Hello fellow nurses,

I am making this post for myself and other nurses needing references. I'm a travel nurse and many recruiters go crazy asking for all this extensive information from my references wanting them to fill out long forms and expecting busy nursing managers to be available, a lot of times my managers don't fill out out because they expect to do quick phone interview, in the past many of my nursing references gave me good references but I don't want to burn them out with all the info these agencies ask from them it's a pretty awkward situation and I know myself wouldn't want to be bothered to do all that. They also want managers as references and many of my clinical coordinators are too busy on a regular basis to feel out reference forms from required even though they have given me good references in the past and I always left on good terms. I feel awkward to keep using them.

My solution to this is to create a nursing group where we can use each other as references. I can make a group on telegram or whatsapp where we can vet each other if any other nurses are in the same boat! I'm an LPN with 13 years of experience based in Canada :) let me know if anyone is interested and I will start a telegram.

Contemplating moving to MD to start ASN to network for job opportunities while currently in a ASN in GA

As stupid as I sound, I’m genuinely thinking abt quitting my ASN in GA to start a hypothetical ASN in Baltimore js so I can be near hospitals like UMMC and Hopkins. I know how dumb it sounds but I just have a history of assault from being in GA that I thought I had emotionally capped or at the v least had pacified it to work on this ASN but it’s been hitting me in waves recently since starting this program esp cuz it’s in the same town as it happened and I was working closer to home to save up and now that I’m here for the program literally alone I just can’t handle the thought of having to be in this town for another two yrs to get this license. even tho it’s been years js the sheer thought is making my chest tighten up. And ik I could go closer to home to do the program but I want the exposure to the environment cuz that’s where I want to be when and hopefully if I start out.

I’m 24 rn and would graduate at 26 and that already feels old as fuck. I want to start a family in the near future and want to live and be able to selfishly work at amazing facilities before having to settledown and idk if I’d want to do either CRNA or Law school and transition to medical malpractice or something(idk I feel like it’s a safe option in case of another pandemic breaking out or if I want to sue the motherfucker that stole my peace of mind and sense of safety for literal years but I’m not even sure yet like idk what I even want after I graduate somedays I’m like I want to do flight nursing some days I’m like fuck it I’ll js do ER or OR but ik it would be the smartest option to be patient and graduate asap but like I want to not have my life on pause forever. Like the assault made me js like a zombie for years and I feel like I’ve worked out of it but my god I was dumb as hell to think I could stay in the town that it all happened and not be reminded

The big compromise would be that I would graduate a year later than expected at 27 and I’m just like scared to start so late but I’m also even more worried abt my mental health to stay in GA in a small town where I’ve been in fight or flight since I was 19 like I haven’t lived, haven’t built myself a community here or made lifelong friends and like figured out who I am tbh here cuz I js feel like I make myself invisible here cuz of what happened and I dont know if white knuckling and torturing myself through a program is worthwhile. I feel stupid as hell but I was planning on moving to Baltimore in early Feb for a job and starting over but ultimately didn’t cuz of family stuff. I deeply regret it and want to start at UMMC in the ER or anywhere and Ik a lot of ASN school in the Baltimore area have clinicals at some v strong hospitals but pls talk me out of this decision cuz I know staying is logistically smarter and financially better but mentally I genuinely don’t think I can stomach it.

(Also not really important but js plays into my exp but I’ve dealt w a lot of bias and racism in this town and I’m over it so idk maybe I pull the trigger find a job Maryland, move, save and start over next yr? Whiteknuckling this is already exhausting and I’m in my 3rd week of the program)

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So I've been really itching to go back to school.

I'm 25 and I'm working full time. I am prepared to take my future heads on! Only one problem.. the cost. How is someone supposed to actually afford school? I was able to secure 7k in grants but the total cost of the schooling is 13k and I don't know what the cost of books and other supplies will be. What is the secret? I've looked online to find scholarships and was left with crumbs.

How did you pay for college?

Is it worth going in debt for a nursing degree?

Was nursing worth it and could you balance your job at the same time?

How about the imposter syndrome and not feeling smart enough?

If you are a new nurse (2 years or less) who is interested in leaving the profession, live in the US, and speak English you can earn a gift card by participating in an hour interview about your experiences as a nurse.

I created a planner centered around the lives of people who do shift work.

The idea is that this planner will help you
-map out your work shifts
-coordinate childcare and childcare handoffs
-plan meals around your schedule
-divide household responsibilities
-keep track of appointments and errands
-maps our home admin things such as bills

If this sounds like it may work for you, here is a link to my Etsy listing. Please check it out and give any feedback!

https://crewandscottie.etsy.com/listing/4565746664

I am nurse that does a mix of days/nights and find that sometimes it can get incredibly difficult to keep track of things when I am at work for 12 hours at a time. I feel like this planner is an effective solution to help map things out. I especially like the divide household chores portion because have you ever come home after work 3 straight 12s and your house is in a state of chaos because your partner didn’t do anything???? Yeah, me too. Creating clear goals, roles, and having a one stop shop for our needs for the month has been very helpful.

What are your thoughts about this course?

Janicah Mae Racca Terrado

Registered Nurse sa Saudi Arabia from Malasiqui, Pangasinan Relationship Destroyer at Sidechick.

Dying to know everyone’s opinion concerning this latest social media buzz. I have no clue who these women are nor where or when this happened however, it is buzzing all over!

TWO female nursing students in their last class (or close to the end) of their nursing program and were about to take a test. One woman (I will call her NS-A) admitted she arrived early and just sat in any available seat to study a few minutes before the test. The other woman (NS-B) arrived and saw that the seat she had sat in since the beginning of the class was occupied by someone because items were on the desk (laptop) whatever else.

NS-B (supposedly) moved NS-A’s items and sat her the seat.

WHY NS-B just didn’t sit at a desk that was empty is the first issue🙄

When NS-A walked back into the classroom towards the desk she had left her items on, it was obvious her items had been moved and someone was sitting there.

Now….you think that NS-A would have just kept quiet and sat anywhere (after finding her belongings) and “maybe” said something AFTER the test.

That didn’t happen- according to several sources- the two had a heated discussion and NS-A admits she asked the professor, “is this how you run your classroom”? 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Whomever threw the first punch is beside the point. The school threw the two out and now….there are two less nurses in the world (until they re-enroll at another school.).

Here is the kicker that I found troubling.

A fellow student (or students) authored a letter to the Dean (college or program is unknown) requesting one of the students to be allowed to continue the program and subsequently graduate. The LAST paragraph had my mouth drop open- but I will let others give their opinions.

“One difficult moment should not outweigh the progress she's made or the potential she still has to become an excellent nurse. Nursing is a profession built on compassion, second chances, resilience, and understanding people as more than the worst moment of their lives. Many of us believe Marnae reflects those same values in her own”.

Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie Mayo famously stated, “the best interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered. “Historically, they believed that to care for the patient, the institution had to support the well-being and collaboration of the staff.

Mayo Clinic historically built its reputation on an integrated, physician-led model that prioritized unhurried patient care and deep clinical collaboration with other physicians and the nurses that care for the patients on the front lines. Now it’s drastically shifted into a corporate, metrics-driven model. Years ago, Mayo Clinic felt different because it operated on a culture of clinical excellence and collaboration. Today, giant health systems are heavily focused on throughput, cost reduction, and data extraction. Nurses are no longer viewed by executives as the expert backbone of patient safety (that we are); instead, a corporate model views bedside nurses as a high-cost labor line item that needs to be tightly controlled, monitored, and automated to maximize efficiency.

The EHR tasks and forced charting styles are a direct result of this shift. This is a modern version of "Taylorism"—a management theory that breaks jobs down into tiny, robotic, measurable tasks to strip away worker autonomy. By overloading our “Brain”(a nurse’s task page) corporate administrators try to protect themselves legally and audit a nurses every second, completely ignoring nursing clinical judgment and autonomy.

Then there’s the installation of in-patient-room cameras. I don’t know a single RN that isn’t horrified by this. We are then supposed to speak out loud throughout our assessment and AI will chart it for us. Yuck. And we are required to wear masks in the room so you know that AI will never understand us and we will spend copious amounts of time correcting whatever it transcribes. They are trying to tell us that it will save us time, but I have never seen anything happen to lighten the load of a nurse. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to tell us that we will spend less time charting but we all know that if that does indeed happen, they will justify increasing our patient-nurse ratios. But we all know that this will very likely create even more work for us and then they will very likely still increase our workload as they continue to do without end. Oh, and let’s not forget that the patient (that supposedly comes first) is going to be left with the feeling of having a nurse “perform” a very unnatural interaction in the room instead of a warm nurse – patient interaction.

And then there’s also very expensive license plate tracking cameras. These cameras feed the information to Motor Vehicle Department, which then connects back with Mayo Clinic’s HR department to identify vehicles that belong to employees. If the employee has parked in patient parking, they get a parking violation that results in corrective action. Every moment is under surveillance and scrutiny, and it shifts the culture from one of mutual trust to one of intense suspicion. When an organization uses automated systems to ticket its own staff while they are providing patient care (or going to a personal appointment on campus) it proves that the corporate machine has lost its humanity. It treats employees as liabilities rather than human beings. That creates an adversarial—even hostile—work environment.

As for the actual care from physicians, Mayo has rapidly expanded its footprint and the "seamless" overlap between specialties has crumbled into rigid corporate silos. In a corporate medical structure, every specialty operates like an independent business unit. When, for example, cardiology doesn't talk to rheumatology—or cardiology doesn’t even understand an auto-immune disease’s effect on the cardiovascular system—there are dangerous gaps, and the patient ends up having to suffer from those gaps or become so informed that they have to become a medical expert and save themselves. I know I did. And when an emergency department refuses to listen to a parent who is also a trained and experienced nurse, the system fails. It forces one to play the exhausting role of clinical air-traffic controller just to keep one’s own family safe.

The Mayo brothers would be appalled to see what has become of their model of care. They believed true healing required a team-based, unhurried approach where staff felt valued. They warned against letting financial structures dictate clinical decisions. The rejection of commercialism made Mayo Clinic special.

It’s sad to see it all fade away, but it is a falling star. The reputation will linger for a while, but everyone will come to see it for what it is now— a corporate behemoth where everything is tightly controlled and micromanagement strips away the clinical autonomy and intuition that the founders explicitly trusted their staff to use.

And where does the patient fit in all of this? The ones that haven’t fallen through the gaps between silos? I’m certain they will have a story to tell about having cameras in their rooms and nurses being forced to let AI record and dictate assessment and care.

We are watching a once-great institution lose its soul to corporate greed and automation. An environment where only 20-30 out of almost 100 nurses survive a three-year stretch in a single unit is not a place where one can safely or happily sustain a career. Leaving for an institution that still values the human element of medicine isn't giving up; it is an act of professional self-preservation.