JayKay Staffing

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 11, 2014

I am new grad LVN and don't have working experience as LVN except clinical experience. I am very much interested working in Correctionals. I have heard that they like to train their nurse their own way but at the same time I have heard that they need one year experience.
Can ANYONE guide me how to find job in CORRECTIONAL ?

Most agencies won't touch a new grad--LVN or RN--because agencies expect a level of nursing competence and the ability for you to hit the ground running from day 1...which as a new grad LVN, you are just not going to have.

Some agencies may take on new grads, but proceed with caution. Be sure they offer you sufficient training and support, because (God forbid) should something happen, it's now your license on the line.

NedRN · Jul 13, 2014

I thought LVNs had vocational training, effectively on the job like diploma RNs. Don't they have an entry level of competence right out of school (unlike RNs)? Diploma RNs could hit the ground running from all reports, even to running units.

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 13, 2014

I thought LVNs had vocational training, effectively on the job like diploma RNs. Don't they have an entry level of competence right out of school (unlike RNs)? Diploma RNs could hit the ground running from all reports, even to running units.

Ah, those were the good old days. The new grads I run across--of both RN and LVN variety--look more like deer caught in the headlights than anything else.

NedRN · Jul 13, 2014

I seldom meet LVNs, other than ones kind of grandfathered into jobs like scrub nurses (now called techs). It seems like there is a limited role for them in most settings, with perhaps LTC and dialysis being exceptions. I get that it is a less arduous pathway to decent employment than becoming an RN, but if there is no decent employment available, it seems extra dead end as a profession. I have to wonder if it is mostly for-profit schools that dupe the unsophisticated into choosing to become an LVN?

Alisonisayoshi, LVN · Jul 13, 2014

I seldom meet LVNs, other than ones kind of grandfathered into jobs like scrub nurses (now called techs). It seems like there is a limited role for them in most settings, with perhaps LTC and dialysis being exceptions. I get that it is a less arduous pathway to decent employment than becoming an RN, but if there is no decent employment available, it seems extra dead end as a profession. I have to wonder if it is mostly for-profit schools that dupe the unsophisticated into choosing to become an LVN?

I will just mention that many choose an LVN program in order to bridge to RN. That is the case in my current, not for profit, school. Almost my entire class has some or all of their pre-reqs done in order to bridge ion completion. I think maybe a total of 4-5 people have nothing done towards the RN. Many have done 4 application rounds to RN programs and their science courses were about to expire if they didn't become LVNs. It's an end run around an overcrowded system of lotteries and wait lists for many of us. I'm am far from unsophisticated or being duped. I'm hastening what is for many an endless waiting game to start an RN program. I am aware that my primary opportunities upon graduation will be LTC, assisted living, doctors offices, and my local ER in a very limited role. I think it's a rather sweeping statement to say we are an unsophisticated group of people.

NedRN · Jul 13, 2014

Thanks for that information. As is quite clear and I did say so, I know little or nothing about LVNs and it certainly makes perfect sense to keep in the running for an RN program. I had no idea.

In my defense, I was very careful not to call LVNs as a group unsophisticated, I merely presented a hypothesis that for-profit schools were duping the unsophisticated (which they indeed do and now in the news today is the federal government closing 85 locations of a major for-profit school chain under a settlement agreement that is going to cost the taxpayers big bucks). I had no idea when I made that post, nor do I now, if LVN's are educated at for profit schools (I do see ads for CNA training at such schools) or if all LVN programs are all at non-profit schools. Your own anecdote sounds like LVN is not was not your choice nor that of most of your class but a pathway to RN school. I still have to wonder about the employability of LVNs when I hear stories of abuse by the titled agency of this thread.

Since diploma RN programs have become effectively extinct, and even ADN status is under strong attack, one wonders what role in the future LVNs will have.