Lehigh Valley Hospital & Health Network

OK, so if you read any of the old posts on this blog from earlier this year, you might recall that I worked at Hershey Medical Center over the summer. Also, when people ask me where I want to work after I graduate, I generally tell them something like this:

My long term goal is to eventually become a flight nurse. Whether or not that will ever really happen remains to be seen, but I've continued to work towards that goal for the last few years, and haven't changed any major intentions. At this point there are only two hospitals that I'll consider within the area around home with associated flight crews. Those are Hershey Medical Center (HMC) and Lehigh Vally Hospital (LVH). Both are Level One trauma centers accredited with Magnet Status. Both are highly advanced and have excellent reputations far and wide. At this point I do not have a preference for either of them; they are both good. I'm not really interested at all in any of several other hospitals in the area, not even the ones closer to home. The only other thing that I would consider is if I were to be given a really good offer from a hospital out of the area. In any case, I'll probably eventually wind up moving to somewhere in the general direction of wherever I get hired. Hershey is a 39 mile commute one way from home, and LVH is about 45 miles one way.

With that explanation given, here is an update as to what is happening lately. On October 4,(seven years to the day after my accident) I went to Lehigh Valley to interview for a position as a "Professional Student Nurse Assistant" (PSNA). From what I understand, the PSNA at LVH is basically equivalent to a nurse's aid, but supposedly they recognize that you are in nursing school, and, as you work, they try to help you learn more than a typical aid would need to know. There is a little more info with a better description available here and here. As a PSNA at LVH, the student nurse can pick a department that interests them, and get familiar with the unit and the hospital by working there.

During the interview, they recommended that I work on a per diem basis while in this position. I did go for the interview only yesterday, and have not been officially offered a job yet. From what I understand, they will be getting back to me within the next week or two. If all goes well, they will then ask me which department I would like to work in. I'm not exactly sure yet, but it looks like I would probably go either to the E.R. or to the float pool which would give me the chance to work in several departments within the hospital. Before going to the float pool though, I would have some questions for them that the interviewer could not answer yesterday, such as, which departments I would be able to float to. If there is any chance of spending a good bit of time in their various ICU's, then that option would definitely interest me.

The other option that interests me just as much, is going to the E.R. I distantly know the manager in the E.R. at LVH. I was in a class with him at Alvernia this past spring. I took it for college credit, and he took it for continuing education. See my post about the "one-credit Saturday class" from a few months ago further down in this blog. I did not know that this guy is the manager in the E.R. at LVH; I only knew that he works there. Apparently since that class this spring, he was promoted. After I had gone for the interview at LVH, I thought it would be neat to just swing by down at their E.R. to see if they would let me take a look around. They were glad to show me to their manager, who is the same person I just mentioned. He recognized me immediately from the class, and showed me all around, including their trauma bays and everything. I was definitely impressed with their setup. If all goes well with getting hired as a PSNA at LVH, I am considering just picking to take that position in the E.R., and forgetting about the float pool. I think that manager wants to recruit me into the E.R.

So does this mean that I have brushed Hershey aside? No. I have the chance to step right into another externship there next summer, and have already applied again, but I thought it would be good to get a little experience in both hospitals so I can make a more informed decision about where to work after graduation. The final decision will be made later. At this point it is education and experience that I'm looking for. All the people that I have talked to about doing an externship during the summer before my senior year of college, have unanimously suggested that student nurses should pick a floor to do their externship in that they will want to work in after graduation. That sounds like good advice, sure, but I'm not sure which floor to go to straight out of school. With the goal to become a flight nurse, I am learning so far that several years of experience in either critical care and/or the emergency room are required. But which one first? I'm leaning more and more towards critical care.

Both hospitals offer internships (different than an externship) for the graduate nurse. Basically that means they offer specialized orientation and training to nurses who have graduated from college, but have not yet gone for their state or national licensure examinations yet. They help the student to get ready for the examinations, and help them transition from being a student nurse to a professionally practicing nurse in the real world. There are different kinds of nursing internships available at both Hershey and LVH that are tailored to different specialties, such as critical care - the one I'm interested in. The various internships might also include some specialized training such as Advanced Cardiac Life Support, or some other specialty courses, I'm not sure.

Since both hospitals offer internships, and both offer the kinds of specialties that I'm interested in, the decision looks like it could become a difficult one. I'm not trying to play any hard-to-get games or anything, but it does look like both hospitals want to recruit me. The manager that worked on the floor that I was on this summer at Hershey, switched positions and started working as a manager in their E.R. I heard through the grapevine that she told one of the other nurses that, "We need to keep that guy." However, it looks like LVH is showing some interest in me, but I know very little about them as of yet. What I'm looking for at this point is the most educational opportunity, not the highest pay, or the chance to climb some corporate ladder, or all kinds of perks. I just want to work some place that will be able to offer the kind of experience and learning environment that will give me the potential to become one of the best emergency health care providers possible within my scope of practice. How's that for a tongue twister?

This blog is the closest thing I have to a journal or diary. Some day I'll probably look back and laugh or maybe at least smirk at how clueless I am right now.

Does anybody have any more thoughts about the last post below? If so reply directly to it. I'm still looking for more input.

Oh, about that last post, I wound up dropping that genetics class. I'll admit it, I'm not the brightest student, and seventeen credits was just too much for me. Alvernia considers any student who is taking 12-17 credits to be a full time student. Anything more is academic overload, and anything less is considered part time education. I could have kept that class if there wasn't so much else going on right now, but I have enough to do, especially with Spanish class which I have been forever more struggling with. I've discussed it with my advisers and they approved and agree with the alternative plan I've decided on. I need one more class either at the Junior or Senior level to complete a minor in biology. Genetics was supposed to fill that, but now that it's been dropped I still need another class. During the spring semester, Alvernia offers a pharmacology class through the Biology department, and it is taught at the 400 (senior) level. I already took the nursing department's version of pharmacology, but don't feel like I know near as much as I should. I'll have room for another class like this one this coming spring; it will give me credit load of 14 credits. This biology version of pharmacology is the same one that the pre-med students take, and the biology professor who teaches it told me that other nursing students have taken it in the past to reinforce the nursing pharmacology class. Also, I'm taking a hint from my cousin, who is a missionary nurse practitioner in Haiti, that it would be good to have a strong background in pharmacology. (I don't think it's polite to mention people's names on this blog without first getting their permission. Many of you reading this blog know who I mean.) She told me that she wishes she could take a pharmacology class again because of all the vastly different kinds of patients she sees. As an emergency nurse, I'll probably be dealing with just about anything under the sun at any given moment as well, so this extra pharmacology class might be a good idea. So when all else fails I can just "pharmer" it. OK, that was corny.