C0SM0

So I work in the OR at a small surgery center. Although we aren't very big, we do 40+ surgeries a day and have a lot of foot traffic. During our surgeries, there is a camera attached to the microscope. The surgeries are then broadcasted live to other parts of the surgery center such as hallways, other OR's, and most importantly, our Pre-OP and PACU areas. Our Pre-Op and PACU have several patients in them at any given time and the patients in those areas are able to see the surgeries of other patients as they're happening. The surgeries being broadcasted do NOT have any patient information on the screen and you cannot see any identifiable features of the patient themselves, just the surgery that's being performed. Even though there is no visible patient information on the screen, I still feel as though this is a HIPAA violation. I've brought it up more than once to leadership, but I'm told that since there is no "identifiable information" on the screen that it's fine and I should just let it go. The reason I'm given for the live broadcast in PACU is so the staff knows when a procedure is about to end and they can prepare for that patient to be brought out. Is this a HIPAA violation or am I just overreacting? If it is a violation, what can I actually do about it since leadership doesn't seem to think it's an issue?

I'd give it. They've probably had dirtier things in their mouth before.

I work in the OR. One day anesthesia was putting a four-year-old child under, and he became combative and starting kicking and screaming. As I was holding him down, he stared deep into my soul and screamed "YOU ARE NOT INVITED TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!". Well that's wonderful, Timmy, because you're not invited to mine either.

As long as your "friend" has a prescription for whatever they test positive for, it will be fine. I tested positive for methamphetamines when I had to take my drug test. I had a prescription so it was no big deal.

I just graduated with an ADN in December and was hired at a Magnet facility, in an RN position, three months before I even graduated.

Lol, I did that all the time during clinicals. I'd just bring the documents to school with me the next day and put it in the shred bin. No big deal.

During exams at my school, we weren't even allowed to bring bags into the classroom.

From what I understand, if lab values are abnormal on NCLEX, they will be either very high or very low. You won't have to be guessing as to if it's abnormal or not as long as you know the general ranges. For what it's worth, I just took the NCLEX less than a week ago, had 265 questions, and didn't have a single lab value question.

I'm not sure exactly, but I started nursing school in January 2016 and our instructors told us to only expect generic names. They were right. I just took my NCLEX this past Friday, had 265 questions with many drug questions (no drug calc, though) and they were all generic names. I didn't have one drug question that had a brand name in it.

On a side note, your school should also be teaching you the generic names of the drugs instead of the brand names. NCLEX changed a while back and you'll no longer see brand names. So instead of Lasix, you'll see Furosemide.

My state doesn't use Breeze so I'm afraid I can't help you there.

I took my NCLEX yesterday, February 2nd, 2018 and received ALL 265 questions. I actually felt like I was doing pretty well in the first 75 with lots of priority/delegation questions so I was a little shocked when the exam kept going. Then it got to 100, 150, 200, 250, and finally 265. I had about an hour left so it took me right around five hours. My last question was a priority OB question that I know I got correct. According to Kaplan, if you take all 265 questions and your last question is a passing level question, you pass regardless if you answer it correctly or not. I also tried the PVT a few times and got the "good" pop-up each time. I likely won't know my results until early next week, just wanted to share my experience with others in a similar situation.

ABC's

What did you use for resources while studying? I'm using strictly Kaplan and I get MAYBE 10% of the SATA questions correct. Did you think the NCLEX SATA were easier than your resources for studying? I'm taking the NCLEX February 2nd and, needless to say, SATA is my weakness at this point.

I'm surprised your school gives people the option to not get a flu shot. My school required it or we were not allowed to go to clinicals.

Does anyone have any good NCLEX cheat sheets to look over while studying? I've got a good one with lab values and a couple other things, but was curious to know if anyone that has taken the exam already used anything that they felt was a big help when they took the test.

Your description of your clinicals is exactly what I experienced all throughout nursing school. I just graduated this month and my clinicals were always the same. I had MAYBE 5% RN specific duties and 95% CNA tasks. I thought it would get better after the first semester fundamentals class, but it never did. My classmates and I always joked around and would say things like "I sure am going to make a great CNA after I graduate nursing school." I truly hope your experience is different and you get to actually gain some of those skills you'll need once you graduate.

If your chief complaint about a bridge program is that you will not be respected enough, then you're better off in that warehouse job you spoke of.

I heard the same crap all throughout nursing school. I can't even count the times I heard "You will start off on a med-surg floor to gain some confidence before moving onto something else." If that was true, I would have dropped out of nursing school. I did two years of clinicals on a med-surg floor and HATED every minute of it. Now, that's not to take away from those that do work med-surg. It's typically a busy unit with a decent learning curve, it's just not for everyone. I went to nursing school because I wanted to work in the OR and I was fortunate enough to get a job there right out of school. Many hospitals have residency programs where you'll work on many units and then get to apply for what you want at the end of it.

I'm probably going to be in the minority here, but this seems like a case where honesty is not the best policy. You said the school is working with the publisher to find out who bought test banks from a website. Common sense tells me there is absolutely no possible way to find out who got onto a website such as Test Mango and made purchases. Is a publisher really going to contact an "illegal" website and demand things such as names, address, email addresses, and other personal information of their customers? Probably not. And even if they did (and were successful in doing so) is that publisher going to turn around and give the personal information of thousands upon thousands of people to your school? Again, probably not. My advice is to keep your mouth shut and take this as a lesson learned.

When you say a 76%, does that mean you have to score a 76% on the actual test, or you have to score well enough to where Kaplan says you have a 76% chance of passing the NCLEX? At my school, we had to score a 60% on the Kaplan Predictor, which translates to about a 94% chance of passing the NCLEX. We have a few people in my class with a 4.0 throughout the entire program, and not even they scored as high as a 76% on the test itself.

I have a total of seven nursing ebooks downloaded onto my iPad and it takes up less than 3GB.

Agreed, 100%. The ONLY issue I've had in nursing school was during my OB rotation. Even then, I only had one patient politely tell me they preferred a female nursing student. I've had the occasional "So you're going to be a male nurse?", which I kindly reply "No, I'm trained to take care of female patients as well."

I'm in my last semester of nursing school and all I heard about the first three semesters, from students and instructors, is that if I don't get a tech job first I'll have a hard time finding a nursing job. Well, I'm about seven weeks away from graduating and so far I'm the only one in my class who has been offered an RN job after graduating. Meanwhile, we've had several people take tech jobs that have failed out because they have no time to study. The point being, don't take a job in a hospital just because you think it'll help you land a job once you graduate. As far as hours worked, that'll vary between hospitals. Your best bet is to talk to a hospital recruiter/HR to find that out.

Just so I understand this correctly, you think you should drop out of your final year of nursing school because you forgot to turn on a bed alarm? Something tells me you're looking for us to tell you everything will be okay, that it happens to everyone, and if everyone dropped their career every time a mistake was made, no one would have a job. So, here it goes...Everything will be just fine, people make mistakes on a daily basis, some of which are much greater than forgetting to turn on a bed alarm, and if everyone dropped out of nursing school every time they made a mistake, there would be no nurses. Now, don't you feel better?