hey meagan i am a critical care nurse and a traveler actually some hospitals will take you on a as consortium where they train you for nine months or a year for icu and you have to commit to a year or two with the hospital. others want you to have a years experience. good luck yvonne

Meagan-Hi, I am an OB RN, and I have a couple of suggestions for you. First, while you are an aide, see if any local hospitals use them. Try to get a job in NICU as an aide, or in postpartum, or stepdown nursery...anything even close to your field of choice. This will probably mean that you have to do some night shifts, but if you even do it 2 days/wk while in school, and you prove yourself as a reliable, intelligent individual, you will probably line yourself up for a job. Secondly, when you have your LPN, see if the hospital has extern positions. Sometimes you can land a job as an extern while you are still in school working on your RN, again aligning yourself for the job of your choice. A third thing to look at is this. Because of the national nursing shortage, many hospitals are paying off your school loans if you agree to work for them for a specified time. Hope that helps.

I know exactly what you are saying. It's the same way I feel when I see medical personnel who still smoke. Overeating, smoking, alcohol abuse -- it hurts the professional credibility.

I work as a School nurse in a local middle school. I can't tell you how frustrated I am sometimes when my teens come to me who are "dieting". It just makes me sick to think that society has such an impact on how our kids think. Most of these girls are underweight. I feel like I am not getting the point across to them about proper nutrition because of my weight status right now. I think that is one of the biggest reasons why I am going to go through the surgery. I don't feel like anyone is taking me serious because I am so overweight. Anyone else out there feel frustrated?

Hello Dear Nurses, I will be having my open RNY proximal on May 6th,2004 @ 0830! I feel very comfortable with my doctor's expertise and excellent surgical outcome track records. My main concern is that in the past I have had a bad hospital experience from having a rude non-professional anesthesiologist to unfortunately having very pitiful to not really any nursing care. I would have never ever treated a patient the way I was treated ever in my lifetime. I hope and pray that there are a few compassionate empathetic & caring nurses to help me get through this WLS in the hospital. I can try to do most of my care myself with the help of my husband, but he is not familiar with proper procedures and how to use equipment correctly. Guess I will need to give him a quick course lol . I am hoping to get through this hospitaliztion without much pain, nausea, and vomiting and attitude type nurses taking care of me. I hope that I may get a chance to give back to other patients excellent nursing care with plenty of TLC without an attitude problem and plenty of love. I will try to be more assertive for myself and not take just any type of care. Have any other RN's had this happen to them? How would you handle my dilemma? I wouldn't tell anyone I was a nurse for in the hospital I am a PATIENT 1st. Do you think pulling rank any stating I am a nurse in a very nice manner would be to my best interest? Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated! Hugs to all the true loyal nurses still left in the world, so please stay that way forever. A saddened RN in Virginia who anxiously awaits her WLS to be on the losing side forever!