ladyapj

I just started working home health & get $45 per visit + mileage but mileage isn't paid on the 1st visit of every day and one of my patients is 45 miles out. No insurance, 401K, continuing ED reimbursement, phone, etc. I took this job just to make a little extra cash. I agreed to the low pay bc I had no experience in home health & I'm a new nurse with only 6 months of experience. Other companies will pay $50-55 + mileage. Uber would basically take your whole paycheck in Texas.

Probably, because they knew they were doing something wrong and want to keep other nurses blind to what's going on. However, no identifiers posted so they can't trace without hacking.

That's very true. I think there's a lot of room for improvement in some aspects of nursing educarion.

Because that person had very little experience and it was only in an out-patient dialysis unit. If clinical experience is all that's required to teach, why would schools require MSN's to teach RN's? The school was a for-profit one that charged 3 times what any other college in the area did. There is a difference between a clinical instructor and a theory instructor. Personally, I think any nurse with a lot of experience can teach clinicals, but a theory instructor needs to be able explain all concepts in depth and an ADN doesn't have that knowledge.

I know an ADN that got a job teaching in a private nursing school. I was horrified! My understanding is an MSN is required, at least at reputable schools.

I requested to see my records as a patient back in the early 90's. The nurses seemed upset by this, but I was allowed to see them. I wasn't checking up on the nurses, I was checking up on the doctors. Turned out I was right about my suspicions. Most people wouldn't know how to interpret anything they read in the record anyway.

Definitely consult an attorney. I wouldn't sign it. They have no right to your medical records.

This is horrifying and should be reported immediately! Racist remarks have no place in today's society and these instructors need to be fired! The instructors are the ones that are not professional. My BP is off the charts reading this! The students should recognize that this is something that they would report if it had happened in their workplace and this is no different. The fact that these instructors would try to manipulate these students is unbelievable! I have to say I am a bit shocked that the students would even hesitate to report it. Nurses have to be bold enough to stand up for their patients and themselves.

JPS (John Peter Smith Hospital) also has residencies available in Fort Worth.

I am 57 and have finally reached my last semester. I began my career in medicine when I was 19 working as an EMT and then paramedics. Back in those days, women were only just beginning to work in firehouses. Many years later, it is common to have women paramedics/firefighters. Working for private ambulance companies paid so little I had to resort to medical office work to support me and my daughter. Then I got hit with lupus, gastroparesis, WPW, and chronic pseudo-obstruction. This was unfounded science at the time and many doctors wouldn't help me claiming it was all psychological. It got so bad I had to go on disability. It took me 15 years of fighting for my health to finally begin to crawl out of that hole. One day I decided I had had enough and took my life back. My doctor thought I was crazy for attempting the demands of nursing school. I moved out of the tiny country town back into civilization and started going to school to become the nurse I have always wanted to be. I went to boot camp in a wheelchair but still made it through. Unfortunately I fell prey to my own ignorance of the college system and a school system that happily took advantage of it. I was very unprepared for how much the world had changed over the past 2 decades, especially in technology. I was told I needed to take all my pre-reqs for a BSN before I could apply to an ADN program. Three schools in my district actually forced this by the point system. Without all the pre-req's there was no way to get enough points to make it in. After 2 years I finally looked outside my district and got in right away. It has been a relatively easy journey until this semester with the switch to online. My biggest issue has been learning technology while still meeting the demands of the nursing school curriculum. Then my parents both became very ill the first week of this last semester and I got so far behind I was considering dropping. It has taken me 4 years to get to this point and I'm not about to give up this easily. My GPA has taken a big hit but I KNOW I can still pass this semester and the NCLEX. Thank you for posting your trials and tribulations to encourage us.

I applied to Brookhaven and Mountain View for Spring 2019 semester. I had 32.5 points for Brookhaven and did not even get an interview. I don't remember my exact points for Mountain View but I think it was maybe 13. I did get an interview with Mountain View but did not get accepted. I did get into the Tarrant County program. They only require A&P I & II, & microbiology. They also look at your HESI score. Most people can get in with an 2 A's, a B, an a HESI of 89 and some have gotten in with 2 B's an A, and an 87 on their HESI. It varies each semester depending on the pool of scores submitted. I think they also require Lifespan or at least Psych 101 but, if I remember correctly, that grade is not figured into your points. You can find the info on their website. The school is a lot bigger than the Dallas programs and much easier to get into. However, you will only get 50% of your financial aid because they only allot 8 hours per semester. BUT, they offer all nursing students a school scholarship that pays $960 a semester and there is another scholarship that pays $1000. The school scholarship requires at least 9 hours of classes so you would have to add a credit hour class like yoga to get that, and the other scholarship requires that you keep a B average. I've only made 3 B's in the past 60 hours so you'd think making a B would be easy in nursing school but it's harder than you think, especially at Tarrant County because they raised the grading scale. An A is 92-100, a B is 83-91, etc. There is one day of lecture for 4 hours and the first semester clinicals are 8 hours, as well as mental health. After that, the clinicals are 12 hours once a week and a lecture class for 4 hours. It is a very good school EXCEPT, if you transfer in, you get to register for classes according to how many hours you have attended TCC. In my case, I took all my pre-reqs thru DCCCD so I get to choose my classes last. That hasn't been a problem until registration for Spring 2020 because you are assigned classes for the first 2 semesters usually. They will allow you to change with someone else but you have to get on the Facebook page and start asking for someone to exchange places with you. They also have blended classes that you can do on your own at home but still have to report for clinicals, except for the last 2 semesters. They have added one night class during the week and Saturday classes, and clinicals are available any day of the week. Blended classes are not available for OB/pedi, and complex semesters. OB/pedi are split into 8 week sessions in one semester. I got lucky for Adult and someone I knew had to drop the class & clinical I wanted so I was able to get them. Today I got stuck with the clinicals that won't work for me, so unless some people fail this semester, I will have to drop the program. I will be contacting the DCCCD schools to see if I can possibly transfer. You really need to make very sure that the school you're trying to get into has policies you can live with. I know it is very tempting to just be thankful you got in somewhere, but there is so much more to be considered. If something like this happens to you, it will cost even more money because you will most likely have to buy new books, scrubs, patches, software programs, etc. The only info I have on El Centro is that you pretty much have to complete ALL your BSN pre-req's to get enough points to get in which makes it harder and it takes a lot longer to get into El Centro, but they are NOT one of the better schools. They were shut down for a semester because so many of the students failed the NCLEX. They really need to restructure their program. Tarrant County and Brookhaven are rated about the same, but Tarrant County does not require a lot of the BS that Brookhaven does like the critical thinking test and interview process. Plus, Tarrant County admits about 200 students every semester so it is a LOT easier to get into. Brookhaven only admits 50 or 60.

I would take Mountain View over El Centro any day. El Centro supposedly made all kinds of changes since they got suspended but if you look at their website, they're still using the same screening criteria. They also could've told everybody that applied last year that they were getting shut down so don't waste your time applying here but they didn't so those that had only applied to El Centro missed deadlines to apply elsewhere. That was just so wrong. I wouldn't trust them to the right thing by their students. I would only go to that school if I had no other option. Mountaain View is easily a much better school than El Centro in my opinion.

We only know how many points we started with. The writing sample & interview also add or subtract points so nobody will ever know what their final scores were. I started with 17 points & I felt like I did really good on the interview but I didn't get accepted. The best thing to do is apply to as many schools as possible. I applied to 3 & got accepted to one. It wasn't my first choice but nursing is so hard to get into I'm just happy I got accepted somewhere.

Actually, my first choice was Brookhaven because it's closer to my house & it only takes 16 months to complete but I didn't have enough points. I also applied to Tarrant County & Mountain View & Mountain View was my 2nd choice because it's a shorter drive for me & because I have taken all of my classes thru DCCCD so I'm familiar with their computer system. Both Brookhaven & Mountain View have great stats for passing the NCLEX. But I didn't get accepted to Mountain View either. I was accepted to Tarrant County so I'm very happy I got in somewhere. Tarrant nursing program accepts 180 students per semester so it's HUGE!!! But they supposedly have the lowest instructor-student ratio. It can be hard to tell which program is the best because we don't know all the criteria that went into developing the stats. One ranking I saw went strictly off the NCLEX scores which is fine, but I couldn't find anything that told me if the professors treated the students fairly, really helped them, or if the rules were too strict/lax, etc. I saw on a thread from allnurses last semester where one girl was accepted to Mountain View & Tarrant County & she chose Tarrant but didn't say why. It could've just been more convenient for her. There are a lot of nurses in my family & my cousin told me that employers don't care which school you went to, whether or not you graduated with honors, or what your NCLEX score was, as long as you passed because there's such a shortage of nurses. So I don't think there's any real clear cut criteria for anybody on choosing a school if you're fortunate enough to get to choose. I think anybody smart enough to make the grades & HESI scores necessary to get accepted, can get what they need from any school that has decent NCLEX pass rates. I will say I ran into somebody at North Lake that said she had been accepted to Mountain View last semester & she quit because she said the professors were "horrible" & advised me not go there if at all possible because they would make life miserable. But I didn't know her so she could've just been an overly sensitive person. I've seen some posts of complaints from Tarrant & El Centro as well.BUT, I've probably seen more positive comments about all of them. So again, I really have not been able to find anything about any of these schools that makes one better than another. My criteria was first based on how fast I could get finished so Broohaven was a no-brainer & I already know the school since I've been taking classes there. It was kind of a toss up for me between Mountain View & Tarrant but I was already familiar with DCCCD & I liked that Mountain View takes a summer break, even if it means I have to graduate 3 months later than Tarrant. It also meant that I would have 3 whole months less of 12 hour clinical shifts. The biggest plus for Tarrant is they have 8 credit hours of lecture & lab & the other schools have 9 or more, depending on which classes you've already taken. So Brookhaven & Mountain View will definitely be more intense because they have to cram the same amount of info into less time. These are the only schools I looked into & applied for. I don't know which schools you're trying to decide from but you could just make a list of pro & cons of what is important to you & go from there. Good luck.

Oh, I didn't know that. I was going off of the website that said they admitted 50 per semester. I was told my Prof Kinsey that a lot of people were lost in the first semester because of pharmacology on top of all the other classes.