what's going on guys, jon here with nrsng.com.today, i'm excited, it's my turn. heather has been stealing all the camera time andtoday it's my turn to actually come on here and talk to you guys live on facebook live.our topic tonight is going to be ... i'm going to give you guys four tips on how to get ajob in the icu as a new grad. as a lot of you guys know, that's where i started as anew grad. i talk about it all the time because look, i love the icu. that's where i alwayswanted to work, i was able to get a job there starting out and i wouldn't have been ableto survive anywhere else probably. i'm going to give you guys some tips, fourtips. i want you to get a sheet of paper and some notes, and get stuff to be able to takesome notes because i think we're going to
give some good tips here tonight. before weget started, as you guys know, as heather has shown you, we like to give away a freebie,give you something for coming up here early. if you go over to nrsng.com/ivfluids, you'llbe able to get our cheat sheet that goes over, you can see a little bit in here. it goesover different types of crystalloid iv solutions. that nrsng.com/ivfluids. make sure you headover there. it has basically every crystalloid iv solution you're going to use, it talksto you about everything you need to know about that. what we're going to talk about tonight, i'mgoing to give you these four tips and what i wanted to do after that is have a q & aand talk all about icu nursing. any questions
you have about starting in the icu, any questionsyou have about that stuff. one other thing that i want you to do though is if you'reinside your post, i want you to like, comment and share, that'll help get people in here.let's get this going here tonight. if you're on a mobile, you can push like as many timesas you want, i'm okay with that. i can push love, you can also push hate if you just aresick of hearing me, sick of seeing me, or you can just keep on liking that. leave ussome comments. what we're doing tonight is i have my widesandy here. she's going to help with the comments because it's really hard to talk to you andmanage the comments at the same time. one other thing i want to show you ... i lied,two other things i want to show you. this
week we launched a brand new podcast, thispodcast is the nursing mnemonics podcast, and it is hosted by kati kleber. she's workingwith us here at nrsng.com. this podcast has ranked as high as it was the number one podcastin all medical podcast in itunes for a little bit. if you go over itunes you can go to ourblog, and you can search on the podcast there, and you can find that. lastly, we're going to be doing this new seriescalled nursing shorts. me and heather are going to get our kids together. heather hasa three year old named harper, and i have my son taz, he's just turned five, and we'regoing to do the series where we have them give you nursing tips. we're not going tolet them say whatever they want to or anything
like that, but we're going to have them sharewith you some other things. i want to show you where we're going with that. let's get rolling on today's topic. we'regoing to talk four biggest things that you can do as a new grad to get a job in icu.if you have any questions, any comments, any complaints or anything while i'm talking,just go ahead and post them below and we'll try to answer them as quick as we can to makesure we get you guys some answers. the first thing i want to share with you is there'sthree search engines that you need to use to find a job in icu. they are google, indeedand allnurses. if you go to google.com, obviously everyone knows about google.com. go to google,and the first thing that i want you to do
is i want you to understand how hospitalscall new nurse job. the way they're going to call them is there'sgoing to be new grad rn, it's going to be new nurse residency, nurse internship, nurseresidency program and nurse graduate program. those are five ways that hospitals will mostoften call these new grad jobs. in the dallas area there's three trauma 1 hospitals, andeach of those hospitals get about 800 applicants for these job, so it's really important youfind out when these jobs are out and you find out how to apply to them. the best thing you can do first of all isgoing to google and typing in those keywords. if you do that ... i just did it here. letme show you my desktop really quick. if you
type that in, new grad rn icu residency, itbrings up jobs from indeed, it brings up jobs from vanderbilt, from penn, from wisconsin.you find all these jobs really quickly by just typing that in there. once you have those,you can also take those same keywords, those new nurse residency, new grad rn position,nurse internship, take all of those and head over to indeed. it's indeed.com, and typethose same keywords in there. you can filter it down by location, so you can filter downby texas, by dallas, by a zip code. what that'll do is it'll bring up all these hospitals thatoffer new grad residency programs. once you have that, you can go to those hospitalsand find out when they offered them, when you're supposed to apply and things like that.what you would do is take your piece of paper
and you write down all those places. you headover to allnurses.com, everybody knows allnurses.com. you head over there and you type in the internshipfor the hospital. let's say it's duke. you find out about a residency at duke. you goover to allnurses, and you get into the forums, and you find out what they hospital specificallyis asking for. question. yes. will hospitals be interested in nursingstudents who are two semesters from graduating? that is a great question. the question is,will be hospitals be interested in nurses that are two semesters away from graduation?that is a hard question. what i would do if you have not graduated yet, is i would waituntil your last semester before you really
even worry about this. i let myself worryabout this like three semesters from graduating, i've seen nurses do that before, is they wait... they start applying and they start worrying about getting a job before they even havetheir license. to give you a quick answer to that question,most hospitals won't even blink an eye at you until you already have your license, untilyou pass the nclex. they really want to make sure you have that license in hand so thatthey know you're ready to walk on the floor and get going. however, it is possible, andi think it's plausible and it's doable to apply for jobs, start applying for jobs duringyour last semester especially for this residency type jobs. you can [spine 00:07:46] theseplaces that are doing these residencies, and
you apply ahead of time because they usuallystart posting those four to six months before they expect you to start. if you apply to that job and with them knowingthat you're going to graduate, you have a graduation date, and then by the time youstart you're going to have your nclex done out of the way and you'll have your license.those are the key words i want you to search. that's the biggest thing, is understandinghow hospitals look for those things. the next thing i want to talk about, i'm going to popthis up here, is references and connections. a lot of people overlook this. nursing isa small world. there's three to five million nurses in the us, and that's a lot, but whenyou think about it nursing really is a small
world. one more question. yes. from tori. what's a good reasonable startingsalary should we accept from job offers? tori, where do you live? i don't know if thiswill probably too delayed to find out where you live. that's going to depend a lot onwhere you live and whether or not there's unions where you live, and what your shiftand staff would be in, and with differentials. with that said, i think low end, the lowesti would personally take ... texas pays pretty low honestly. starting rate, lowest i wouldbook like $23. people in california and new york and stuff ... why are you laughing atthat?
north carolina. i can give you a direct advise on that. iwas offered a position at duke university hospital in their icu after i graduated school.what duke offered four years ago or so was $21 an hour, so it's pretty low. maybe ifkati's watching, kati kleber, if she's watching she can maybe bump in there and say what sheactually makes in that area of the country. duke offered about $21 an hour with differentials.the way it usually works is you get raises every six months. the way my job works is it started prettylow, it's $23 an hour which is low for a lot of places in the country, but then what theydid is the first six months was $1 raise,
the next six months was $1. you got a $1 raiseevery six months for the first two years, and then you also got your performance reviewraises which came out to รข¢50 to $1 more an hour. differentials, so differentials is whereit's at. i actually have a blog post. if you go on our blog, i have a blog post about howmuch i made my first year of nursing. my base salary was $23 an hour, it wasn't much, butin my first year i was able to make just a little over $70,000 a year because i bookedmyself out on weekends. usually you'll make a differential for working weekends. wherei worked, it's $6 extra an hour just for working weekends. for me it's a no brainer, i work friday, saturday,sunday. you get differential for working nights
which is an additional $3 or $4 and hour,and then you get differential for ... you get time and half if it's under staff, soi'm always in there when it's under staff. you could make a lot of extra money like that.that's probably a very vague answer to your question. in oregon i know i have a friendwho just started up in washington state. she's making $35 and hour on day shift. i wouldsay out in north carolina, i wouldn't expect, especially from the larger university hospitalsmore than probably $25 an hour or so. yes, another question. yes, from jill. if someone wants to land inicu someday, is it wise to start at a trauma level 3 hospital?
let me clarify the question. say the questionone more time. if someone wants to land in icu someday, isit wise to start at a trauma level 3 hospital? trauma level 3 as you know is the lowest levelof trauma. here's what i think. if you want to work in icu at a trauma 1 hospital, inthe big city, something like that someday, i'd personally don't think it matters whatlevel of trauma icu you started. if you do want to go to crna school or nurse practitionerschool, it's going to be much more difficult for you to get into one of those programsif you're not in a trauma 1, maybe trauma 2. most crna programs require you to have trauma1 experience. as far as managers looking for
people in icu, it can be hard to find experiencedicu nurse, so even if the experience is from a trauma 3, trauma 2, you should be able toget a job in a trauma 1 hospital without much difficulty. if you get an opportunity topstart in a trauma 3 icu and that's what you want to do, i would take over that over trauma1 med-surg in my opinion. references and connections. let's go backto this really quick. if more questions, you guys bring them in, i want to answer as indepth as i possibly can. biggest thing i want to tell you with this is get connections frompeople that are going to sway decisions of the decision makers, of the managers. lookfor people like the dean of your program. i had a lot of meetings with the dean of myprograms. when i say that i don't mean that
they were necessarily good meetings. i hada lot of frustrations in nursing school like i do now with nursing overall. i had a lot of meetings with the dean of myprogram, but even with that, they saw in me that i was motivated, i was driven, i wantedto create change in nursing. she, even with all that, she still left a great review forme and a great reference letter for me. you want to look for people like deans of yourcollege, college nursing program professors, clinical instructors, physician that you mayhave built a connection with. look for those people as much as you can. number three here, your resume. i want toflip over to this really quick. let me just
show you this. here's an example of what anursing resume should look like. this comes from csu, california state university, chico.what i want to show that's a little bit different here on a nursing resume is that the verytop of it you should be putting your clinical experience. especially if you're looking fora job in icu, if you were able to rotate through an icu or be in an icu for any amount of time,for any reason, put that on top and show them that you're not just interested in icu, likeyou've actually seen it, you've seen what's going on. that should be the very top of yourresume. where people might not have experience as a cna or a tech or anything like that,you at least have your nursing practicum hours, and put those in order of ... if it's icuput it up there on top.
another question. from john. i'm having a touch time decidingwhether to apply to the department where i worked as an er tech or applying elsewhere.i know i'll have a job there but i'm afraid they'll assume i don't need as much trainingas other new grads. i'm really torn. that's a great question. that's a hard questionto answer. i mean you're right, that you would be probably a shoe in to the job, but i cansee the concern, i think that's a valid concern. that's one thing i was going to talk abouttoo is that the most important thing that i think you need to do when you're lookingfor an icu position or an ed position, or or position, one of these specialized areas,is start in a place that has extensive training.
you're going to learn everything you needto know through that training and through time. i would express that if you have a goodrelationship with your manager here is what i would suggest. is i would express that concern to the managerand let them know very upfront and from the beginning like, "i really want to work hereand you know that i'm doing a good job and i'm a great tech here, and i'm going to dothat as a nurse too. i'm going to be the best nurse you have, but i'm concerned. you know,what i'm doing as a tech isn't what i'm going to be doing as a nurse, and i want to makesure that we bridge that knowledge gap with a good preceptor and a good everything."
that might be a leg up you have on peoplethat applied for jobs there too, is you can let your manager know specifically like iwant this nurse as my preceptor. i want this nurse to be the one who trains me, and i wantto have just as long as training as everybody else. if you like the hospital, if you likethe people, that almost matters more than anything else. if you want to work ed andyou want to be there, i would just have a real sit down with the manager and see howyou feel after that conversation. from sarah. i have spoken with my hospital'sccu manger and she has agreed to let me shadow on my own time. i'm out for the summer anddo not start back third semester until the fall. i plan on shadowing as much as she willlet me. is this something i should add on
my resume? absolutely. definitely. the question is, she'sbeen allowed to shadow in an icu, at a critical care unit and she's asking if she should putthat on her resume. i would 100% put that on your resume. let me just flip over to thisscreen again. here's another example of a resume. i wouldput that at the very top here, where you have all your practicum hours. practicum hoursare essential in here, i would put that just below that and i would add up every singlehour that you're there, because what's that showing and that's something else i was goingto talk about too. what's that showing is you're driven outside of school, like thisis you doing clinical hours that you're not
getting paid for, you're not required to do,but you're just doing because you have a passion for nursing. managers want that. i've been in on hiring with nurses, i've playeda role in hiring new grads. what they want is they want people that are passionate andthat care about what they're doing, because that's someone they're going to feel comfortablewith when they have to go home and they're not on the floor. if you're absolutely passionateabout that and they can see that, i would throw that all over my resume and i wouldmention that. it's not paid experience, this is just you just wanting to be a nurse. putthat all over the resume. from joe. should i include any leadershippositions i held during my clinical rotations,
like for community, i was the leader for myclinical group and we organized a community healthcare? yes. the fact that you did leadership experienceand that you organized a health fair, that's awesome. another thing managers and hiringpeople are looking for, they're looking for ... this might sound weird maybe, but it canbe hard for managers to find the right people to move in to charge nurse positions and preceptorpositions. i know everybody that's part of this nrsng family, they're hearing that andlike, "what?" i know you guys are motivated, you guys are driven, you guys are part ofthis nrsng family and group because you're the driven people in nursing, but there'sa lot of nurses out there that are doing this
because it pays the bills and that's all. the fact that you have that leadership experienceand that you have that organizing experience of leading a team, i would throw that allover there. let me switch back to this again. you can see here, this resume here shows anexample of additional nursing courses, so this person obviously went to trauma or somethinglike that because they showed like, "hey, like i'm really driven with trauma and everythinglike that." anytime you don't have nursing or healthcare related work experience, i wouldbe beefing up the resume with everything else that is nursing related. the manager doesn'tcare about your job at cvs necessarily, they just want to know that you've had job andyou can hold a job. they'll love to see that
type of experience. from amy. we were instructed to put our servicelearning volunteer experience in the spot you had highlight it for clinical locations.would i put clinical experience first and then volunteer info, would that work? these are examples from ... this one fromhere is from linfield college. i would say if it's healthcare related volunteer experiencei would put it above it because, again, that kind of step outside of it all, and then puttingyour clinical experience maybe below that. i wish i had it here and i can't find it rightnow, baylor university healthcare system, big healthcare system here in texas, theyactually published what they want their resume
to look like, and i copied their resume specificallywhen i applied for my job, but it was something to this effect. yes, i would put volunteerexperience, i would put it up there as high as you can for sure. from marissa. i just got done with my secondsemester and a lot of my colleagues are interning. i see the word extern thrown around abouta lot on the job sites. is it possible to do both, an extern and an intern position? go ahead and read it one more time. i just got done with my second semester anda lot of my colleagues are interning. i see the word extern thrown around about a loton the job sites. is it possible to do both,
an intern and an extern? i don't know how to answer that question specificallybecause i'm not entire sure what the difference is going to be between the two. i'm tryingto remember back to those days. i'm sorry because i tried to remember what those were.is extern after you've finished everything? i can't remember what the difference is betweenthe two, but where possible ... number one, i would focus on your grades and creatingthose networks that are going to help you. i've been able to get three people or morejobs in my icu just because i knew them and they worked hard, and my manager knew thati worked hard so she trusted my judgement skills.
i would focus first of all on your grades,making sure your grades are good to get you where you want to go. if you want to be acrna, you want to be whatever, focus on that. number two i'd focus on connections. buildingthose connections, building up where you want to be and then i would focus on those otherthings. if it's possible, yes, throw as much healthcare experiences as you can, and thereare internship, externship job, whatever it is. we can throw the next two together. shaun.with the resume, would you add past work history, and if you're a medical assistant first beforebecoming a nurse? another one is, would it be a good idea to mention all my tech experiencein my resume and other experience in other
experience section? yes. there's really two ways to organize workexperience. the first way would be chronologically: i worked at cvs, i worked at mcdonald's, iworked at the hospital. or you can do by most relevant experience. when we're talking nursingjobs, i don't think it would hurt to organize by most relevant. just let your manager knowthat i wanted to organize by most relevant so you know what's going on. the only healthcareexperience i really had before becoming a nurse was working as a transporter for radiologydepartment. i put that up there that i had the chance to talk to these patients, andsee these procedures and do these things. i was comfortable in the healthcare environment.i put the other jobs that i had, and unfortunately,
a lot of those jobs weren't very long, theydidn't last very ling, they weren't very great jobs for healthcare. let me go down to number five here, is besociable. if you get the chance to get in front of a nursing manager and present yourcase, they invite you in for an interview. remember like i said in dallas, we'd get anywherefrom 400 to 800 applications for one job. if you get that chance to be what the managerand sitting down with them, be sociable. try not to be nervous, and i know that's reallyhard. right now i'm sweating bullets, i'm nervous talking to you guys because i can'tsee you. try to convey confidence and really learn a lot about the hospital.
the reason i'm saying that is because if youget the chance to be in front of them, they already want you and they just want to seethat they can work with you. outside of experience, if you don't have that experience, if yourgrades aren't what you wish they were, if you don't have whatever else it is, at leastbe sociable so they can make that connection with you and say, "okay, yes. you know jon,somebody that i could see myself working with." from liliana. will you be discussing interviewstrategies tonight? yes. what do you want to know? we can talkabout a few interview strategies. the biggest thing that i'm going to tell you is that goin there with confidence. the first thing you need to do before you even show up toan interview, and this applies with any job
but especially with healthcare, is get onthe hospital's website and look for their mission statement. every hospital is goingto have a mission statement listed on their website. go there, learn that mission statement, andthen get as much information about the unit that you can. what types of patients are theregoing to be? when i applied for neuro icu job, i honestly had no clue what i was goingto be seeing. i was like, "i don't know, seizures and stuff or gunshots?" i don't even know.i tried to learn as much of those procedures, and i tried to find out about the manager,i tried to find out about the hospital. have a nice portfolio like this and have your questionsalready written out that you're going to ask.
have 10 questions written out that you wantto discuss. what's the schedule like? how long will mu internship last? make them asbroad and as specific as you can think of. how many patients do we normally see in ayear? ask them business type questions too, they want to know that you're going to beinvolved. how long does the average nurse stay here in the department? that's what i'mgoing to tell you to do before you even show up to the interview. always dress in a suit or business attire,very professionally. i'm going to tell you guys again, you would be surprised how manypeople show up in khakis and a polo for a nursing interview. we work in scrubs so itfeels weird dressing up, but get yourself
a really nice suit, be really well groomed,and show up to that interview with confidence. you're going to be terrified. i promise you'regoing to be terrified, but show up with confidence and try to treat them as much like a professionalfriend as you can. sit there, cross your legs, have your questions ready, and be okay braggingabout yourself a little bit. when those questions come up about your biggeststrength, be honest. there's people that just said, "you know i was the leader of a communityhealth group and we organized this health fair that had this much attendance. and iwant to bring that same organization and that same drive, and that same leadership to thisjob. where i see myself going is i want to learn everything i can during this internship,and then i want to get my feet under me as
a new nurse, and then i want to start preceptingand teaching and sharing what i've learned." i would say be confident in yourself, be okaybragging about yourself a little bit, and then talk about the other person. if you canget the other person talking, they won't even realize that that's an interview. if you canask them about their family, "so why did you become a nurse? what are you doing here?"that's what's always helped me a lot in job interviews is get them talking. like i said,if you've gotten to the interview, you've already made it through the screening roundwith hr, you've already made it through the manager's first pass at your resume, you'vemade it to the hiring committee's pass at the resume. at this point you really justneed to show them that you're going to be
a good person to work with. from juzette. what do you recommend for someonewith limited work experience but a large number of clinical hours. limited work experience, large number of clinicalhours. build on that. show them that you're a clinical master. one advantage i kind ofhad maybe, maybe it wasn't an advantage, i don't know, is that when i got my first nursingjob i was 29 or 30 years old, so i had some work experience, but most of the people thatwere starting with me were 24, 23, just out of college. they didn't really had the workexperience either and a lot of them didn't have any healthcare experience either.
what they did have was that clinical experiencelike you're talking about. even if it's not paid clinical experience, show them that you'remotivated within the healthcare area. even if you don't have that broad reach of clinicalexperience, at least show them that you're focused on this job, that this is want youalways ... that's an advantage you would have over someone like me. i was 30 years old andi'm finally settling down at nursing. it's like, "how long is this guy gonna last?"the advantage of maybe you have of not having a lot of that work experience is letting peopleknow, "look, i'm driven in this profession, this is what i've always wanted to do, andthis where i'm going to stay. i wanted to get here as fast as i could, and that's whyi didn't waste time with other jobs." you
can maybe word it like that. would it be appropriate in the interview tobring up salaries? how would you bring it up in the most respectable way? when is the good time to bring up salaries?this is something that i probably stressed out more than i needed to about. here is thedownside with rn salaries is that they are pretty much set. if you're a brand new grad,i don't know if you're a brand new grad, you can let us know in the comments. if you'rea brand new grad you have almost no negotiation room. they have a published rate that theygive new grads, and you almost don't even need to talk about it because what'll happenlike what happened with the duke job.
they sent me a paperwork and it says hereis your salary, here is what you're going to make, here is when you're going to makemore money. if you're coming from a different hospital, you have a couple years of experience,this is the time that you can start discussing salary. sandy, you can correct me if i'm wrong,she's had many more jobs in hospitals than i have, i wouldn't probably even bring itup in the first interview. yes, i don't. i would've come back ... after they know theywant you. don't worry about being tacky in that first interview, just let it go, don'teven talk about it. leave that first interview with them wanting you. they're going to wantyou, and when they come back with the phone
call ... salary is really something you'lldiscuss with the hr anyway. am i right? yes. they'll bring it up a lot of times. hr will be the people that are going to talksalary not the manager. when they come back with the offer and say, "whoa" ... becausesandy has done this few times. they come back with an offer and she says, "that's severaldollars less than i was making before. we got to come up." they'll come up and they'lleventually get to a place you meet at, but interview really isn't the place to do that.interview is a way for them to see if they like you, and for you to see if it's a goodfit for you. did that answer the question? nursing salaries have ranges. usually brandnew grad there's a very narrow range, and
as you get more experience the range grows,but a lot of times people jump ships at hospitals because after that first year you can moregoing somewhere else. that's the recommendation i would have there. let me go back to this again. a lot of peopleare asking things that you would put on resumes. couple things that i would put on resume iswhat people want to see. they want to see your history of hard work. it doesn't necessarilyhave to be a long history of a lot of work but a history hard work, history of dedication.one of the guys that i was able to get a job at my icu, he had had a job at a clothingstore for six or eight years, so nothing related to healthcare but it showed like, this kidcan stick with folding shirts all the time.
you need skills. it doesn't have to be relatedto nursing or healthcare, but unique things. some other things i would add on there. ifyou're a member of student nurse association, throw it on there. if you went above and beyondand you got your acls, throw on there. you should have your bls already. did you createa club or group? did you do any research projects or research papers? we were required to doa research paper. obviously for my bsn, i put it on there, i was like, "dude i've writtenthese research papers. i'm motivated in this area." how many hands on hours do you havein an icu? how can i build myself up during an interviewfor a medical position when i've only worked in psyche substance abuse?
that's awesome. the fact that you've workedin something so unique ... if i was a hiring manager or if you came to me and telling methat you had that experience and you're looking at icu, or trauma, or ed ... sandy workedicu too. a lot of your patients are going to be substance abuse patients and psych patients.you'll be surprised how many eds and icus are kind of psych wards in some ways. justin your specific case, that's freaking awesome experience. i would talk about that, that about specificpatients you've worked with and how it applies to calming down patients in a hospital, becausethat's what nurses end up doing a lot of times, is keeping patients calm and explaining thingsto family members. in your specific case having
that psych substance abuse experience, i woulddefinitely tie that back into nursing. what we do as nurses, is we bring calm in the mostturbulent times in people's lives, and i would build that up as much as you can for sure.definitely, that's awesome experience. if you guys haven't yet, you can like, commentand share this little segue here. if you could just want to comment and tag a friend or somethingthat has questions about jobs and job searches. let me tell you specifically exactly whati did when i applied for my job. what i did is i typed in google. i did all of those thingsthat i've showed you guys, and i was able to ... let me bring it up. i'd made a liston this post on the blog about how i did it. if you guys want to find this post on theblog you can actually type new grad rn icu
residency, apparently this post comes up atnumber five. it's 4 no fail tips to get a spot in the icu. what i did is i typed in all those words,did all of those things that i've already talked about with you. doing those tricksi was able to get, like i said, interviews at duke, baylor, university of arkansas medicalcenter, methodist dallas icu and multiple smaller icus, eds and ors. i wasn't a phenomenalstudent, i didn't go to a top tier school by any means, trust me, and heather couldattest to that. my gpa was good, it was decent. what i focused on on finding the right jobsat the right times. what actually did is i typed in google, i typed in nurse recruiterdallas texas, and somehow i found this list
of 50 recruiters, the email addresses forevery recruiter basically in every hospital in dallas, then i just spammed them. i said, "my name is jon." i bragged aboutmyself a little bit. i said, "i'm graduating now, this is the experience that i have, thisis what i want to do. think i'd be a great asset to your floor. do you have any new gradpositions available?" i got a couple of people hit me back and let me know when they weregoing to do things. for example, baylor has a facebook page. if anybody is interestedin baylor, fantastic healthcare system. sandy has worked for them for several years. baylor has a facebook page for their new gradpositions. you get on there and the recruiter
there will post everything. when it's due,remind you, so awesome group to be a part of. what i got is i got an email back specificallyfrom one recruiter, and this is weeks before i graduate, so very, very close to being done.she got me on the phone and she talked to me about when everything was due. i sent everything,did everything, went to the interview, i was confident. showed confidence. i was sweating,i was dying, but then i got the job there. taylor wants to know what happened to thebeard. taylor, none of your business man. sandy makesme shave it every now and then, and i was trying to look nice for everybody tonight.i usually shave about every two weeks. from trisha. taking one step back. i'm ina competitive bsn nursing program, i want
to be chosen for the critical care fellowshipat my local hospital. what type of things i can put on my resume to set me apart fromthe rest. read just the first part again, sorry. i don'thave the question in front of me. i'm in a competitive bsn nursing program andi want to be chosen for the critical care fellowship at my local hospital. what was her name? trisha. trisha, thanks for asking. everybody is unique,and that sound really whatever, but everybody is unique. everybody has something uniqueabout them. i never noticed this more than
when i talked to my sister who's an iron man,triathlete, boston marathoner. she's led teams of one of the top orthopedic hospitals inthe country, and then she sends me a resume to look at and it's like, "hi, my name istammy. i want to job." i'm like, "what about being at the number one orthopedic hospitalin the country?" "oh yeah, there's that." that is healthcare experience, but what i'msaying is what is unique about you? what makes you the person that they want to hire? itdoesn't have to be healthcare stuff. it can be anything. were you a leader of some organizationor some group during college even if it's not healthcare related. what are those uniquefew things about you that make you stand out, that show that you're a leader, that showyou're dedicated, that show you're hungry
for knowledge. that's what managers reallywant. are you going to come to this job everyday? are you going to work your butt off? are yougoing to continually be learning in this field? that's really what they want to know. let'stalk about some specifics. other things you could do is you could goand get acls certified. you can become acls without ... that's advanced cardiac life support.it's a two day course, you can take it on your own for probably $100 or so, $200. whatit does is it puts you in that position with one of the things done that you will haveto have done anyway. you can get those certifications, make sure your bls is up to date. what aresome other really good tips. network with everybody on facebook that you know, everyfriend that you have that is a nurse, ask
them if there's positions because sometimeswhat's going to set you apart is honestly, it comes down to having connections. firstof all, exhaust all of those connections in a good [kosher 00:38:53] way and then alsoreach out and try to find any tiny things you can do. leigh. i would like to be certified and iwant to know how long should i wait once i graduate nursing school? certified for what? let's talk about whatwe might be talking about certification. if you're talking about just taking your licensure,i did some research on this, made a post somewhere and i can't remember where the post is onthe blog. the average time for successful
nclex takers is 45 days after graduation.if you wait much beyond 45 days, your success rate of passing nclex actually starts to decline.if you ... cc. critical care? you cannot become ccrn untilyou have 1800 hours which comes out about two years. i took mine on the date of that1800 hours, and i was able to get my 1800 faster because i busted it, you can ask sandy,she's here. there were a couple of months there where i just wasn't home because i wasworking every extra shift i could, because i wanted to be that knowledgeable nurse, thatnurse that people could go to. number one and number two, i didn't want to feel highand dry if a code happened or something happened,
i don't want to be the nurse that was likesinking back in the shadows because i didn't know what to do, i want to be exposed everythingi could. you have to get those 1800 hours first, thenyou have to apply for the test. it's really easy to apply for, and then you have to takethe test. two books i would recommend after you pass nclex and starting out in icu, firstbook is the icu book by dr. marino. this is an old version, you can see i spilled somesoda or something. i think a soda exploded in my car one time when i was in the parkinggarage here in dallas. you can get this older version for $8 on amazon.awesome book, way over my head but awesome. the second book that's much lower level, easierto understand is pass ccrn by robin dennison.
has tons of charts, and graphs, and things.as you guys know, that's the way i learned, and i have them all here. you can subscribeto the american journal critical care medicine and become an aacn member, that's like $70a year, and you get this magazine so you can start learning a ton. the only reason i'msaying do all those things is because if you do all those things when it comes time totake that test, you're not going to be freaking out preparing for it. next question. jenny. i've volunteered at a local hospitalfor two years to collect hours for nursing school application. now that i'm in nursingschool i'm considering going back there and
volunteer for a few hours a week. would thatvolunteering at the hospital on top of my clinical hours [there 00:41:42] set me apartand help me get a job? yes. if you're planning to apply at the samehospital you're volunteering at and doing your clinical hours at, yes, go for it. ifit's going to stress you to the max of not being able to complete your work, i wouldn'tforce it, i wouldn't push it. if you can get those hours and do well on your school workand everything like that, maybe just do the minimum. get on as many floors as you can,meet as many managers as you can, buddy up with as many nurses as you can. not to be sleazy, not to be [selzy 00:42:13],not to be scummy or anything like that, but
just to meet the people that you need to know,that's going to make the transition much better. if you can do it get in there, especiallyif it's the hospital that you're going to be applying at. i know heather shared herstory, heather here with nrsng shared her story. she got a job at the hospital thatwe all went to school at, and it was because she knew the people. sarah. how intimidating was it for you beginningin icu? i was pissing bricks, as short answer. it'sterrifying. it's absolutely, 100% terrifying. i will tell you that after several years experience,some nights it's absolutely, 100% terrifying. that's probably true on any floor. now thati have you sufficiently scared, let me tell
you why that's a good thing. when you workin a hospital, when you work in ed, in icu, in or specifically, you literally have people'slives in your hands. one mistake and you can kill someone, and that death is on you. havingthat and respecting that is very terrifying. there are nurses, and i know you guys aren'tthose nurses, trust me, i know that 100%. there are nurses that honestly don't see itthat way, don't care about it that much. the fact that you're asking how scared it is showsthat you're one of those that cares, and that gives a damn, and that's important, that'sso important. i did a podcast recently. if on the blog, there's a post ... maybe sandy,you can find it. there's a post that talked about why should be terrified for your firstnursing job. i did a podcast and a blog about
it because you need to be terrified becauseof what's happening. it's going to be terrifying, it's going to be scary, but that's okay. when i got my first job i had never met mypreceptor, i had been up to the floor a couple times but it was night shift, it was my firsttime to ever work overnight in my entire life so i brought like a 12 pack of mountain dew.it just so happens that the hospital was about 30 miles away and it was downtown trafficto get there. i showed up late, never met my preceptor, never had a real patient onmy own, and i was freaking out. there was no way i was going to survive this shift.what my preceptor did, i love my preceptor vanessa.
she could see that i was really flusteredand i was freaking out. i wanted to get there early, look at my patients, learn like youdo in clinical in school, but that didn't happen. she took me aside, she took me overby the break room i remember i just clocked in at the phones, she took me aside and shesaid, "look jon, take a minute, relax, and then we'll go hit this hard, all right? there'splenty of time to learn." it is terrifying, it is so terrifying. what happens as a new nurse is that everyoneknows this, okay? if you're lucky enough to get into a hospital that has good nurses,good managers, good preceptors, they understand this and they're here to help you. that'swhat we're doing here too, is we're here to
lift you up and to be that support under you.no one expects you to know everything, no one's going to leave you on your own duringyour first shifts, and if they do you need to report that, you need to get out of thatenvironment. no one's going to put you in an unsafe situation. vanessa was like a little bird on my shoulderfor the first 13 weeks, and she started to distance more and more as she saw me beingmore comfortable. as that happens and as you become more confident, you're going to bemore comfortable. no one's going to put you in a situation where you're going to havethat life in your hands, and they're going to put you in a situation to fail. while youshould be scared, while it is terrifying and
scary, you're going to be supported and you'regoing to be okay. natasha. i'm dedicated to continuing withmy rn critical care is my dream. as an lpn status, what steps would you take to worktowards getting experience and more knowledge for the ccu besides course work? what preparedyou? i've had no prior medical experience. thisis something that i see in myself and a lot of people is that we want to icu and so wespend a lot of time in school trying to read books like this that we just don't understandand don't get. those books are good and they're awesome when it's time for those books. rightnow when you're in school and you're preparing ... you're in your lpn program going for abridge i assume. right now it's time to be
doing that and to be focusing on that anddoing the best that you can at that. when the time comes to be in icu your learningdoesn't stop. you don't get that icu job, you don't walk through that door that firstday, and you're done. the learning continues forever. what i would say honestly ... this probablyisn't the answer you want or the answer that you're looking for, but what i would honestlysay is focus on doing the best that you can in the stage that you're in. if opportunityarises to float to icu or to do some tech work or to do some lpn work in icu, pass medsor whatever it is, take that opportunity and do that, but don't get worried about thesethings until it's time.
i read this book at work, i read this wholebook at work. when there was a minute i would open the book and i would read it, and someof the nurses make fun of me. they were on facebook, or shopping or planning their nextvacation, but what i was doing is i was preparing, i was continuing to learn. that's probablynot the answer you want, sorry, but i would say is what matters most in every stage oflife, is this stage of life. doing the best that you can then to prepare for the nextone. mindy. how often are nursing diagnosis usedout in the real world? are they more specific to certain departments like the icu? do you want to be honest? don't tell yournursing professor i said this. they aren't
used. when you do your nursing charting, thewhole charting like epic and mckesson and all these programs have nursing charting builtin to them to where you have to do a diagnosis, and write your interventions and do all thatstuff. that all happens but it's all clicking boxes. it's like in impaired skin integrity,and then you're intervention is i'm going to turn q two hours, i'm going to make surethey're getting nutrition. some of that stuff really helps, the problem is you usually don'thave time to do that until the very end of your shift. at the end of your shift you're charting you'relike, "oh yeah, i probably should have ... i probably could have thought about that a littlebit more during the shift." i will say though
however, and you can share to your nursingprofessors this portion. nursing diagnosis are important now to learn some of the interventionsthat are possible for patients with different issues. like the skin care people, the woundcare nurses, those interventions and those things that relate to impaired skin integritymatter a ton. what matters in school is learning how totalk to patients, how to think critically. you see a patient who's immobile, you hada stroke and now they're not moving anymore, your mind has to start thinking impaired skinintegrity, and you have to start thinking when is this patient going to start eating?when are going to turn this patient? are we putting aleve on the bony prominences? stufflike that. nursing care plans matter, but
how often do we write them out? we don't,ever. we usually click boxes. couple of people have noted that it keepsfreezing. i'm not sure why that's going on. sorry guys. that's really annoying. i don'tknow if it is still freezing, sorry. looks like it's still freezing. any other questions? yes, there's another one, it's a long one.cathy. i was a none traditional student and just graduated from ku with my bsn. i completedmy [inaudible 00:50:38] in the nicu. during this experience i had developed a passionfor neonatal icu. finding a graduate nurse position in this area is proving difficultfor me. during interviews for other opportunities my nicu experience comes up. how would i relatemy nicu experiences to these job opportunities
such as med-surg, progressive care units oreven or pacu, and especially on handling the differences in patient care loads? the question is how to get the nicu positionor how to ... how to relate that experience to other jobs,to med-surg, pacu. getting a job as a new nurse in the nicu ... firstof all, we'll just answer that part. i think that's going to be almost impossible. buttransitioning from adult icu to nicu is much more possible. i've seen multiple people i'veworked with be able to make that transition. they always wanted to work nicu but they startedat adult icu and then move into nicu. don't give up on becoming a nicu nurse, i wouldsay give it a year in adult icu. let's talk
about the other side of the question. if youhave that experience in nicu as doing tech work or whatever it is, that would be so valuablewith the adult population because you understand patient loads. there's nicu babies that are one to one, alot of nicu babies are one to one, so you understand giving full attention to a patientthat's very sick, you understand dealing with incredibly complex family dynamic. i'd focuson those family dynamics. i would say something to this effect like, "i know how hard it isto work with family members in very stressful situations, and i know how to help [aleve00:52:19] that and make that better." i would say something like that, "and then i understandfocusing care on one patient."
next question. how many months was your orientation? is this still choppy? yes. someone said mine isn't freezing nowbut the video is about a minute behind the audio. sorry guys. i mean everything looks good fromour internet on this side, it's playing fine but i can see that it's very choppy. i don'tknow what to do. if the video's a minutes behind i can just take my face off and wecan ... i can look at stuff here. the question is, how long was my orientation. at my hospital,the orientation was 13 weeks, and i was lucky, as i said, a really good manager, a reallygood preceptor.
the way that it worked with us is if fiveweeks in you realize you need more time, they give you more time. if 13 weeks in they realizeyou need more time, they give you more time. what happens is [this 00:53:42] continuallyevaluated to see, "okay, are we needing more time because this is something that can befixed and be taught? or is this something that maybe a different floor is better forthem?" in the icu where i work there is three icus, the medical, surgical and neuro. therewere people that would move between the icus throughout internship trying to find the betterfit. there were some that ended up going to med-surg and loved it, were happy, very happy.there were others that decided nursing wasn't right or the hospital wasn't right.
long answer short, usually icu internshipsare about three to four months. or internships, operating room internships can be as longas six months. ed internships is also about three to four months. i would look for aninternship even med-surg if you're doing med-surg, i would look for an internship that's at leastfour to six weeks just because there's so much to get comfortable with and so much tolearn. i would really try to spend that much time getting to know it. any other questions? no, not right now. sorry about the video, that's really frustrating.i hope i was able to answer some of your questions.
i know there's a ton more we could've talkabout and i would love to talk about. if you guys have more questions, you know you canalways hit us up at nrsng.com and you can always find us on social media, nrsng, nrsngcom.i want to know what you guys are struggling with the most. that's what we're here for.i'm frustrated with all the junk there is out there for nursing students, and i wantto make this journey easier, better, more doable for you. anything we can do to make that better, pleaselet us know. if this video was helpful, let us know, give us a like, give us a comment,hit us up on social media, share with a friend. i'm going to put this video up on youtubeand over on the blog. if this was helpful,
please share with a friends, let us know,let's grow this family bigger. we're here for you, we want to see you succeed, and happynursing.
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