Latest Comments by kbrn2002

1] Car payment is way to high for such a limited budget. If you are eligible to refinance you might bring those payments down some, but you'd still have the overall total cost to consider and unless you way overpaid for your vehicle you shouldn't need a luxury car on an economy car budget. Sell it and get something less expensive.

2] Holy Moly! $285/month is the cheapest car insurance you can find? Either you are driving a high end sports car which you certainly don't need on a student's budget or you have one spectacularly bad driving record. Either way, again ditch the car. Get something more affordable or better yet if you live in an urban area with good public transportation get rid of the car altogether and take the bus or subway.

3] If you are paying $100/month for a single phone line that's too much. Shop around for a better deal. Most of the carriers will pay off any early termination fees you might have to get your business. If you don't want to switch carriers at least switch plans, every carrier should have plans that cost well under $100 a line.

4] Gas and tolls can also be dropped totally by guess what...ditching that expensive car and taking the bus! I'm sure you're starting to see the theme here. That car is costing you WAY too much. You can at least save money by getting a car with better gas milage. As far as tolls, isn't there a monthly or annual "easy pass" option that'll save you money over paying tolls every time? No clue if that's a cheaper option for you, fortunately I don't live in an area with toll roads.

The credit card bills really aren't negotiable. Nothing you can do there but figure out a way to keep those payments in your budget.

At least living with your Mom you don't have housing expenses as well. I don't want to sound preachy, but if your Mom only makes $10.00/hr why would you expect her to help with your bills at all? She's putting a roof over your head at zero cost. If anything I hope you are helping her with bills. Her utilities cost more with you living there. You probably do your laundry there, do you buy laundry soap every now and then? Does she pay for cable TV that you watch? Please tell me she doesn't also feed you all the time without you pitching in for groceries.

I graduated with a nurse that went back to school at 52. For her it was the fulfillment of a lifelong personal goal. She was financially well off and decided to do it for herself even if she never actually worked as a nurse. I didn't keep in touch with her but I do know she passed the NCLEX and took a job as a clinic nurse in her hometown after graduating. So, yes it is possible. If the cost of school isn't an issue for you don't let your age hold you back.

I'm only replying because the question is so ridiculous. Either you are trolling or you are totally clueless about how this works. In case you are just totally clueless I'll give you the short and simple answer.

First point, a BSN is a Bachelors of Science in Nursing, so how can you get a nursing specific degree if you didn't go to a nursing school? Second point that directly answers your question is no, you cannot take the NCLEX exam without going to a nursing school. You need to be approved by the state you are testing to get a license in to take the exam. Part of getting the approval to take the test by that states BON [the Board of Nursing] includes verifying that you graduated from an accredited nursing program.

First off, congratulations for figuring out early that patient care in any capacity is not for you. That means if you change career paths now you won't waste a ton of time and money on an education that won't get you where you want to be in life.

As for where you want to be in life, only you can really answer that. If there's a career counselor at your current school make an appointment to see that person and tell them everything you are telling us. A bunch of random nurses on a nursing centered forum really aren't qualified to give you career advice beyond some general suggestions.

So... here are some general suggestions. If you want to stay in a health affiliated career maybe lab tech, surgical procedures [this job cleans, disinfects and prepares operating rooms and equipment], IT, accounting, medical records, medical coding. These are all just thoughts off the top of my head that require a two year degree or less that pay reasonably well and have ample job opportunities with little to no patient interaction.

The one thing I've learned in nursing is really two things. Patience and tolerance. Two such easy words that have no easy explanations, just trust me when I say if you can master these attributes your career in nursing will be much less stressful. I've been a nurse for 20+ years in LTC.

It depends on the test. I've lost a vein a few times during a blood draw and before I toss the tube and try again I call the lab to see how much they need. I was shocked when the lab told me to go ahead and send over a tube that had just barely enough blood to cover the bottom of the tube for a CBC and they would let me know if it wasn't enough. A short time later they faxed me the results, so I guess it was enough. Then again I've had the lab reject a tube for an INR when it was just barely below the fill line. If you ever have any questions about how much blood you might need call your lab, they'll be more than happy to let you know.

This is a topic near and dear to me. Anybody who knows me in my personal life would easily figure out who I am when I tell you that my daughter in law used to be my son in law. Now that she is living as who she is and not as who she was born as she is a happier, healthier person. I have to admit as much as I love her I slipped and called her "him" or by her birth name a few times, especially in the beginning when the transition was new. I chalk that up to years of knowing her by her birth name, once I got thoroughly used to using her chosen name I never made that mistake again.

Keeping in mind this law only seems to affect LTC facilities there really shouldn't be the confusion staff could encounter in an acute care setting. I get the point of making sure you are giving the correct meds to the correct patient, and I get that could be a challenge in an ER if the patient says their name is Jane and they look like a Jane but all their legal documentation says they are John. One of the big issues my daughter in law faced was getting everything changed to her preferred name and in such a connected world this wasn't as easy as you would think. The driver's license and social security number were the easiest things to change. She had to go to court for the legal name change and changing her birth certificate from male to female and then provide a copy of the documentation proving who she now was to everybody from her cable provider to her medical provider. Oddly enough a big downfall has been with the name change her chosen, legal name and sex no longer matched her SSN for the purposes of credit reporting and her credit score pretty much disappeared. She's still fighting to restore that.

It's especially difficult for the transgender person to navigate this legal minefield before the name and gender change become part of the legal record. But we have people now in LTC who for whatever reason don't go by their legal name and there are ways to get around this in our documentation. My point is that the legal transition can be a long, drawn out and time consuming affair. It's a step that not every transgender has the resources to take and until or if they do make the change legal it's still important to honor their wishes to referred to by their chosen name and sex. When that legal step of changing your entire life is finally done I can see why after taking so long to have the right to legally be who you are a transgender person would be highly insulted when ignorant people insist on referring to them as who they were.

That in a nutshell is the problem. Basing how much if anything a facility is paid on how happy the "customer" was with their care is an insane idea. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get away with deciding how much I will pay for something on how nice the salesperson was, yet this is pretty much what somebody decided would be a good model for healthcare reimbursement.

If I'm reading this situation right your fellow student had a file on her phone that is a "cheat sheet" of topics for the midterm exam and you accessed that cheat sheet and sent it to all your classmates. First, that file does constitute cheating. Even if there weren't actually test answers having the list of topics that will be on the test gives the student that has that cheat sheet an unfair advantage as now they and only they know exactly where to focus their studies before the test. Of course since the entire class now has that cheat sheet the unfair advantage of being the only one in the know is gone.

Somebody in the class might call the existence of this cheat sheet to the instructor's attention and there may or may not be academic fall out for both the student you took this from and yourself for distributing it. Since you essentially stole this file off her phone, no I don't think that relationship is salvageable. At this point I'd be more concerned the program director boots you both for cheating. About all you can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

You could do both, problem is most associate degree nursing programs are located at a community college setting rather than a traditional 4 year university. If the university you are getting the BS in Biology from offers an associate's in nursing by all means go for it. As long as both programs are at the same campus your counselor should be able to help figure out a class schedule that will allow for both degrees. For that matter, if you are so crazy motivated to try nursing as a part of a double major, why not just do the BS in nursing along with the biology major if that's an option?

I've worked with a couple of nurses that later had their license revoked for diversion. Maybe I'm naive but I honestly never suspected either of them of diverting during the time they worked with me. Absolutely no sign of ever being under the influence at work, never acted suspiciously at all that I noticed. It's sad when you find out somebody you know had such a problem with drugs that they ended up losing their career over it.

I'm with you on letting you newly rediscovered friend from school divulge what she wants when or if she wants. Given your shared background it's not very likely that your nursing career won't naturally come into the conversation at some point. I'd leave it up to her to tell you what she's comfortable with. Don't be surprised though if she never gives you the whole story. It's easier to avoid uncomfortable conversations when they are not face to face, plus if you're only talking on Facebook I wouldn't blame her for not putting that out there for everybody to see.

The only places I can think of that might have a male only patient population are correctional facilities, sex offender programs with a segregated population, some drug and alcohol treatment centers and boys only private schools. I'm not sure what the employment prospects in those settings are for CNA's rather than nurses though.

If the short shift has as many tasks and responsibilities to complete as the full shift that's not a manageable situation. How are you suppose to get just as much work done with 2 hours less to do it? If there are less tasks to complete in the short shift, does it then fall to the full shift nurse or CNA to complete all his or her work plus what's left to do from the short shift? Seems like a strange scheduling decision that makes time management difficult at best for both shifts even in normal circumstances and near impossible when dealing with exigent circumstance like an infectious disease outbreak.

Consistency. A former DON was famous for changing policies at the drop of a hat, not even informing all the employees what this new "policy" was and then yelling at or writing people up when this mystery policy wasn't followed. Yelling at one employee for something that a different employee was praised for, yep that happened quite a bit. One employee was fired for exceeding the call in limit despite the fact that other employees that had even more call ins weren't disciplined at all. Staff never knew what to expect.

That's definitely how not to be a good DON. To be a good one, make your policies clear and reasonable. Treat all staff the same, do NOT play favorites. Communicate your expectations clearly and listen to the staff. While it's good to have a DON that's known as being nice, it's better to have a DON that's known as being fair.

I can't agree more with this. Current nursing programs could stand to learn a bit from those "ole diploma" models of teaching. Those nurses were well trained and truly could hit the floor running as a nurse right out of school. I can't tell you how many times I've told a scared stiff "I don't know what I'm doing" new grad that nursing school doesn't so much teach you to be a competent nurse as it teaches you to how to learn to be a competent nurse. This is why the first year out of school can be so brutal for so many, these new nurses are essentially learning the job as they work. No wonder so many are terrified!