Kelly Holland

Bozeman, MT (Mom and Nanuq)

I’m stoked!!! After a few months of disheartening job hunting, I was fortunate to land a nursing job in my home town of  Bozeman, MT. It wasn’t my original plan, but I couldn’t be happier. I’m thrilled on the job, and I can’t wait to start working at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital and get some solid RN experience. Medical/Surgical floors….here I come! I knew the job market would be tougher than normal when I graduated, but I had no idea that it would be this bad….I mean, I’m a nurse. I quickly found out that employers at the moment don’t want to deal with the investment of a new nurse when budgets are tight and experienced nurses came back to work, didn’t retire, or went part-time to full-time in this unique and troublesome economic climate. I thought graduating in nursing was a sure thing, bad economy or not. I’ve learned that is not necessarily the case. Although, while it’s a more formidable process than normal for the new graduate nurse, it is still just a matter of time, a matter or when and not if. Some professions probably can’t say the same.

It has been a frustrating and eye opening experience this winter as I exhausted hospital after hospital west of the Mississippi, so I have one more rant before I get off of my soap box. I would like to send a heads up, out to all upcoming new graduate nurses….I highly recommend starting your job hunt early. While the final push is full of papers, exams, and stress–take the time to inquire with nurse recruiters and upcoming new grad programs or internships. It is my belief that many organizations are taking care of their own, so to speak, right now with the few, new graduate RN positions that are out there. I can definitely tell you this, experience trumps education big time at the moment. Unless you’re okay with chill’n for the next six months to a year, waiting for something to open up, get your foot in the door any way possible and get on it now, because it’s not easy. Granted things are extremely different than normal, and a lot of schools may not even realize the extent of difficulty for their students in this unique job climate, but I didn’t get a whole lot of anything from my faculty with regards to preparing for this beat down. I’m wishing someone had thrown me a bone, but maybe it just wasn’t something anyone saw coming. With that said, I’ll get off my soap box…just some food for thought and words to the wise.

After all my hunting, I find myself in the place where it all began. After being here for almost three months now, I’ve realized how much I missed Bozeman. I’m actually really happy to be back and thrilled to stick around for awhile. I have the mountains again, including Bridger Bowl, and I have beautiful Montana summers. On top of all that, I have my family and some really cool friends.

I had grandiose dreams of nursing in a big city, wading through level one trauma in the emergency department, but when it’s all said and done, I’m pretty blessed and stoked that things worked out the way they did. It’s funny how it works like that…I say, “everything for a reason.” That’s not to say I may not look for that high acuity, high stress emergency department down the road, but for now, I’m home.

Bozeman Deaconess Hospital in the background….my new home of employment!

Bad cell phone photos, but South Bozeman and Spanish Peaks in the background of photo on the left and Bridger Mountains to the North in photo on the right. A nice March day for a dog walk.

South Bozeman in March…it’ll be beautiful when its green.

Photo By Adam Clark. Crystal Mountain, WA

Photo by Steve Loyde. Solitude, UT

My photos disappeared for awhile due to a minor disconnect between my website and Flickr, but we’re back up and running. In fact the whole thing was way over my head, but thanks to my website guru buddy Sam, the kinks have been smoothed out and fixed. I once again have a photo gallery under my photo tab. Thanks Sam!!!

I was fortunate enough to attend the National Conference of Wilderness Medicine at Big Sky over this past week, and it was awesome! Hypothermia, snake bites, HAPE, frostbite, etc….I’ve been itching to attend this thing for years, as my dad has received the brochure annually for as long as I can remember. I was just waiting until I could officially say that I was a nurse before I actually signed up; I might as well get some continuing education credit for my license, right? Plus, I figured I’d at least  have a faint idea of what the speakers were talking about if I waited until after a nursing education. I can only hope to find more outlets down the road that will allow me to combine my nursing knowledge and wilderness medicine interest. It’s just so cool! I haven’t quite figured out how one gets their foot in the door with all those cool expeditions, but I sure hope to find out sooner than later. Any opportunity will be incredibly welcomed. One thing is for sure, it really feels good to be back in the mountains.

In addition to the wilderness conference, I was able to hook up with the ski crew that came out for the Billy Poole/Big Sky Youth Empowerment event at Big Sky this weekend. It was great to see the Salt Lake kids, who graciously donated their time to shred with local youth, and most importantly…..I got to hang out with my best friend Rachael Burks. Yeah, it was pretty darn cool. I not only got to go to an amazing conference, but I got to ski with some shredding kids from the area and their SLC mentors, all in honor of our good friend Billy Poole. It wasn’t too shabby.

Me and Elizabeth Copeland at December 2009 Duke School of Nursing graduation.

As usual I’ve taken a back seat to this website, but it is now time to update. After an entire fall, the last of my nursing program, and a holiday season, I’m temporarily a Bozeman, MT resident again.

I spent my last semester as a nursing student split between the Durham VA medical Center and Duke University’s Emergency Department. After 168 hours in the Emergency Department I had solidified my passion for emergency nursing. I fell in love with IVs, foley catheters, and heart monitors. I some how finished my last semester with all A’s and actually graduated in December…yipee! I’m a real life nurse graduate, and as of January 14th–after the daunting NCLEX exam–I’m a real life nurse with a real license.

Duke Nursing Class 2009

Now if I could only get a job I’ll be set. Who would have guessed it would be so difficult to find a nursing job as a new graduate. Nursing shortage, what?!  My original hope was to find my first job in a larger hospital in a metropolitan area, preferably in an emergency internship. That dream lasted about  two seconds when after exhausting the West Coast I realized I had to broaden my search. At this point I’ve looked high and low, big and small, and within every department. I’ve found that during these economic times it really comes down to who you know…and that can be tough when I don’t seem to know any nurses in the areas I want to go…I don’t know many nurses period. I definitely chose the worst year to graduate from nursing, or from any school for that matter. I only hope that my fellow nursing students are having better luck than I. Keep on truck’n!

Christmas was magical as usual at home, and as white as ever. Dav, Nanuq, and I spent the holidays with my parents, brother, grandma, and uncle Bob. We skied, skated, caroled, and drank a lot of hot buttered rum.

Holland caroling party.

Oh Nanuq…the cutest Christmas dog ever.

Dad’s favorite Christmas gift…thanks Uncle Tim! I was jealous.

Dav and Dad’s famous train.

Grandma and Mom caroling.

Grandma’s Christmas earrings…made by yours truly.

Unfortunately little bro Wade decided to top off the holidays with a shattered femur. After deciding to build a booter in the backcountry with very little snowpack, he came down hard on a rock. After three hours of painful waiting, he was heli evacuated to the Bozeman Deaconess Hospital. Three surgeries later, compartment syndrome, my father’s wrath, and New Years Eve hooked up to an IV, he was discharged to spend the month of January at home. While he was bummed to be couch-bound at home, I was happy to have a buddy to keep me company during my job hunt. Not to mention, he was my guinea pig patient…I couldn’t wait to practice my injections with his daily Lovenox. It should be noted that since Wade broke himself two days before my father’s 60th-birthday heli ski trip–which included Wade and me–and since we had to cancel the entire week of really deep, interior B.C. powder, he owes us one. When he becomes the rich business man I know he’ll be, he can get us back…I’ll be waiting.

So, here I am, still in Bozeman, the unexpected roommate of my parents. While Dav sits back in Durham to get what work he can, patiently waiting for me to find a job, I continue to hunt. Application after application, rejection after rejection, I’m still looking. I’m crossing my fingers and loving my mother’s home cooking at the same time. I would love income as soon as possible, but I do love home while I have it.

Hylite trails with Mom, Dad, Nanuq, and Pearl

I returned late Saturday night from an amazing two weeks in Nicaragua. A group of seven girls and myself from Duke’s school of nursing completed our community health clinicals in Managua, Nicaragua from August 8-August 22. Not only did I have fun and learn a ton about Nicaragua’s health care system, but my Spanish had ample practice as well. One aspect of our program involved pairing us with a Nicaraguan nursing student with whom we worked with over the two weeks…it was full immersion and awesome. My language skills still got mad laughs and the “huh?” looks, especially when I tried to implement  patient education on safe sex and sexuality, but it was amazing how much I was able to remember and pull together when forced to use it.

 We spent the mornings in El Centro de Salud, a small clinic in a Managua neighborhood called Villa Libertad. This was mostly observing, but we had the opportunity to do some hands on…basically, we weren’t allowed to touch the “sharps”. The clinical offered an array of services including emergency, well baby check ups, prenatal, general med, HIV/TB, hydration, and vaccinations. I stepped way out of the way at the vaccination station, as the flying needles made me a little nervous….let’s just say they used a little bit of a different technique that I was taught. It was definitely a situation where people did the best they could with the resources that they had and the time they were given. The nurses had an average of 40 people to see in the morning and 40 to see in the afternoon. That’s a lot of patients, and certainly not a lot of time to discuss problems. It was wam bam, thank you mam….and right back through the revolving door. It was super interesting to see the differences. We were fortunate enough to see a tour of a public and private hospital one day as well, which was super interesting. The differences were huge. After seeing the public hospital I crossed my fingers daily that I wouldn’t get hurt while down there…

 I missed a lot of details in the morning, as the nurses spoke too fast for me to keep up while we were working with the patients. Luckily my Nicaraguan side kick filled me in along the way…she was great about slowing it down and explaining things simply. Good thing I wasn’t charge nurse.

After lunch at UPOLI, one of Managua’s universities, we spent the afternoon doing home visits with some low income families in Villa Libertad. UPOLI runs a very small clinic in the neighborhood, and all of our families lived within a few blocks of this base. My Nicaraguan side kick Evelyng and I were assigned a family that we worked with over the two weeks. We had the pleasure of meeting Fatima, her son Elyen, and her daughter Katti who were all soooo kind. We did health assessments, interventions, and referals that will hopefully add some benefitial elements to the family’s health.

We also had a quick trip to the beach over the weekend. We drove about two hours south toward Costa Rica and had a night in San Juan del Sur. We stayed in a beautiful villa with a beautiful pool and quick access to the beach. Unfortunately I came down with a cold the very day we left for the beach, so I spent the whole trip sleeping and recovering, but it was still a nice get away from the city.

 The trip was wonderful. I survived the mange street dogs and thus far I seem malaria and dengue fever free. I indulged in as many deliciously cooked plantains, as much carne asada, and coconut icecream as possible. Surprisingly I didn’t even get any GI issues to the very last day….there were few who could say the same. There’s nothing like the runs in Nicaragua, but after two days of parasite meds I was good to go. The only down fall is that I had to start back at school right away on Monday. At least it’s my last semester…yippee!

 All photos from my trip can be seen under my photos page, titled Nicaragua.

Thank you Lorie for being an awesome instructor, and thank you UPOLI and the Rivas students for the kind hospitality.

Everyone should check this out! Rachael Burks, my best buddy ever, spent the winter slaying the mountains with TGR and filming beautiful turns and hucks on skis. Click on the link below to get a glimpse of what she has to offer and a taste of TGR’s upcoming ski movie. It’s pretty damn impressive, and I’m not just saying that. Rach raises the bar yearly on skis and has made a huge break through for all women in the ski industry. She’s not just good for a girl….she’s just ridiculously good and throws down.

http://www.tetongravity.com/videos/Almost-Live–Episode13–Rachael-Burks-738134.htm

After moving our good friend Kirsten up to Virginia Beach, VA a few weeks ago we earned a free place to crash in her lovely, aqua-blue beach front apartment. It was a 24-hour whirl wind of lifting, loading, and undloading, so a two-minute glance of the beach was all I got during the move. Since things are only going to get crazier this month with finals and my trip to Nicaragua, I thought this past weekend would be the perfect time to check up on Kirsten’s Virginia Beach transition and cash-in on our free accomodations. We supplied the blow-up air mattress and Kirsten kep a room with our name on it.

 Dav, I, and Nanuq headed up on Friday night. We hit up Bubba’s for a seafood dinner and drinks, a pina colada for me, and headed home early. The next day we conquered the Virginia Beach boardwalk. It was a nice little Saturday that consisted of the four-man bike buggy, pomagranite mojitos, calamari, margaritas, nachos,…..and a little beach.

 The morning was perfect for a dog walk on the beach. Nanuq has yet to enjoy swimming, but he’s working on it. He was taking lessons from his bff Hendrix.

 We hit Chicks Oster bar Saturday and ate like royalty with crab, mahi mahi, and osters in the half shell….and wine of course. The night was topped off with ska music and dancing at the local hot spot…the Hot Tuna!

Good times in Virginia Beach….thanks Kirsten!

I finished up a long winter of blah weather, strenuous classes and crazy clinicals…I couldn’t have been happier when my break came around and summer enveloped Durham. I traded my clinical at the Prison for maturnity and pediatrics clinicals at Duke University Hospital. While I wouldn’t trade my experiences at Butner Federal Prison, I was ready to move onto something new. I do however miss the ample opportunities for IV practice, be it on patients or each other…that was awesome.

I spent the mini break with my parents, exploring Durham and the Outer Banks.

I then started the summer semester, rejuvenated, but a serious drop in motivation as the beautiful weather and good times creeped into the priority list. Thank god this semmester has been much more humane and easier to juggle…there is much more foregiveness for the occasional slacking. In turn I’ve had my fill of bbqs, pool time, wine on the local patios, Durham Bull baseball games, biking, and swimming. Summer  here is 100 times better than the winter…I love it.

Dave finally accepted BBQ…it’s not french, but it’s pretty good.

I made one little side excursion to Utah this summer to celebrate Britta’s bachelorette. Some do Vegas, some conquer the city bars, but Britt chose the White Rim. It was the coolest bachelorette party ever…12 girls and a kick ass bike trip though southern Moab. It’s a trip I’ve always wanted to do, and it took me actually moving across the country before it happened. I’m glad I could do it with Britta, Rach, and some rad girls…super rad! I had a lot of catch up to do at school afterwards, but it was worth it.

I was also blessed with a camio by my little bro last weekend, which was a ton of fun. We  kept him amply busy and entertained, as Dave is a natural social coordinator. I think Wade probably slept for a day when he got back to Boulder.

David just received his work authorization in the mail last week and has an interview for his Green Card next month…yippee! The process went way faster than expected. He’s almost a legal Frenchman….not to mention he can actually find legal work with a full time income. That’s nice. Now, if I could just get done with school…I guess have to keep on truck’n.

Spring break was great…and sooo needed. I’ve never craved a break like I did this one. School has been taking its toll, but a little Florida sun with Grams was just what I needed. It was a week in Lady Lake, Florida, sitting by a pool, hitting golf balls, and driving the golf cart like it was Grandma’s Cadillac. Awesome. It was a twelve hour drive, but it included a stop in Augusta, Georgia for a visit with Fabien (fellow french friend and tennis star) and a quick stop over in Savannah, Georgia. It was just a glimpse, but we stopped long enough to hop on a scenic tour trolly through historic Savannah. Nanuq was even jumped aboard for the fun…It’s a beautiful southern city that is at the top of my must-see-again list.