New to Nursing.... Advice?

[daboman349]

i've decided to go with my long time dream of getting into the medical work force. i'm starting a cna cert. course in a week and looking for advice from other men in the field. after cna i would like to find a job and then move on to the next step (lpn/rn/bsn). do employers help with school costs? whats the best position/unit to start in. what to expect, how you're treated things like that. what do i need to really focus on (i know the course will tell me one thing, but the real world is another. my dream would be to work trauma one day here in pa. thanks for all your advice

[w3ndiscott]

I'm a brand new nurse, just graduated from an LVN program 2mths ago. One piece of advice I have is to let you know you will not learn much of anything that has to do with real nursing practice in school, it's mostly bookwork. It is necessary book work though. Even if you are lucky enough to get put in a good location for your clinicals you still will not really learn what you need to know to be a practicing nurse until you get a job. Another really big piece of advice is where ever you have clinicals look for every opportunity you can to do something new and ask LOTS of questions. It's easy to get stagnant in school because you are scared to do things you've never done but it's better to do them when you have the best opportunity to ask questions. My last piece of advice is I would skip LVN and go for your RN. If time is a factor get your 2yr RN instead of your 4yr. As far as salary is concerned an RN is an RN, in some cases you need your BSN but more often than not people with associate degrees are treated the same as those with bachelors.