Job hunting & career goals

[hillarygayle]

I'm job hunting. We've lived this long on just Bryan's salary & we don't have school to pay for right now, so I'm being a bit picky. I want an ER job, specifically one at night. Nighttime is when all the crazy stuff happens, and I want the ER for the craziness and the action. I'm actually thinking, crazy as this sounds, of The Med in Memphis. I'd only be commuting 3 days a week, and they have both a trauma center (named after Elvis Presley!) and a burn center. It's not the big burn center in the area (that honor goes to the one housed at Arkansas' Children's in Little Rock), nor is it accredited by the American Burn Association, but it is a burn center nonetheless.

Here are the websites I'm stalking:

St. Bernard's career opportunities. Beware the automatically-played advertisement type thing. It's halfway down the page on the right if you wanna turn it off. You will.

NEA Baptist Memorial career opportunities.

Career opportunities at The Med. You have to click in a few places; it's a generated page, so I can't link it.

My long term career goals are starting to come together now that I have time to think beyond just "RN." There are at least 2 things I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that I want.

1) My SANE certification. SANE stands for "sexual assault nurse examiner" and I'm quite sure I want the "adult/adolescent" certification. I'm not sure about "pediatric". My communication skills are at their best with adults or teens, and I'm not sure I'd be very good at pediatric. However, I won't rule it out. This is something that's been extremely important to me since I first learned about it, and it's the major reason I am interested in trauma in general. If I limit myself to only burns, I'm limiting myself from things this--things that are just as important to me, if not more.

2) A DNP, or doctorate of nursing practice. Yes indeed, I'm already thinking about more school. Not right now, of course; I want much more experience than I have right now (which is not hard). But eventually this is where I'm going. I wanted a career that gave me two things: the ability to work with people directly and the ability to take my education to the highest available levels. This type of program incorporates both. It's for the nurse who wants a doctorate, but who wants to remain at the bedside. The goal of the DNP is to drive evidence-based practice; these are the nurses who are conducting research, deciding how that information applies to nursing practice, then figuring out how to implement that in direct patient care. I can go through a master's first, or I can go straight from a BSN. One of the schools offering the DNP, you'll notice, is Texas Women's University, in Dallas where my in-laws live.

Thinking about these now, I can see how one could greatly benefit the other. There's a potential here for me to really advance the handling & treatment of sexual assault victims. I wonder if there's someone out there who's interested in mental health nursing who'd like to team up with me on this? HMMMMM?

For now, however, first things first. JOB. Anyone need an ER nurse?

Comments

[delight]

For now, however, first things first. JOB. Anyone need an ER nurse?

Actually yes?

But I think you don't want to relocate here.

I am going for my RN too, once I finish paramedic. Year off, back to nursing, and am looking at a DNP or Advanced Practices in Forensic Nursing ... so I think we're basically doing the same thing.

ETA: To prove I meant it, here's the posting; I do days and we'd never collide except when my anaesthesiology rotation starts up and hell if I know when that is (my schedule is really vague), but if you did want to move to Albany, there you go. It's the most badass ED ever.

Admittedly you'd have to be an RN in New York, but, eh, details. :|

[axelrod]

I'm so excited for you : )

And I kinda get the same feeling when I look at my scholarly plans and my zine plans and my learn-how-to-build-houses-and-farm plans and my librarianship plans and how they might come together long-term in various ways (sequentially, perhaps). It's like: cool stuff I can learn how to do and support myself with! W00t!

How long does it take to get the SANE certificate? I don't know what it covers - psych stuff, about a person's mindset after a sexual assault; physical stuff to look for; procedural stuff so evidence is admissable in court ... it doesn't seem to me like that would take a whole certificate program, actually, but I am so very much a layperson about this sort of thing.

[hillarygayle]

The SANE certification does take a whole program. I'm not sure how long it is, but it isn't like a series of college courses. It's a specialized thing; you tell your hospital "I would like to certify" and then you sign up. They give you whatever time off you need & it counts toward continuing education credits. Some hospitals, depending on your department, would pay you to do it. I could see this being hella useful in a small town emergency department like Jonesboro's. I'd be massively useful to the local police. Or I could use it in a big trauma center as in Little Rock, where they possibly have a team of SANE nurses.

All of the above is covered: psychology & victim's emotional state, how to obtain specific physical evidence, chain of custody & non-contamination procedures, & ways of questioning that don't further victimize the victim but still obtain info.

A very cool thing they did at the Student Nurses' Association conference (during the SANE presentation group) was to ask us to picture the best sexual experience we ever had. We closed our eyes, and they began to ask us SUPER detailed questions about it. Stuff I couldn't even remember, and I was remembering a particularly mindblowing time just after I went off hormonal BC & got my sex drive back. They went on & on asking these questions & I really couldn't remember a lot of it! Turns out, those are the questions that get asked after a rape. It was a really sobering perspective, since so many people say "If she can't remember any more than THAT, could it really have happened?" The answer is "Hell, yes."

[quiara]

I wonder if there's someone out there who's interested in mental health nursing who'd like to team up with me on this? HMMMMM?


Gee, I dunno. Seems to me there's a lowly CNA out there somewhere who might be headed (slowly) that way.... ^_^