HelloSunshine545

I started as a new grad nurse on an orthopedic floor this September, a floor that I have worked on as a CNA for about a year. I got three weeks of orientation and I felt comfortable in my position, especially since the majority of our patients are medically stable elective joint replacement. The week I got off of orientation, we became a COVID floor with high acuity patients. It stayed this way until about two weeks ago when we began to transition back to orthopedics. I thought I was doing okay until two weeks ago when I just broke down at a family function thinking about an 18 year old I had admitted recently - the last patient that I admitted for COVID. We are now back to orthopedics, but I still can't stop crying when I am not at work. My family is very concerned, thinking I should leave and try to find work in the operating room, as I've been wanting to find a job there since graduation. I figured that I would work on the floor for a year or two before I did that, but I feel like COVID has broken me. When I'm not at work, I fear coming back to COVID and I see all of my patients faces and think about their families. I just don't know what to do anymore. I don't feel that I hate my job. I still love my coworkers and my patients but I feel myself slipping more and more each week into a depression, and it seems to me that maybe moving to the operating room which is so different and mostly days might help me get out of this funk but I don't know if it would be a good idea to leave bedside with only 4 months experience or if this funk is just normal new grad stuff.

There is a pretty extensive information regarding this on the NAU ABSN 2020 page on allnurses, so definitely check that out - some people posted their stats and whether they got in or not, so you can go off of that. The Kaplan Entrance Exam is very difficult to study for as there are very few resources that accurately depict what the exam is like. I would suggest hopping over to the other page and taking a peak at everyone's stats. I believe that they go mostly by GPA and the Kaplan score, so just try to review for the Kaplan as much as you can to try to strengthen your application. I think the Kaplan Study Guide was the most helpful for me, but it did not prepare me for a lot of stuff. In general, studying reading/writing portions of ACT or SAT was beneficial. I had the most trouble with the science portion, getting a 65% because I did not review general biology topics. Good Luck on your test!

Okay! Thanks so much for your responses! Do you guys happen to have any information about the Nurse Extern positions at Parkview? Are they pretty flexible with the nursing students/ do you think it would be feasible to work these positions in the last half of the program?

Hello! I am going to be attending this program this Summer, and was wondering how the intensity is- I've heard that it is not recommended that you work. Has anyone in the program been able to work throughout the program?

I just received an email! I got accepted! Did anyone else receive news?

I don't know if this is indicative of an acceptance, but I logged into the NAU PeopleSoft and I saw that I had been assigned an advisor. When I clicked on details, it showed me that I had an academic program assigned to me- the accelerated BSN. Again, I'm not sure this is indicative of an acceptance, but it wasn't there before

Hello everyone! So I have been accepted into a couple of nursing programs and was hoping I could get some advice on how to choose between them. This is the information I've gathered: School 1 has 675 clincial hours, mainly at one hospital, which has a level 1 trauma designation and a clincial capstone course in which you get to find a floor and work directly with one nurse (preceptor, I think?) However, there is poor job availability for CNA work, so I do not know if I will be able to find a part time job as a CNA to get more clinical exposure outside of the program. School 2 has over 900 clinics hours, in several different hospitals (some over an hour away). It appears that the main difference in hours is that this school requires rotations in public health, as well as additional childbearing and family clinicals. There is no clinical capstone, but the nearby hospital has grants to hire nurse externs, resulting in an abundance of such positions. However, this program is a semester longer, and as a consequence, almost $8k more expensive in tuition (not counting books/supplies/fees/cost of living). My biggest question is whether the difference in number of clincal hours is important, and whether my decision should be based off of this information I've gathered or not. If you have anything that would be good to consider in this decision, please say!

Thanks for the information @Cpt ATP !

Hello everyone! I got accepted into CSU-P's accelerating nursing program starting this summer, and I was wondering if anyone had any information on the amount of clinical hours students get throughout the entire program and what type of clinical hours they were. I tried contacting the school but I've gotten no response ? I was also wondering if anyone was able to work during the accelerate program? Any information is appreciated! Thank You!

Hello, @Cpt ATP, I was wondering if you knew how many clinical hours the ABSN program gets?

Personally, I really liked reading your semester review! I would love to read more stuff like it if you've got the time

Yeah I hope so, too. Ditto on the good luck!

I also got a 65% in science when I took the Kaplan (?). I was really upset with myself- I was expecting all physiology questions and barely got any! Most of the science seemed to be extremely general bio, I was really surprised. It looks like NAU isn't accepting any exams dated before July 2019 (for traditional or accelerated) so Kaplan must've changed the expected content.