First Day LPN Fall 2008

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Specializes in EMS~ ALS.../...Bartending ~ Psych :).

FINALLY! WHEW, Didnt think I would ever get to post this thread! Now where to start... :wink2:

First part of the morning 8-10 we just refreshed on orientation. Introduced ourselves, met the 3 instructors, got some of our books (9 of them), and generally discussed how busy and hectic the next year would be, but also how worth it, it would be as well. 10:00 Break, Then PVR (Practical vocational relationships) This is basically the history of Nursing, the course will cover 10 chapters and only last 2 weeks. (Then Fundamentals will take its place). Starting right off in PVR we had a pretest 25 questions, (they said these were questions that will be on the final exam and they didn't expect us to know do well and it didn't count toward our grade) then we went over the syllabus for this class. On Monday I have to turn in a Profile about myself, Who I am, what brought me to nursing, what I like, how I like to learn, the way I learn best. My hopes and plans for the future 5 and 10 years. I also have to do a 2 Week time Managment paper hour by hour 6 am - 10pm starting with Last Sunday, (said to be creative). Both of these are due the 25th. Also have to read the 1st 4 chapers of the book, with a quiz on Chapt. 1 on Monday and Test on all 4 Chapters on Wed.

12-1 lunch break~~

Next was A&P, You guessed it, another pretest, 50 questions.. I got 30 out of 50 points. (39pts was passing) but on a good note the highest was a 32, lowest was a 17, and it didn't count towards our grade either sooo. Again they said these were questions that would be on our final. ... Quiz on Chapter 1 on Monday, Test on Chapter 1 on Tuesday, along with a quiz on Chapter 2. Test on Chapter 2 on Wed., Test on Chapter 3 on Friday.... So yeah 3 test and 2 quizes next week on A & P alone... Said basically it would be like this all year!:no:

Then we have medmath/pharm.. Same thing pretest didn't count, and don't know my score yet, 25 questions, Quiz over ref. table in front of the book on Monday, and will have a take home quiz on Monday night. and a Pharm take home test on Tues. A test on 1st 3 chapters of Med math on Wednesday. The med math part of this class will last about 8 weeks, and the Pharm will last all year, we will do Pharm as we deal with the need ( cardio drugs when we do Cardio etc.) Which I think is great, will make it much easier to take it all in.

So it will be like 1 subject every 2 hours, for now with lots of quizzes and test. But I am sooooooo excited! 45 students, There is a pretty good mix of ages, most are younger, (early 20s) then maybe 15 above 30 maybe 6 that are around my age 43. 2 males, 3 instructors and 1 director.

The instructors, I think are willing to work with you, if you have problems, you just need to talk to them, they each gave us their private e mails and phone numbers so I thought that was cool. So didn't appear to just be a job for them, They really want us to learn. Anyways gotta go start reading........

I'll try to report again on Monday........ and I look forward to hearing everyone else's stories, and if you have questions that I didn't hit on feel free to ask.

JQ

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Woofta!!! Now I am even more nervous lol. So your program must be set up different. We picked our classes from avaialble times, so we all wont be in the same class together all day long. Like I could of selected to take intro to practical nursing from about 8 different classes and times, and so on. Are you all together in one group all day all year long?

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Whoa!!! That sounds so hectic! I start on monday (I'll be sure to post)and at orientation they told us we would have a test every non clinical day for the entire year!! Keep in mind, not only do clinicals not start until about 6 wks in, but even when they do start, they are only twice a week! The good thing is that we were told that we will never have more that 2 classes per "semester" (there are only two instructors), no pop quizzes, and never more than one test in a day.

My program groups everyone together all day/year too. I think thats a good way to do it because it makes it easier for you to establish friendships, study groups and a comfortable family like environment among instructors and classmates which IMO helps facilitate learning.

Thanks sooo much for sharing!!

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I cannot wait to post mine...Hopefully I will have time after Tuesday...lol...Good luck and congrats on your start...

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oooo! Thanks for posting this. Our classes will be all day with the same group of people as well. When they handed us our schedule, they said don't pay attention to the times because its 8-3 everyday. We move on with the same group of about 60 I believe. We have some stuff to study over the summer, so I'm hoping there's not a surprise quiz. The first day is supposed to be an all day orientation. One week to go! Eeps!

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I was suppose to have an orientation kinda day on September 2 but, I recieved a letter saying that that day was cancelled so we start on the offical day of September 3. I was wondering when did you recieve your schedule? We had orientation in late June but, they didnt give us it.

Thanks so much for posting this...I was wondering what was gonna happen and when...I am very much a planner and I hate not knowing the unknown, it makes me nervous. I think I pretty much have the same types of classes from the description of your books....(Contemporary practical nursing, memmlers,journey across the lifespan and a few others)...I also was unsure of the breaks which is very important because one, I have never been awayfrom my son for more than 6 hours, and that was at a sleepover at Nanas(hes 15 months old) and I'd like to be able to sneak a peek at him or be able to stop by if he is having a hard time and be able to make it back in time before lunch is over...Seperation anxiety.. He will be fine though I know! Its me Im worried about :wink2:...but this is the best thing for our futures so if its gonna have to happen at some time, Im glad its now and for this reason. Anyways... Thanks again for posting this as a glimpse to what my days and study hours might be!Goodluck!

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thanks for the posts from ya'll that have already started, i start the 25th and am really readu to get going with this.

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Welcome to nursing school, good luck to you. I have had no life for 2 years now, and finally in my last semester. Keep organized and eat well!!!

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Specializes in EMS~ ALS.../...Bartending ~ Psych :).

"I was wondering when did you recieve your schedule? We had orientation in late June but, they didnt give us it"

Didn't get a schedule until first day of class. Each instructor had their own. along with calenders for Aug. & Sept.

The not knowing was about to drive me crazy, which is why I started this thread!.:)

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We had an orientation in June. Then we got our schedules a few weeks later after we turned in our fingerprint cards and backgroud check. My books seem diff from yalls. I have a fundamentals, nutrition, anatomy, and calculation of dosages.

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Okey-dokey...Here goes!!!

Today was my first day of LPN school (boy have I been waiting a long time to say that!). It was very eventful. I saw a few familiar faces and even had one or two friends in the class that I had no idea would be there! At least FOUR poeple no showed! What a shame! There are people desperate to get into the program and you have others throwing it away!

First the instructor was just going over the basic orientation type stuff...Then the "Seniors" (thats what they call the class ahead of us but it's only a 6 month difference) came in to greet us and ask if we had any questions. Each one of them was assigned to one of us as a mentor and one by one they called on us and presented us with little gift bags and a promise of a list of all of their contact information for every junior! They were really nice, and you could tell they genuinely plan to mentor us. They were answering all of our questions, offering their own advice, promising to make us copies of all of their notes and outlines, and a couple of them even put on a little song & dance performance!! It was hilarious! It just so happens that I had already met the person who was chosen as my mentor on myspace!! She gave me a little pencil case with pens, hand sanitizer, Ibupfrofen and coupons for tylenol, along with a few highlighters, some candy and a note.

Anyway, afterwards they led us to a little dining area where the seniors had prepared a huge breakfast buffet for us with everything you can imagine, and we all just sat, ate and talked about the program. Then we went and took pictures for our ID cards and we were sent on break. After break we filled out tons of paperwork, got our syllbus, yada yada yada...Then someone came into the classroom and informed us that there would be NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!!!!!!

I know for most people that would be great news, and I'm sure if I were further into the program I would agree but I have been waiting for much too long for school to start to then be told that the second day of school would be cancelled due to a freakin' tropical storm?? Not even a real hurricane! Not to mention that its supposed to hit south florida and I live in central florida, like 4 1/2 hrs away!!! They said that there was a good chance that there might not be school on wednesday either! I hope they're wrong. I want to get this over with!

Not only that but we were told that whatever time we miss now will have to be made up on THANKSGIVING BREAK! It's not their fault though, the program is hour based so....We were then let off about 20 min. early because the instructor was afraid to give work because she didn't know when we would be back so we ended up doing no work all day! But thats not really a problem though seeing as they gave us enough HW to last us a month!

There was scheduled to be a test on wed, thur, & fri! Basically, bwtween now and sept. 5th we will have a total of 9 tests, 3 quizzes, an Oral presentation and a final...not to mention HW and....NO EXAGERATION... at least 450-600 prefixes, suffixes, Root Words and Abbreviations to memorize before the 5th!!! I bought 6 packs of Index cards before school thinking that it would get me through the year...I have 1 1/2 packs left and I still haven't made abbreviation flash cards yet! Yeah...it's that serious. I have been doing HW, making flashcards, and studying for the past 6 hrs! I just finished and now I am about to begin searching for an article online for my presentaion.

In all fairness though, I did do most of the work tonight so that I would have the majkority of tomorrow free, though I will still be

studying the flash cards.

Anway...off to do more work! (it's a good feeling though!)

Goodnight and Good Luck!

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Wow. Luckily, I took a med term class before I began nursing, so almost every prefix and such we were given over the summer to learn, I know, but I'm redoing the notecards in case. I've already gone through 2 packs for the summer stuff. I need to learn my equivs. That's the thing that I always get confused about no matter how much I know. haha. School over here rarely cancels. Even with a tropical storm. I do believe people have had to go during them and other types situations.

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