OU Accelerated BSN Program (Can someone post their experience?)

[Firehawk734]

I would like to find out things such as:

What's their day to day schedule (Monday through Friday, shifts they worked, etc). I'm trying to get an idea ahead of time on what it will be like for Semester 1. Are clinicals all 5 days of the week? How many days did you have classes on those days? Etc.

Also, what was it like doing the clinicals? Give me a synopsis of your day during a clinical.

What kind of demands are put on you for this program? I am sure they are high expectations and such, but it is obviously doable if you are committed. I am sure the school doesn't want a huge failure rate.

A quick summary of your schedule for semester 1 (if you are going through it or have and can remember), would be greatly appreciated. I mean, there must be built-in time to study in the schedule.

I also heard something about a medical math test that if you miss 1 problem they fail you out of the program (kind of hard to fathom that one). And they make you feel like you are destined to fail and fall behind.

I appreciate it ahead of time (and I'm sure others who are lined up to take the program do as well).

Dave

[ejcl68]

Firehawk, I have a friend who is starting in May at OU. She apparently knows someone in the program right now so I will try to see what I can find out. My interview is the first week of March for January 2011 start. I'm hoping to get bumped up to Fall.

[murphyle, BSN, RN]

Disclaimer: I went through from Winter-Fall 2009, so scheduling and rotations may have changed since then.

Your first half-semester will be at the Riverview lab entirely. Monday and Friday were our classroom days, and we were there pretty much all day (0830-1500 or so). Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday were laboratory days, when you could practice skills or schedule validations. During any given lab day, there will always be at least 1 faculty and 2 TAs on duty, and there will always be at least 1 TA skills demonstration/Q&A session per day. Most students in my cohort spent about two solid days at the lab per week. (I went a little past that, because I tend to learn best by teaching; hence I averaged 2 1/2-3 days per week of lab time.) The dreaded med math exam was in the middle of the phase for us; it's since been moved up (the last cohort I taught got med math right at the beginning, though those were pilot students and thus on a somewhat differing schedule). You must score 90% or better to pass. If you fail the first time, you can remediate; fail a second time and you're done. There will also be an online class somewhere in the mix, for which your time and energy expenditure may vary. At the end of this phase, you will take the ATI Fundamentals.

Your second half-semester will replace the lab with your Med-Surg 1 clinical. A typical clinical group consists of 6-8 students and 1 instructor. You will be at that site two days a week for 12 hours a day (0700-1900), usually Tuesday and Wednesday. (I saw a Thursday-Saturday MS1 once, but there were no such offerings for any of our other clinicals.) In the first three weeks (NRS 281), you will take total care of one to two patients (i.e. physical assessment qAM, bed bath qAM, vital signs q4h, etc); in the second three weeks (NRS 381), you will ramp up to four patients and pass meds on one to two depending on patient acuity and student aptitude. Your instructor must be present for the first performance of any given skill (IV start or D/C, Foley start or D/C, central line dressing change, etc) on a live patient; after that, your patient's staff RN can supervise you. You will be responsible for daily SOAP notes on your patients. Depending on your instructor, you may be responsible for charting nurse's notes as well. You will also complete three care maps and a research mini-project (5-minute presentation) on some aspect of basic med-surg care. At the end of the semester, you will take the ATI Med-Surg.

Hope this helps. If you have further questions, feel free to PM me and I'll do my best to answer them.

[Firehawk734]

Piece of cake.

Thanks for taking the time to post. Any info on 2nd/3rd semesters? I have heard the first semester is the toughest, and then it gets a bit easier.

The schedule does classes Mon/Fri, Monday is 8-12:30 or so for both classes, then Friday 8-10:30. Is that what yours showed but you were in class longer for some reason? What time do you have to study? It sounds like you are at school/in lab all of the time. When did you find the time to study? Or was it mainly hands-on learning?

[ejcl68]

I have heard 4-6 hours of studying a day plus class time, lab time so based on my calculations, it is about 10-12 hour commitment per day 5-6 days a week. Is this pretty accurate. Kinda like a full time job but more intense.

[Firehawk734]

Murph, may I ask, what did you finish the program with (GPA)?

[murphyle, BSN, RN]

ejcl68: Yeah, that's a pretty good assessment. It's tough to put an "hours per day" calculation on the amount of study required, though, just because every student is so individual with their approach to the material and the knowledge they bring to the program. For myself, since I knew a lot of the anatomy and pathology already, I didn't necessarily spend that length of time with my nose in the book, but I certainly spent that long practicing skills and going over the material in lab. Other students who had been CNAs beforehand were the exact opposite; they already had the skills but needed the theory, so they lived at the library and only came to lab for validations. Your mileage may vary.

[ejcl68]

Hi Murphyle: I just wanted to say thanks so much for all the great information. This really helps. You also answered one of my other questions regarding CNA experience. Since I will have about a year to wait to start the program (if accepted), I was thinking I want to work in a hospital or nursing home. Based on your experience with the program, do you feel the CNA experience is good to have?? I know how to do vitals, bed pans, making beds, foleys, transferring, feeding, shaving, etc already but I wasn't sure how many of the skills I know will actually be needed in school. I realize vitals are for sure but how many tasks that are typically done by CNA's are needed in nursing schools?? I also applied to another program which requires CNA certification AND experience before you begin the program. Finally, do you feel brushing up on A & P is one of the more important things to do before hand. In other words, if you could do it all over, what do you wish you had more prepared more on to be ready for the program. I took Bio, patho, and A & P in the past year so I feel pretty good about my knowledge but since there's so much info, you cannot retain everything 100 %. Thanks again.

Firehawk: 'Piece of cake' - I admire your confidence. Can I email you in 6 months and see if you still fee the same way?? LOL. Good luck to you. I think confidence is great thing to have.

[Firehawk734]

I said 'Piece of Cake' sarcastically. I'm sure it will be work, but I'm confident I will succeed. I really don't have the option to fail here. I'm quitting a career (still working) just before the program starts, so if I fail, I will be out both my former career job and the school program. There's a lot of pressure, but I can't imagine it's any harder than Engineering School, and I got through that.

[murphyle, BSN, RN]

Hi Murphyle: I just wanted to say thanks so much for all the great information. This really helps. You also answered one of my other questions regarding CNA experience...

...You learned how to start and D/C Foleys before nursing school? Where?

Short answer, you need all the CNA skills as a student, as you will be feeding, ambulating, toileting, bathing and making beds on a daily basis. You might as well be able to turn those skills to profit, so yes, if you have the time and the wherewithal to do it, I'd get a CNA. You also absolutely need to be able to do manual vitals quickly and accurately. I don't know how many times I've taken vitals with the Dynamap and gotten some hair-raisingly high blood pressure number, taken a manual pressure and it's normal or even low. The machine can and frequently does lie to you. (That said, I had an ex-CNA student once who came to my vitals validation with the lab's Dynamap, because "that's how we do it in the hospital." She'd never once practiced manual vitals. A for creativity, F for nursing skill set. )

As for refresher material, I'd brush up pathophysiology and pharmacology before A&P. 282/283 (Health Assessment) contains a ton of anatomy, and so does 380 (Med-Surg 1), so you'll be seeing all that material again and again. On the other hand, you definitely need to be able to work from "first principles" - figuring out the fundamental dysfunction in a system - in order to be able to correctly critically think your way through a care plan or even a MAR. That skill set comes predominantly from patho and pharm. (For example, you're caring for a patient who has care orders for ADA 1800 diet and AC/HS blood sugar checks, but you look at the med orders and they're not on insulin. Why? From that, what can we anticipate about this patient's care needs? *)

Hope this helps!

* The patient is a Type II diabetic. As opposed to Type I diabetes where pancreatic beta cells have died and we have a fundamental lack of insulin, Type II diabetics can produce insulin but their cells have become resistant to it. Hence, injecting more insulin won't help, so it is treated with diet and exercise (to help reverse resistance in adipose and muscle tissues) and oral anti-glycemic agents (to lower circulating glucose levels). We also know that both types of diabetics are prone to skin breakdowns and other wounds, and have trouble with wound healing related to ischemia and neuropathy secondary to derangements in glucose uptake and utilization. From that, we as nurses can anticipate that this patient will need regular ambulation if able (exercise), special attention paid to pressure ulcer prevention and treatment of any existing wounds (wound healing), and education about diet, exercise, glucose monitoring and management, and medication side-effects (here's where pharm comes in). We also may want to think about asking for a consult with a dietitian if the patient is noncompliant with diet or has cultural or religious needs affecting treatment adherence, likewise a PT/OT consult if the patient has mobility issues. ...See how that all came from basic patho?

[Firehawk734]

Please tell me there were plenty of students in the program who were not former CNA and needed to learn the skills in lab and study...

[murphyle, BSN, RN]

Of course there were; I was one of them!

We probably only had 25-30% out of our cohort that were CNAs beforehand, though most of us had some flavor of experience with healthcare, be it volunteering or previous career (a bunch of people came from exercise physiology, physical therapy and other such degrees). We also had a few people who came in "cold," having previously worked in totally non-healthcare fields (we had an ex-Big Three accountant and a high-school German teacher, among others), and they all did just fine too. In my own case, I came from a healthcare background, but I hadn't a clue about transfers, ambulation, bed baths or any of that, so that was all material I had to learn. Subsequent cohorts that I taught had a higher percentage of CNAs, but I suspect that had more to do with something ejcl68 mentioned - if you're sitting around for a year waiting to start, you may as well get that experience in the meanwhile.

Also, you asked about my GPA in the program. I'd prefer not to state an actual number, but I was inducted into Sigma and graduated with honors. From that, you should be able to derive a minimum GPA and class standing.