Re: refresher course for inactive nurses Originally Posted by blackforest23 
Hello, another inactive nurse here. I am on my reviews supposedly to take NCLEX in Manila, but with meeting my fiance' last year, I got a K1 Fiancee Visa on process so we've decided to just take my exam in Ohio. So if fortunately I pass the exams, what do you think are the requirements for me being out of the nursing field for several years?
I will greatly appreciate any opinion. It sometimes frustrates me studying thinking I am much left behind with the new trends in nursing.
Thank you and more power to all!
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Nursing is a very dynamic field. Like for instance in Dec. 2006, when I went on vacation to the Philippines from my nursing job in a medical center here in San Francisco, California, I was gone from my job for almost one month. When I came back to work several things had changed: from new policies and procedures to new drugs that were made available, or were no longer available because insurance would no longer pay for this or that particular drug. As an RN, you must know these things or know somebody who does.
Another recent good example was this last Jan. 2008, a Filipina RN also spent her well-earned vacation in the Philippines and when she got back to work we had advanced our computerized charting to new heights. She had to play catch up with the rest of us. She was away from work for only four weeks, imagine yourself being away from nursing for several years.
I do hope that these inactive RN's who plan to become active RN's and wish to come to the U.S.A. are computer literate. Most acute care hospitals in the United States, as everyone should expect, are highly computerized. In our hospital we have two computer terminals in the Nurse's station and a computer terminal every few feet in the hallways of our unit, and we also have ten "COW's" or Computer On Wheels that nurses use anywhere these computers are needed. After their initial physical assessments of their assigned patients and making sure his/her patients are safe and comfortable, you would normally see the RN's in our unit in front of a computer "charting" or ducumenting their initial assessments in one of the computers in our unit. There are more computer terminals than there are nurses working in a particular shift.
I do hope that these inactive RN's will read about or even see and operate IV pumps, kangaroo pumps, high-tech beds, and other equipments. They should review tracheostomy, T-Tubes, C-Paps, Bi-Paps, Chest tubes, Central lines, etc, etc. Don't forget about the drugs, indications, side effects, nursing implications, patient teachings. They should re-learn IV insertions, blood draws, glucose monitoring, laboratory values, their interpretations etc.
They should have critical thinking, good at time management, able to keep their cool when the sh** hits the fan!
Of course they have to go back to the basics by reviewing Medical-Surgical, OB-Gyn, Psychiatric nursing etc.
And for those who are linguistically challenged, they should attend English language courses. Remember, you will be speaking with English speaking doctors, fellow nurses, other allied professionals and most important of all, your patients. Take speech lessons if you have a heavy accent so that the English-speaking people whom you will be speaking with will not have a hard time trying to understand you.
Don't be disappointed! Don't be scared! There is a saying: "How do you eat an elephant?"
Answer: "One small bite at a time."
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but then my IV training collegueas have started their work as trainee nurse volunteers at the said hospital. They graduated last 2006 only and i think that they're still much updated, compared to me 
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