A little more about my job...

Hey hey!

Whew, well I'll tell you one thing, waking up at the crack of dawn every morning definitely takes a toll on a young body :)  That being said, I just woke up from a two and  a half hour nap that began at 5pm this evening...haha, I think my body might still be adjusting to everything.  It will be quite interesting once I begin the night shifts!

So I want to provide you all with a more detailed description about my current job as a New Graduate Nurse Resident at NYU; I've described it to a few of you but I think it would be nice to fill in others who still may not be entirely clear.  I'll use bullet points to help provide a concise picture.

• The NYU Nurse Residency Program is a one year program where new graduates from a Bachelor Degree of Nursing Program are hired as a RN onto a specific unit.  You begin the career with 8-10 weeks of orientation that includes classroom hours, laboratory skills, psychomotor and written tests in addition to a review of the hospital's policies and procedures.  NYU was one of the very first hospitals in the nation to institute a New Graduate Residency Program in 1996, since then there has been an incredible influx of new grad programs across the nation.
• The first three weeks are very classroom heavy and then the graduates are slowly integrated out of the classroom and onto the unit.  For example, this week I am on my unit one day (yesterday), today we had an all day class on reading EKGs (heart monitor strips), and reviewing the RN's responsibility during a code blue (this can differ at each medical institution).  Tomorrow I have a skills test and we are going over how to use their IV pumps and other medical equipment, later this week I also have computer training and some HR meetings.
• For the first 8-10 weeks you work side by side with an experienced nurse (mentor) on your assigned unit.  You share a patient load and gradually increase the patient load, starting with one and increasing to four or five.  
• There are about 30 new graduate nurses in the program, we are all in the same classroom but are assigned to many different units.  There are two other new graduates who work on my unit.
• We are also orientated to use the medical center library, in addition to a vast number of resources used at the medical school.
• For the 30 new nurses starting, there are four NYU graduate degreed nurse educators that work closely with us and are always available as resources and support systems.
• Throughout the year there are also mandatory workshops for all the new graduate nurses.  We are also able to choose a few specialties to shadow at the medical center.  For example, I am looking forward to following a palliative care nurse practitioner, a pediatric oncology nurse in addition to observing in the operating room.
• After 6 months I am able to start graduate school at NYU for free and am also able to become chemotherapy certified (so I can administer chemo).  I am hoping to pursue a graduate degree as a palliative care/geriatric nurse practitioner or as a nursing educator.
• An interesting tidbit: the two 'top dogs' that are the heads of nursing at NYU are both from Minnesota.
• However, I am the only person in the new graduate program this year from Minnesota, and actually the first ever from St Olaf.  There are a lot of new graduate nurses from NYU and the New York area but it really is a diverse group.  The nurses are from all over the country and from many different backgrounds.
• We are required to construct an evidence-based research project during the second six months of our first year, we are challenged to research an area that particularly interests us and an area where we can foresee improvement at the medical center.  Since NYU is a teaching hospital, they really emphasize research and continued education--this is an enormous perk of working at the hospital.

Well, I'll fully admit that I just spent this entire blog entry bragging about my new job but I must say that NYU does an amazing job with their nursing department and they deserve a little boasting :)

Please feel free to ask any more questions about the job but I hope this provides a nice overview of my experience here in NYC!

Take care and Love to all!

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"Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness."

-Ray Lyman Wilbur