As I'm sure they knew, it's not been easy to find an ICU job.
I did veg out for a whole week, and got nothing done. The next week, I started tackling the forms for permits, taking the NCLEX, signing up for the Kaplan review, etc.
No word back from any of the places I've submitted my resume.
I am going in tomorrow to get my live-scan fingerprinting done so I can finish this application and send it off, already.
Then, I guess I'll drive around to various hospitals with my resume and see if I can get someone to look at it--and maybe sneak a peak at some ICUs.
So, I guess now without 50 weeks in, I'm not a candidate for going back to Columbia...just like they've set up their little program to be now.
A million things to do, a zillion boxes to unpack, forms to fill out, job to find, etc.
I signed up for the Kaplan review (there goes five bills) but hopefully, it will get me back into gear...I feel like I've forgotten everything! So, the hard thing is going to be sitting down and pimping myself to an ICU as a new grad. Still no word back from UCSF and their new grad program (sigh)
Today, I made myself so busy that I couldn't possibly get anything done. I sorted through two bookshelves and recycled 2 Trader Joe's bags full of magazines (back issues of Surfer and Organic Style, snif!) I also gave the dog a bath, started the lettuce seedlings for the oak wine barrel that was invaded by weeds while I was gone, and trimmed the boxwood hedge that was threatening to grow over the front gate.
So much to do. And so unmotivated. Maybe I'm just tired.
I can't believe this hellacious year is finally at an end.
it's been fast and slow, somehow.
I guess the changing seasons make it seem faster. You know, by the time you get used to the cold, and drudging around in the snow, it thaws. You never get used to the heat, so I'm not even gonna GO THERE! Haha.
So, I guess tomorrow we have a meeting at 1 pm with the director of the anesthesia dept. (walk from the stage, to the office) I'm only going to lend moral support to my peers, of whom I'm quite fond (a few of them, not as much...but most of them, pretty good people.)
I'm really planning on having a harder year this year coming up due to trying to find a job, studying my butt off for the NCLEX, studying my butt off for the CCRN, studying my butt off to be able to cut it in an ICU...study, study, study.
I really hate the way this blog became a place for mostly bitching but...hey, there was so much to bitch ABOUT.
I heard a rumor that this next class coming in is even bigger than ours (190 people!!) oh mother. If you thought it was hard to get them to get organized and deal with US...what's this NEXT class in for? LOL.
Also, they had trouble placing all of us for integration...how the hell are they going to come up with so many more placements? I think most of the ones they have now should not ever be used again...this means that next year someone is going to get stuck with all the same shitty preceptors that we had.
WHAT a frigging day. I can't believe how bad it was. Several times, I got teary eyed and almost started crying.
I got yelled at by the unit clerk when I asked her how to fax the floor that was receiving one of our patients. She yelled at me "You've been here two months and you don't know how to use a fax machine?" I apologized for bothering her, told her that my preceptor had asked me only to fax the form and I didn't know the phone number, and I had only used the copier function on this machine, I'd never faxed from it.
"I know, I'm sorry, but I have like 40 people asking me things all day long!"
again, I apologized and said I didn't know who else to ask, and I was sorry...I knew she was busy. So I tried to find a phone directory or list of numbers or something. I almost went over to the unit to ask them their fax number.
So, then she felt bad I guess and she came over and tried to tell me the number and how to do it.
My preceptor came out and asked me if I'd called the unit and given report and faxed the form just as I wasgetting around to it.
"ask Clara, that's her job" "I did." "and?" "she yelled at me"
She laughed and said she felt bad for sending me off without enough info, and said she hoped that I would come back to her and tell her I didn't know how to do something, but I said "I was trying to figure it out, to help you by not bothering you with every last detail."
pretty much, that was what the whole frigging day was like.
My regular psycho-bipolar preceptor was there, and she was extra nutty. I was glad I wasn't working with her today. I said hello to her and she just ignored me.
Okey dokey.
At lunch I went in to Cheryl's office, (my liason) and she was in a meeting so I said I'd be back. She ended up coming by when I was walking out...I spent all frigging day online, reading email, goofing off. I can't DO anything so I was trying to find things to do. My patient was a cocaine-induced MI so he was sleeping for two days, and waking up to fill his urinal, and to take his meds, and that was that. Not much going on with him, not even on an IV. When she came by, she gave me the evaluation to fill out and sort of scolded me a bit. Never to write emails and leave a paper trail that sounded paranoid, that I had to get over it, etc.
I was like "wait a minute...I feel completely robbed here. I spent $70,000 on an education and I'm leaving here not knowing much more than when I started integration." Paranoid? You're my Liason! You're supposed to be the person to help me out of this mess. Argh!
Anyway, she showed me the evaluation my freak preceptor wrote for me...mostly 3s, two 4's (figures) on a scale of 1-4, 4 being exceptional, and 1 being inadequate or something.
Right now I'm so sad that I came to this school.
Such a waste of money.
Go anywhere else but here...save yourself 50 or 60 thousand dollars and learn stuff for real...that's my advice. I wish I'd listened.
I'm off for three fabulous days, and the weather reminds me of home in July. It's nice. 60 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. The kind of weather that makes you smile.
Yesterday we had a meeting with a higher-up to discuss the crap way we've been treated in the anesthesia department. The new director hasn't given us a moment of her time, dedicating herself more to the MSN students, and we're like the step-children in a victorian novel, locked away in the attic.
The long story made short: the new director has made it so that we can't take an extra year off to work in an ICU, or we'll forfeit our spot in the master's program. It's unlcear whether we're to have 50 weeks, 11 months, or 1900 hours of ICU experience, since we've heard all three. And, no one is hiring new grads directly into the ICU without previous experience in a step down or regular med-surg floor. So, how are we to get this year's experience? They've tightened restrictions because this is an accreditation year for them here.
Right now, I'm just depressed. I woke up and couldn't get out of bed for about an hour (that's not like me) and I just lay there and thought about everything. I hate everything and everything is heavy-feeling.
My preceptor wouldn't fill out my evaluation and go over it with me, but instead, I had to go back yesterday and put the form in her hand (that she said I never gave her, but has been sitting in her box for 2 months now, since day one) and she told me to come back later and pick it up.
On the one hand, I'm glad I don't have to see her again--she just grates on me...she'll start off saying one thing, for ten minutes, nag nag nag, and then you realize it's turned into a sort of "why you'll never be good at this" tirade, and you're unwittingly nodding mindlessly repeating your numb "yeah, mmm hum, right....yes" agreeing with her.
I just want a rest.
But I also feel like I need to hit the bricks running when I get home...I almost want to step off the plane with a stack of resumes, and go straight to every ICU between SFO and home and drop them off, shake hands and fill out applications.
When you voice this stress over getting a job and starting within two weeks they say "other students have done it in the past" to which I say "yeah? Under Eileen? and her Accreditation Crack-down changes that make it look like this is such a great program?"
I think I'd better get out and walk around today. I've no idea where I want to go, but just out. Hop on a downtown train and go wandering around somewhere worth seeing. (San Fran, perhaps?)
I"m still hoping and praying I'll get into Merritt, but I'm looking at anesthesia programs at USC, Fullerton, (my next two dreams) then Arizona, Minnesota (both the Minneapolis school of Anesthesia and the U of M--how ironic would that be?) Michigan, U Penn (Laura, need a roomie?) and Downstate in Brooklyn,to name a few.
ANYTHING but COLUMBIA. What a waste of $70K this has been, seriously. I could have gotten a BSN for a fraction of the cost. (I KNOW...YOU TOLD ME SO!) :)
When people said "Don't go...it's BAD" I had no idea how bad really BAD could be. So, now I know.
I picked up my white coat the other day; did I say this already? It's embarrassing and I don't even think I'll put it on--the sad truth is that as an RN you could NEVER wear a white coat, unless you're preceptoring or something...you'd get beaten down by the other nurses who would look at you like you want to be, or think you are a doctor, and you wouldn't know shit about shit.
Why they give us these things is ridiculous...the nursing pin would have been more meaningful and appropriate. But too many people were coming here, getting the (overpriced) BSN and never coming back (and, we all know why)
The white coat (a $14 item) will go into the back of the closet for eternity, until such time that I pass my MSN.
In protest, I probably won't put it on, but continue to carry it.
Ah yeah, you know how my unit won't let me draw blood or put in IVs? My friend Shannon is in the CTICU; they've been letting him pull out Swans. How do you like that? (for those of you that don't know, the Swan-Ganz catheter is (usually) a triple lumen cath that is inserted thru (usually) the right IJ (though this pic shows it going into the left subclavian, I've never seen it there) and is threaded thru the heart all the way to the pulmonary artery. Remember, my friend Shannon is on the wire, pulling this out, and I can't draw blood with vacutainer and butterfly needles)
Yesterday was my last day with my regular preceptor, but I still have 4 days left to complete with the cool, younger, more patient and tollerant preceptor.
The nursing manager checked with hospital policy--I AM supposed to be learning to start IVs, and drawing blood.
For whatever reason, my bitch preceptor just flat out refused--first it was my school policy, then it was the hospital policy...people just piss me off.
Anyway, I'm through with her.
I gave her a much undeserved gift and she chose to not open it in front of me, but read the little note I had attached, thanking her, and she hugged me an odd, upper body, shoulders only sort of hug. Kind of like "yeah, whatever..." (pat pat pat)
I told her that if she already owned it, or didn't like it, she could exchange it, to which she said "you shouldn't do that, why do you do that, you're like my boyfriend, he does that all the time...you shouldn't undermine what you do"
She then took me out to the bulletin board and said she had something she wanted to give me. She took down a piece of paper and made me photocopy it. Reading it now, I realize why she was so seemingly annoyed by me...I can see why this haqs so much meaning for her, and perhaps I can remember when I used to feel like this too. I'm also proud to say that it's something I already do, and I've gotten here on my own, without this piece of advice. It says:
PROMISE YOURSELF To be so strong that nothing can disturbe your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness and prospecity to every person you meet. To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. To think only of the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best. To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. To forget mistakes of the past and press on ot the greater acheivements of the future. To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile. To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
Now, reading that, I understand why she hated me; why she made my days so difficult, why she resented me so much. Why she was interested in Buddhism, and wondered about getting closer to the feeling of letting go that she so needs.
I hope she gets the peace in her heart that she needs to be happy.
