I am a 43 year old Paramedic ready to make a serious effort at getting my RN. I applied about 2 years ago along with my ( now ex-wife who was also a paramedic ). The plan was to study together, but I could not for the life of me get her to put down her phone and stay off facebook long enough to participate.
She slept with an EMT co-worker while I was working at the same company as a supervisor. For my own mental health and to avoid felony charges I decided to find employment elsewhere. I now work on an offshore oil rig as a paramedic, and the sole medical provider for up to 150 personnel. I have an office, an examination room, and a 2 bed infirmary. My company has provided me with advanced training beyond IV's, cardiac monitoring, pain management and intubation. I learned suturing, antibiotic therapy, eye and ear examinations.
I recently went to Florida to visit with an Emergency Room RN who I have delivered many drugged up, dirty, crazy, combative patients to. I had to pull a patient off of her after he assaulted her one night ( wasnt my patient ) and we have been friends ever since. She works at 3 different hospitals and is taking 4 classes this semester and is already a BSN.
I asked myself... *** are you doing with your life?
I work 3 weeks and am off for 3 weeks. That schedule and the fact that I suck at math make a brick and mortar college kind of impossible. I love my job and usually have hours and hours of free time every day to study. I save more money than I spend each paycheck and have no bills, kids or real responsibilities outside of work. So I applied again a week ago.
I used Aleks to complete intermediate algebra, have all my electives and english covered. I am studying for the developmental psych CLEP, and have intro sociology and Humanities material lined up next. I am hoping to start Anat/phys and Micro by november. I have been able to study with little interuption and feel good about my first CLEP exam.
I havent failed an exam, or hands on scenario, or really anything in my adult life. Honestly I never really aimed for anything I didnt feel I could accomplish easily. I make RN money at my current job but being 160 miles out in the ocean for 3 weeks at a time gets old. I love providing patient care, I take patient advocacy very seriously, being a Paramedic or EMT is the first job I have truly loved. Every job from 19-38 involved carrying a gun, handcuffs or pepper spray. ( Military, corrections, armed security supervisor, private investigations ). I absolutley love the opportunity to make a positive change in someones life.
I am afaraid maybe I am hard wired for acute treatment... my careplan in the past has been "Keep them breathing until they are off of my stretcher" and I was very good at that.
Is my love of helping the sick and injured and lots of desire going to be enough to get me all the way through the CPNE? I can honestly afford to take a workshop every 6 weeks from now until eternity, and will if thats what it takes.
Any medics able to make the transition to the role of a nurse?
Id like to work in the ER, I think thats where I would feel most comfortable, possibly with psych patients ( dont ask me why... but I have always been pretty good keeping them calm )...
You're welcome! It sounds like you have a good handle on things. I do miss the classmate interaction, I think that's an issue, but I'm not sure how EC could make it better. The online chat boards between students don't seem to be used very much, or maybe I just haven't found all of them yet. I would also like to be able to talk by phone with instructors regarding academic questions, but I believe you can only contact instructors via email.
Another thing I really DON'T like about taking exams online (and I'll include my EMT exams in this) is not being able to find out which specific questions I missed. At least on the Excelsior Pearson nursing theory exams, you can skip questions and go back to them, and review and change answers. But while your grade is broken down into things like "you scored 85% on topic X and 90% on topic Y", you don't know which specific questions you got wrong. But I'm not sure how they can provide you with that information without questions getting out. Unless the Pearson folks gave you a printout where you could review your mistakes, and then had to give the printout back, or something like that.
Specializes in Pediatric Oncology, Pediatric Neurology.
Another thing I really DON'T like about taking exams online (and I'll include my EMT exams in this) is not being able to find out which specific questions I missed. At least on the Excelsior Pearson nursing theory exams, you can skip questions and go back to them, and review and change answers. But while your grade is broken down into things like "you scored 85% on topic X and 90% on topic Y", you don't know which specific questions you got wrong. But I'm not sure how they can provide you with that information without questions getting out. Unless the Pearson folks gave you a printout where you could review your mistakes, and then had to give the printout back, or something like that.
Agree with you 100%! You need to know which questions you got wrong so you can understand the rationale behind it. All throughout LPN school, after completing each class I did all the practice questions from my NCLEX Review Book by Saunders and the ones I got wrong I always read the rationale behind the correct question and why mine was incorrect.
If the Pearson printout provided specific areas where you got stuff wrong (rather than telling you the actual questions you missed, because I can see why they don't want to risk those getting out), it would be helpful. Like, "you need to review the following areas: normal blood chemistry values, pain/anxiety distraction techniques, and selecting the proper 'etiology/related to' options when formulating a nursing diagnosis". You know, something that doesn't give out the actual exam questions, but something narrow enough that you could review problem areas fairly quickly.
I'm looking at one of my "Detailed Score Result" pages from a nursing theory exam and the areas are very general..."neurological dysfunction", "musculoskeletal dysfunction", etc. Kind of general, when it comes to going back and figuring out what my specific weak areas are.
This is a great thread with lots of info. Thanks everyone! I am also starting the RN program at Excelsior. I went to a traditional school for my LPN and this whole online credit-by-exam thing is a very foreign animal to me! I'm still waiting for my preliminary review to be completed and have been going stir crazy in the meantime. I recently relocated to southern New Hampshire from Florida to help my mom with some medical issues she's having as well as take some much needed time from working full-time so I can complete my RN school more quickly. I choose to do the credit by exam method because I have a bit of pre-requisite credits to transfer. If all transfer, I should only have to take the 7 or 8 nursing core exams plus the CPNE. If anyone has advice or tips on how to survive this, I welcome it with open arms! haha
Set yourself short-term and long-term goals. Make it a priority to take an exam at least every 4 weeks if not sooner. I bought SG101 and used Quizlet along with the Excelsior practice exams. The FCCA exams can be taken together and will take 8 weeks (instead of 16 weeks if taken separately), there is no rushing it. The CPNE is the real monster, but can be tamed. Do NOT overwhelm yourself with negative thoughts if you read something that is not positive! Preparation is the key, there are about a 100,000 posts on allnurses about the CPNE, make sure you read as many as you can when the time comes! Just remember that many people have had success with this program and so can you! Good luck!
Specializes in Pediatric Oncology, Pediatric Neurology.
Set yourself short-term and long-term goals. Make it a priority to take an exam at least every 4 weeks if not sooner. I bought SG101 and used Quizlet along with the Excelsior practice exams. The FCCA exams can be taken together and will take 8 weeks (instead of 16 weeks if taken separately), there is no rushing it. The CPNE is the real monster, but can be tamed. Do NOT overwhelm yourself with negative thoughts if you read something that is not positive! Preparation is the key, there are about a 100,000 posts on allnurses about the CPNE, make sure you read as many as you can when the time comes! Just remember that many people have had success with this program and so can you! Good luck!
Yes, I've heard horror stories about the CPNE but luckily I'm pretty calm with the hands-on competencies. I've never been an anxious test taker and usually work a lot better under pressure. I'll be working in a hospital setting while at Excelsior so it will just be another shift to me.
As far as taking the exams, I plan on taking 1-2 a month depending on how difficult the material is. I'm trying to beat the July 2015 deadline so I'm not stuck in a dreaded 16-week course (hence the reason I decided on Excelsior versus a traditional school). I put my time in while completing my LPN program- working full time then school at night and I'm not looking forward to doing that again haha.
Thanks for the tips, I will definitely utilize the resources you mentioned as most of the successful stories on here have mentioned using SG101 and the practice exams.
Specializes in Pediatric Oncology, Pediatric Neurology.
If the Pearson printout provided specific areas where you got stuff wrong (rather than telling you the actual questions you missed, because I can see why they don't want to risk those getting out), it would be helpful. Like, "you need to review the following areas: normal blood chemistry values, pain/anxiety distraction techniques, and selecting the proper 'etiology/related to' options when formulating a nursing diagnosis". You know, something that doesn't give out the actual exam questions, but something narrow enough that you could review problem areas fairly quickly.
I'm looking at one of my "Detailed Score Result" pages from a nursing theory exam and the areas are very general..."neurological dysfunction", "musculoskeletal dysfunction", etc. Kind of general, when it comes to going back and figuring out what my specific weak areas are.
That's probably where you'll get the most use out of the Saunders NCLEX-RN Review material. If you buy the book brand new it comes with a CD that contains hundreds of practice questions organized by the specific areas of study. That's where I got the best feedback and prepared myself for the NCLEX-PN. You can also focus on content areas similar to the actual NCLEX such as Psychological Integrity, Health Promotion and Safety, etc...
That's probably where you'll get the most use out of the Saunders NCLEX-RN Review material. If you buy the book brand new it comes with a CD that contains hundreds of practice questions organized by the specific areas of study. That's where I got the best feedback and prepared myself for the NCLEX-PN. You can also focus on content areas similar to the actual NCLEX such as Psychological Integrity, Health Promotion and Safety, etc...
Oh, thanks for the tip! I didn't know about SG101 until this week, and all of my texts are used so many don't have the CDs and those that do are usually out-of-date, and I was too cheap to take the practice exams, so I just did the text reading and took notes and highlighted, and did very well on the theory exams. I didn't rush them, but looking back I wish I'd done them faster. But life gets in the way sometimes, you know?
That's one thing I loved about the EC format...the time flexibility. I wonder what will happen now that that is largely disappearing?
I now have the SG101 material for FCCA and CPNE, and I have lots of NCLEX review texts. I'm actually more worried about the CPNE than the NCLEX! But both are several months away so I am going to try to worry less, haha. I AM already doing some NCLEX review, just going through sample questions, nothing too formal at this point.
I bought SG101 and used Quizlet along with the Excelsior practice exams.
There's an old but still going thread in the General Nursing section of the forums about how some students have gotten in trouble for using Quizlet; apparently some school test-bank questions show up there and some people have been accused of cheating by using Quizlet. The OP hasn't been back to update what happened to her, but still, it might be a good idea to look into that a bit more before using that resource!
Specializes in Pediatric Oncology, Pediatric Neurology.
Oh, thanks for the tip! I didn't know about SG101 until this week, and all of my texts are used so many don't have the CDs and those that do are usually out-of-date, and I was too cheap to take the practice exams, so I just did the text reading and took notes and highlighted, and did very well on the theory exams. I didn't rush them, but looking back I wish I'd done them faster. But life gets in the way sometimes, you know?
That's one thing I loved about the EC format...the time flexibility. I wonder what will happen now that that is largely disappearing?
I now have the SG101 material for FCCA and CPNE, and I have lots of NCLEX review texts. I'm actually more worried about the CPNE than the NCLEX! But both are several months away so I am going to try to worry less, haha. I AM already doing some NCLEX review, just going through sample questions, nothing too formal at this point.
Good luck to you on the CPNE and the NCLEX, I'm sure you will do great based on how well you have organized yourself and set priorities. :-) Thanks again for all your help, please keep me posted on how you're doing with CPNE and NCLEX too and I'll continue to post anything new I discover that may help anyone reading this thread
Aw, thanks! I am currently trying to reorganize my coffee table so I can stack all of my FCCA and NCLEX books neatly. This project has been greatly helped by one of my cats, who shoved a bunch of stuff off the table yesterday to clear a spot for herself to nap more comfortably.
Good luck to you too! I'm sure you will do great too!
Specializes in Pediatric Oncology, Pediatric Neurology.
Just in case anyone is still following this thread that has already taken Essentials of Nursing Care: Health Safety, is it me or does it seem like we went over this content in LPN school? I've already zipped through half of the study guide taking minimal notes. Wanna make sure I am not missing anything, lol. I'm not using the recommended text book instead I am using Basic Nursing by Potter and Perry along with Fundamentals for Nursing by ATI Nursing Education. Since the chapters obviously do not coincide I am a little nervous that I may be missing some content or are the majority of the nursing texts similar to each other (assuming of course it's time-relevant material)? HELP!
Just in case anyone is still following this thread that has already taken Essentials of Nursing Care: Health Safety, is it me or does it seem like we went over this content in LPN school? I've already zipped through half of the study guide taking minimal notes. Wanna make sure I am not missing anything, lol. I'm not using the recommended text book instead I am using Basic Nursing by Potter and Perry along with Fundamentals for Nursing by ATI Nursing Education. Since the chapters obviously do not coincide I am a little nervous that I may be missing some content or are the majority of the nursing texts similar to each other (assuming of course it's time-relevant material)? HELP!
I was not an LPN upon entering EC's program, but many of my classmates said the same thing. :) Good luck!
SnowballDVM
70 Posts
You're welcome! It sounds like you have a good handle on things. I do miss the classmate interaction, I think that's an issue, but I'm not sure how EC could make it better. The online chat boards between students don't seem to be used very much, or maybe I just haven't found all of them yet. I would also like to be able to talk by phone with instructors regarding academic questions, but I believe you can only contact instructors via email.
Another thing I really DON'T like about taking exams online (and I'll include my EMT exams in this) is not being able to find out which specific questions I missed. At least on the Excelsior Pearson nursing theory exams, you can skip questions and go back to them, and review and change answers. But while your grade is broken down into things like "you scored 85% on topic X and 90% on topic Y", you don't know which specific questions you got wrong. But I'm not sure how they can provide you with that information without questions getting out. Unless the Pearson folks gave you a printout where you could review your mistakes, and then had to give the printout back, or something like that.