge, and that person has to have a patient assignment as well. For my weekend, that person is always my mentor Pat. But she’ll be retiring soon, so others will have to take over. At first, being the…
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