More questions in my career change to be an RN.

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Hello... I don't know if any of you remember me from before. But I wrote recently on here that I was thinking about becoming an RN. I had some more questions as I am seriously looking at this career change.

I've read on here over and over that nursing school is tough and demanding. And that many don't make it as an RN. It's a bit discouraging.

- I am interested in hearing from new grads about just how tough it is.

- How hard are boards to pass?

- How long do clinicals last? And are you assigned a specific area (such as med/surg) based on the school? Also, are clinicals random shifts... or are they usually days based on your school schedule?

Thanks.

JEN ;)

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I should add...

If I were to pursue this, my three areas of interest would be, Labor & Delivery, Eating Disorders or Physical Therapy (mainly oncology).

It sounds like when you do your clinicals you have to do it in med/surg?

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Specializes in Cath Lab, OR, CPHN/SN, ER.

I recently graduated (this is Andrea from IDOB, btw) in May. I got the job I wanted in a level-1 trauma center, and I love it. It is tough, b/c you're making a hard transition between "textbook nursing" and "real world nursing". The learning curve is huge. I've already learned so much in my few weeks in the ED.

Clinicals depend on where you go to school. Mine we on Thursday and Friday, usually 0645-1415 or so. We had some evening clincials, and did some outside work on a Wed or a random weekend. Those other times were good though, b/c we were able to see the hospital in a different light- thigns change on night shift! At my school (assoc degree), during each semester we did different clinicals, sometimes two rotations in one semester, usually lasting 4-6 weeks in length. We started out on a med-surg floor. Some of us went to a more renal type floor, others ortho surgery. You didn't get much say in where you went. As we learned more in school, our time in clinicals increased. We did a rotation thru peds (learned a lot there). Finally, our senior level, we did rotations on cardiac monitor units (cardiac, surgical, and medical- all very sick pts, but not bad enough to go to an ICU). We also did psych our last semester. The semesters in which you do certain things vary per school.

If you can make it thru nursign school, you will probably pass boards. I won't lie- I thougth I failed. It was one of the hardest tests I have ever taken, b/c it plays with your mind (Oh, that question was easy. I bet I missed a question. Oh God, I'm missing questions.) I didn't fail, and I passed with the minimum amount of questions you can have. Out of my class of almost 40 grads, only 2 have failed so far. One of them, I'm not that surprised. The other is also getting married this month- I think she has too much going on right now.

As far as the second post about specific clinicals, we didn't do much time in L&D. We were allowed to spend 8hours in L&D, 4 in postpartum nd 4 in newborn nursery. It was like a stepping stone for us, and if we wanted more, we could pursue it on our own. We also were allowed to do "outside rotations", where instead of goign to our regular clincial area for the week, we did time on another unit (ED, NICU, cardiac, OR). I did NICU. Eating disorders is a psych thing. Some hospitals might have a ed unit, but ours didn't. PT isn't something that nurses do, but there is always the rehab floor, or just a oncology floor. An oncology hospital might have a rehab unit, but our hospital doesn't.

I hope that helps somewhat. It's bedtime for me! -A

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