20-01-2023 RN

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟•Facility: Natividad Medical Center, Salinas CA•Unit: ARU/Med Surg nights•ARU ratios 1:4, Med Surg ratios 1:5 (My fiancé worked nights in the ER and he absolutely loved it as well! His ratio was 1:4 and he got adults and peds pts. Level ll trauma ER)•My contract stated I could be occasionally floated to their mental health unit, but I never got floated!•For night shift - nurses do Q12hr VS (techs do Q8hr VS) and nurses do all their pts blood sugar checks. •Techs: 2 techs at night split between 28 beds. The unit was broken down into 7 pods. Pods 1 and 2 were pts that were discharging soon and typically easier/more ambulatory/independent. The middle pods were your typical ARU/Med Surg type pts, and the last 2 pods were for stroke pts. 3 tech during the day. Speaking from night shift perspective - night shift techs were always super helpful!•EMR: Meitech (I never used this system before but it wasn't hard to catch onto it!)•Alaris pumps•Lab team, wound team, RRT•Nurses and techs were assigned phones at the beginning of their shift•List of on call Drs for night shift that you can call or text. To text the Drs you could download a hospital used app that protects pt information onto your personal phone and message them through the app. Or, you could message them through a messaging system on the computers. They were quick to respond and always very nice!•Salinas is a high Spanish speaking population so Google Translate was handy to have downloaded if you don't know Spanish •Overall, everyone from the nurses, techs, lab team, Drs, respiratory team, charge nurses, my supervisor, HR, staffing, and even pharmacy were so, so welcoming and kind 💙 It was my first travel nurse contract and I ended up doing 3, 13 week contracts there 😅. I couldn't have asked to be surrounded by better people or for a better first contract!▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎▪︎•Housing - My fiancé and I rented a house in Carmel! Downtown Carmel looks like it's straight out of a magazine! It is the cutest, cleanest, safest area! It was 30 mins from Natividad on the way in (again, we worked nights). The drive home in the mornings was typically 40 minutes but it's a beautiful drive! Salinas is a lot of farmland with mountains/rolling hills in the background so when the morning glow hits it's 😍🙌🏼🧡••Monterey, Pacific Grove, and Seaside are some other amazing areas to look for housing and are within 15-25 minutes from Salinas! A lot of great restaurants, shops, and gorgeous walking paths along the water!

, ARU Salinas, CA