herwitsend

Also, CONGRATULATIONS and Welcome!!! I will see you at Power Up. I am one of the Peer Tutors. Peer tutoring will save your life (or at least your GPA)!!

Hey! I will be a Junior 2 at BSMCON this fall. In order to get a PCT job, you have to either be a CNA or have finished your first semester of clinicals. I imagine this is why you are getting passed over. In the fall, there will be a job fair at the college where you can be hired on the spot. Bon Secours managers come to the college looking to fill their positions specifically with our nursing students. The timing is perfect for applying because you will be almost done with your first clinical and it is great for getting onboarding and orientation done over the holidays. Advantages to working for BS while in school: 20% off tuition, and some tuition reimbursement (depending on your unit)!!

I have always gone by ISBN and have always gotten the correct books. I think they update that and sometimes forget to update the rest of the listing. You will find little oversights like that are pretty typical throughout the program. Are you on the Facebook group for the college? There are often students getting rid of books. Most of the time, one edition out of date doesn't matter much. Also, you don't need all the books they "require." Will this be your first semester? I am happy to help you figure out what you need.

I don't know where you are seeing a book list, so I can't speak to that. I have not had any issues with not being able to get books. When you are enrolled in a course they give you the current book list for that course. It is usually the latest edition of whatever book they are using.

I am a BSMCON student. It is a 16 week course with 8 weeks of Peds and 8 weeks of OB. You get one grade for the course.

It is a 5 semester program. Course load is fairly heavy, but I think it is going to be that way with nursing school wherever you go. You start off with only one clinical, a lab/ hospital skills course so you spend half of the class days in the skills lab and half in the hospital. Second semester and thereafter you have 2 class days and 2 clinical days each week. There are 4 Bon Secours hospitals in the area so we have really great clinical sites and I have had fantastic experiences with all of the nurses and staff. The college is really small, therefore you don't really have any ability to make your own schedule. You are assigned courses, times and days without being able to give any input. I think if you really had a scheduling issue they would try to work with you, but you really get close to your clinical cohort (you do clinical with the same group of 8 all the way through) and we just work our lives around our class schedule (and not the other way around). The college does a really good job of caring for students and I am constantly impressed by their mission and how they act it out. If I were moving to the area for school, I would look in the Near West End, Lakeside, or Mechanicsville. All of those areas are decent places to live and are close to the school. The school also has a way for students to connect for roommate situations.

Hey! I am happy to answer your questions about BSMCON. I am a current student there.

just turned 40 and I start January 8th!!

Before you get any vaccines, you could have titers drawn. Chances are you have immunity to some childhood diseases (like chicken pox since you had it as a child) and may not need them all. Once you have titers drawn, your physician can direct you as to which vaccines you need and when. Your chosen program will probably have a deadline to have them done, or proof that you are in the process of getting them done. Don't worry about adverse reactions. They are few and far between (apart from muscle soreness).

Awww. Thanks.

Every person with a bed sore or incontinence or disgusting wound (or whatever) is a person. Seriously, this keeps me going. They are a person with a story. They have lived and loved and borne children and grieved and they are living in this perpetual state of indignity. They like it even less than you! I am a doula as well, and I like to think of it as an opportunity to restore their dignity, to hear their story if they are willing to tell it, to help a family advocate for their loved one, to be (even for just a moment) a loved one if they don't have anybody. NEVER get used to human indignity!! Doula them, hold space for them, speak light into their dark place! As for the gagging, I keep peppermint altoids on hand and pop one in my mouth before doing gross stuff. The strong scent and taste help a lot. A small bottle of peppermint EO in your pocket could work too, to sniff. You have obviously overcome bad smells previously in order to be a birth doula. What works for you there?