I ran into a woman who is taking the same LVN course that I took before I got my RN. So, I asked her a few questions.
Seems as though they are teaching the same old useless stuff. I say "useless" because I personally felt so unprepared and under-trained when I started my first LVN job in LTC.
Looking back, I can see how so much of my training was wasted on completely useless "skills". Not that the skills are not important, please don't get me wrong, but when I see the skills that I really should have been taught in order to function on the job in the real world, I would say that the College had their priorities messed up.
For example, we spent days on how to make beds and miter the sheets, how to read a Mercury thermometer :uhoh21:. How to brush a patients teeth and feed them. How to introduce ourselves, etc.....
Minimal time was spent on Pharmacology. No time was spent on how to start IVs or troubleshooting problems with IVs. No training on how to draw blood. We weren't even taught how to do a finger stick, draw up insulin and calibrate the monitors! We were assigned 1 patient for one week during clinicals. That didn't give me any idea how to adequately handle 30 patients when I started my first job. I also could have used some training on how to deal with difficult patients, bossy co-workers, intimidating doctors and controlling families. Maybe some role playing? So, when these situations actually happened, I wasn't standing there looking like an idiot with my jaw dropped open or taking something personally and getting upset. I know some people have a quick response to ANY situation, but I would say that most people in my class of 35 did not.
I felt so incompetent when I first started working. I actually felt that I could have just skipped my year of training and just started working. That is how little I actually learned in the program. I really feel that I could have had all my training on the job as a new LVN....would have saved me time wasted in class and the $$$$ for tuition.
I know there are some excellent LVN/LPN programs out there, but mine was definitely not one of them
I definitely envy those that had great instructors and thorough training!!!!
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I have to agree, the cigarette story is BEYOND insane. I mean, would this person wish to have this done to her/himself or a family member??
I had a horrible program, but it did make me a self starter and self learner. I always sought out of the box to obtain what I needed and continue to do so. I still read almost daily to try and catch points that I missed before, even a year after graduating. And, I am gaining my experience in a comfortable pace.
A lot of my classmates are mad at how hard they push us they whine and complain that we are only going to be LPNs (which makes me mad).
Luckily, our director believes in LPNs and she is determined to make good nurses out of us whether we want to go on for RN or stay LPN.
I hated our program at first but now I am starting to see the method to their madness.
Good for her! You're going to be an excellent nurse. We were put through a full rotation of L&D and OB, even though LPNs were not allowed to work there (only on post partum and nursery).
We saw soooo many deliveries. Most memorable was the C/S where the epidural didn't take. Whoa. I have never heard anyone scream like that woman did when the doc cut into her. OMG. 'Bloodcurdling' doesn't even begin to describe it. Doc and CRNA were screaming at each other (he didn't want the nurse to knock the mom out... kept telling Mom, "hang on, it won't take but a little while here")... he was threatening to have her license... nurse was threatening to report him to the State Board of Medicine... Dad was white as a ghost and swooning... and there we stood in the corner like
It's been many years since I graduated LPN school, but I have often looked back and thought about what little we were taught.
I don't remember drawing up insulin, we were not taught blood draws or IV's back then, and I do NOT remember my instructor ever showing up on the floor I was on to see how I was doing. I felt more or less just on my own, or just given to the nurse who was working there.
I feel most of what I've learned came after school. Maybe we did more than what I remember, as it has been a long time.
I do remember setting up and giving meds, observing and assisting in several surgeries, giving a whole lot of baths and making alot of beds.
I do know we weren't taught anything about dealing with doctors or supervision of subordinate staff and I still detest supervising CNA's.
I guess I learned something, tho, I'm 7 years away from reitirment, and I can't wait.
Specializes in Assisted Living, Med-Surg/CVA specialty.
At my nursing school, we got 3 days to practice making beds and giving baths in the LPN portion.
In the RN portion, we got 10 minutes to start an IV on a fake arm which had been stabbed a million times and had little holes all in it. The only time I got to start an IV in a real person in nursing school was when I got to go to the ER one day during my Peds rotation.
Specializes in Assisted Living, Med-Surg/CVA specialty.
Toes? No... he put the patient in 4-points, tied down tight, then put the lit cigarette between his fingers. They were also kicked when a student gave po KCL elixir IV. And when they gave 60 units of regular insulin instead of 6... there's more, but I'm having a brainfart.
Where is the nursing instructor during all of this? During nursing school, NONE of my instructors would let us pull meds without them and often would be there when they were admin'd.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I worked briefly with a seasoned RN of 20+ years look at the MAR that said to use regular insulin, and she pulled out 70/30...when someone else corrected her, she said that she didn't know there was a difference. I shudder to think of all the patients she saw over the years.
The abovementioned story is absolutely frightening. :uhoh21:
Wow I just realized how wonderful my program is, my teacher is a Ltc in the reserves and she is adamant about making us the best nurses on the face of the planet I have only been in school 3 months and have already learned more than some of the posts on here during their LPN training, I feel so unworthy to even speak to y'all, I have such a high respect for nurses since I have gotten in this program, thanks for making me realize what a great school and teacher I have! I am excited to one day be in the same profession with y'all I realize now what it takes to get there!
Yes, I feel my program isn't training me very well. We got very little skills time on transferring, positioning, etc. That is all stuff I learned on the job. Pharmacology was a joke and a half. 4 tests and they concentrated on the not important drugs, not the important ones like cardiac meds, opiods, etc.
What makes my program more difficult is it is part time. Our clinicals are a joke. Since we go to clinical at night, there's nothing to do once we arrive on the floor since all of the procedures have been done on daylight. If we get lucky, we could do an HS blood sugar or take vitals.
Most of the time though, we just sit around doing nothing because there is nothing to do.
I'm really sorry I enrolled in this program because I'm hosed. If I transfer to my hospital's LPN program, I've lost the 9 months that I've been in this program because nothing will transfer. I am learning more at work as a nursing assistant than I am in LPN school. I can only help my RN program will be much better.
I had a *great* LPN program. The prof from my first clinical rotation in an LTC facility is one of the reasons I'm in LTC. Tough but fair, and cared deeply for the residents. We thought she was a little crazy at first, because she wore her nurses' cap to clinicals, but she explained that this helped the dementia patients recognize her as a nurse so she could establish a more trusting relationship with them while doing procedures. All of our clinical instructors were hovering over our shouders on each med pass, drilling us on the purpose of meds and the side effects, and helping us, hand-over-hand at first, during procedures. We were well-prepared for the NCLEX-PN. They would tell us, this is how it's done in the real world, and this is how you say it's done if you see it on the NCLEX or if State comes. There was always a rationale, and it always made sense. We lost someone due to the Dosage Calculations exam, and we lost someone else during clinicals, but they both came back the following year. Retention was high, and so was the NCLEX pass rate. This was a diploma program at our local community college. I hope to go back there and finish my ADN.
I am so glad you posted this,I was just thinking about this the other day.
School was bad,clinicals were even worse. We actually had clinical sites where students weren't 'authorized' to do any patient care,and I am not talking the OR or anything like that,I am talking LTC.
We were abused at the hospital as free help.I am not talking about helping out as we had time etc. When hospital aides didnt turn up for their shift,they said it was ok, because the student nurses could pick up their load.
We spent a lot of time in class going over menial tasks such as bedmaking and skills like IVs,etc were skimmed over.
I never even got the chance to do skills like start an IV, do a tube feeding, do trach care, anything like that during clinicals.
If we ever had anything like that, the RN would come in and do it-we never got the chance.
Also, in school we were given a lot of busywork.A stack of worksheets and were to sit there in silence in class doing these for hours. :trout:
Where is the nursing instructor during all of this? During nursing school, NONE of my instructors would let us pull meds without them and often would be there when they were admin'd.
Well, like I said, our instructors were there every minute, and they remained on the one unit where we were doing our clinicals. We were not foisted off on a floor nurse. The BSN programs would throw their students out on multiple floors and let 'em go; they weren't placed with a floor nurse either. Supposedly their one instructor would wander from floor to floor, checking on the students. The one school in particular felt that since their students were going to be "real" nurses, they could handle being so independent. So they had little supervision, and were only to call their instructor if they had to give a med (they were watched pouring, but not administering) That is one reason why they were kicked from the hospital.
Wow, I'm shocked at the quality of training some of you got. I just graduated in September & feel they could have done better. We didn't get much chance to practice skills before going to clinicals & that terrified me. I didn't want to screw up on a person. However, we always were supervised during our first 2 terms. We did nothing (meds, treatments) without clearing it with the CI. By the 3rd term we had passed so many meds, once the CI knew we knew what we were doing, let us go on our own. However, we were never allowed on the floor without a CI. I mean, if she was late, we waited somewhere else, & when she went to supper, we all went to supper.
During my 4th term, I worked on a skilled nursing unit, finally at a hospital (terms 1& 2 in LTC & 3 in a facility for brain damaged & handicapped) but my CI was also the nurse manager of that floor. She basically was there, normally doing her duties for that job. We had to hunt her down anytime we needed something. She kept track of what we did by checking our charting & could do that from the nurses station since it was computer charting. She also was constantly on her cell phone, usually talking with her grandchildren. We'd be discussing something about patient care & sudddenly, she'd say something really off the wall. She'd just take a call anytime & since the phone was in her ear, it appeared that she was talking to us but instead to the caller. I actually have a picture of my teachers taken during pinning & that woman had that stupid phone in her ear all through pinning. I wonder if she was taking calls during the ceremony!
Fortunately for the term behind us, that CI answered the unit's phone one day when the lead instructor called, a big no no as that was not what she was supposed to be doing. The school decided that she would have her group on a different unit from now on. Boy was she mad!
One thing I do regret. Our program offers very little exposure to OB & Peds. As a matter of fact, all we did besides lecture, was to spend 2 hours at a day care, weighing & measuring babies and observing development. Then we drove to a nearby OB clinic to observe. By the time my group got there, the day was winding down so we saw almost nothing. We got a tour, one student gave a shot, & they let us see the L&D floor at that hospital. That was my OB "rotation" & I'm hoping to find a job in a women's health clinic. I hope that I learn the things that I missed on the job and that they will be patient with me as I do, but for the most part, I think my training was at least adequate.
pagandeva2000, LPN
7,984 Posts
I have to agree, the cigarette story is BEYOND insane. I mean, would this person wish to have this done to her/himself or a family member??
I had a horrible program, but it did make me a self starter and self learner. I always sought out of the box to obtain what I needed and continue to do so. I still read almost daily to try and catch points that I missed before, even a year after graduating. And, I am gaining my experience in a comfortable pace.