bcyogi

Life is good 1973: Are you in Southern Nevada or Northern Nevada? I am in Southern Nevada. Any openings at your place? How would I locate the postings if so? Thanks for any info. Sounds like a nice job.

Thanks for the replies. Change is so hard, especially when you are going from something you still like. It is different when you are fed up at your job and it is time to move on. I would have less need for a babysitter on the 5 days a week, but I sure like having 4 full days off too! Will have to talk to the family (again... they are probably sick of my pros/cons lists) and pray about it! Thanks for the input.

I have been working 3 12's 7a - 7p for a year and a half on a busy postpartum unit. I do like it. But I have always thought about doing ambulatory surgery. Any of you out there have info on likes/dislikes about ambulatory surgery? There are occasional openings at my hospital, most are full-time 5 days a week--1000-1830. Not having to be to work til 10am would be great for my babysitting issues, but not getting home til 7- 5 nights a week doesn't sound all that great either. So, would you ever go from a 3 day a week work-week to a 5? Is ambulatory surgery a great place to work like I have heard from so many? Any input is appreciated!!

My hospital does not have a nursery at all. We have a separate NICU (totally different department and floor) and we have L&D (sister department but separate floor), but we get all the M/B patients. We typically take 4 couplets as our assignment. Our babies are in the room 100% of the time. We do have a treatment room that we take the babies for bath, hearing screens, PKU and HepB, but those don't take too long, and baby is quickly back with mom (if mom didn't accompany us to the the treatment room!). For the most part, I think most of our mom's like the "rooming in" with baby, but there are a few that could use a few good hours of continuous sleep, but we nurses look after baby when time allows for those exhausted moms! :zzzzz I love my unit. I love caring for the babies and the moms together! :heartbeat

I graduated on May 19th and took the test on June 27th. Just found out today that I passed. I used the Kaplan book with CD and the Saunders book/CD. I had a couple other books like Lippencott and Mosby, but I only put those discs in a couple of times. Just went over some lab values and some s/s of toxicity and disease processes so they were fresh in my mind and did about 100-200 questions per day, about 5 days a week. I did study a bit the day before my test, but I tested at 2pm. Good luck to you.

Thank you for the good vibes! I found out today that I PASSED. What a relief. Now I can start work tomorrow! Can't wait!

WOW....I took my test today and your test sounds just like mine. I shut off at 75 as well. I couldn't believe how many SATA I got. Hope my results turn out as well as yours. Congrats. Now I just have to think of something to take my mind off it it until my results are posted!

Did you use the Qbank online for Kaplan? Or the CD that came with the book? I have been using Saunders and Kaplan with a little Mosby. I don't have the Qbank. I take my test on June 27th. I don't know if I will ever feel like I have studied enough! Congrats to you!

When I had my kids, the hospital didn't give too much, but what they did was hand decorate (I had girls so there were flowers) a hospital onsie and put all the baby stats on it.... full name, date of birth, time of birth, length, weight. My kids never wore it, but I still have it and thought it was a very nice keepsake.

My husband leaves for work at 5am and I will have to leave (starting work as an RN at the end of June!!!) at about 6am. My mom retired a couple years ago and lives about a 2 minute drive from me. She has offered to come to my house at 6am and read my paper and drink my coffee while the kids get up and ready themselves for school. My kids are going into the 5th and 2nd grade at the end of summer, and they are pretty self sufficient in the mornings. She will drop them off at school a little after 8 and have the rest of the day for herself. My husband is home from work in time to get them after school. As for the summer, well we will be juggling many different things so the kids don't get too bored at grandmas for 6-8 hours a day. We have a Recreation Center program that takes the kids bowling, swimming, to the movies and has activities at the Center as well, so they will be spending time there after my mom gets them up and going in the morning. Without her willingness to do this, I don't know what I'd do with my kids so early in the morning. I hated the thought of getting them up at 5-5:30 to leave the house by 6, and childcare that opens before 7 is hard to find. Hope you find an option that works for all of you!

I am not too sure how the hospitals differ in pay, but I have heard good things about Sunrise and St. Rose. It may also depend on what side of town you are living on, because traffic can be a real nightmare out here. Only one hospital (that I know of) posts salary info on their website. It is for the County Hospital-UMC. Here is a link to their website. I heard that they have great benefits. http://www.umc-cares.org/

I think the IRT is "in reference to" or " in regard to". But I could be wrong.

Yes, I did like the program. I became a NAP (nurse apprentice) during the program, and that made getting a job a bit easier. I haven't taken my boards yet, I think I will receive my ATT sometime this week and then I can schedule for mid to late June (hopefully). 224 was really HARD for me too. I barely squeaked out with a B-. I was able to make mostly A's in the nursing program. Once you figure out the format (NCLEX style) that they use for the test questions, it gets easier to score decent. Good luck! It is so exciting and scary to take on nursing school, but well worth it!

I didn't have financial aid, so I don't know how the part-time status would effect that. We only did one class per semester in the part time program (for most semesters), so the cost was about $100-150 for books and $250-350 for the class, so it was doable for us. I didn't mind the Cheyenne campus. I was more frightened on my drive to the campus than when I was actually on the campus. We were a pretty tight group and we always walked to our cars together, so I never felt unsafe. The point system has changed so much since I was admitted, so I can't help you there. Whether you chose full-time or part-time, I am sure you will make the adjustments just fine. All the chaos and hectic schedule of either program soon becomes your new "norm" and somehow it just works!

I just graduated from the part-time program at CSN. I chose part-time because I was a SAHM with kids that had never been in child-care centers and I wanted to avoid day care costs because we were on only one income. I also had a fear of having a major test or clinical that I just couldn't miss, and a sick kid at home that I could not leave!! All of our classes were held in the evening (starting at 5:30 or 6:00 pm) and our clinicals were held on Saturday. You usually could choose between a 6:45 am start for clinical, or a 12:45 pm start time. We did go through the summer, but the the class load was a bit lighter (and easier to handle for me....I am a bit of an older student). While the full time students took both Med/Surg and Mental Health nursing in the 2nd semester, we in the part-time had med/surg as our only class one semester and mental health nursing in another semester. We only did one class at at time. Hope this info on the part-time program helps you to make a decision that will work best for you and your family! Good luck and keep us posted!

If I remember correctly from when I had Maternal/Newborn clinicals at Sunrise, they call their postpartum unit Mother/Infant Unit (MIU). Hope you can find a hospital/unit to NAP for. Being a NAP during nursing school has been the best experience and I am so glad I did it. Good luck in your search.

I am currently in (and graduating in May ) from a part-time ADN program. We don't do a semester of lecture and a semester of clinical, though. We do 7 straight semesters (including summers, ugh) and do one class per semester. Here is a link to the curriculum requirements. http://sites.csn.edu/health/adncurricfallparttime.pdf We hold classes in the evening and do our clinical work at the hospital on Saturdays. It works well for people with a traditional work schedule. Hope this helps.

For preceptorship, you give your top three choices (hopsital and area) and they do what they can to place you somewhere that interests you. You have to do 120 hours (10 12-hour shifts) and you follow the work schedule of the preceptor you have been assigned. Good luck! You are almost there! I graduate from CSN in May and just finished my preceptorship. Have fun with it. It is actually a great experience!

I am not sure if they are exactly the same thing, but in my state (Nevada), we have positions called Nurse Apprentice. From what you've described they sound very similar, and what is OK/not OK to do is cleary stated on my states BON site. I would check there. I would also think that an orientation packet as a new hire would have some sort of details of the position. Good luck. It is a great learning experience and adds so much more than just school clinical experiences.

I am at CSN, in my final semester :w00t:of the part-time program. I will start my precepting this week and N208-professional topics, will start on Thursday. I can't wait to be done. In some ways, the time has flown by, but in other ways it seems like I have been dreaming about being at this point for SO long. Good luck to everyone in your classes! I think back on my 3 weeks in ACE and can't believe those same people that I didn't know have become some of the best friends I will ever have.

I work as a Nurse Apprentice on a Med/Surg/Tele floor. We have up to 45-50 beds in our unit (depending if cardiac is using one of our halls for overflow). Our charge nurses never take patients of their own. There is too much going on all day long for them to have patients. The 2 that I have worked with regularly are very competent in their skills and always ready to jump in and start an IV, help discharge a patient, or whatever they can do to help out. I am not an RN yet, so I may view things differently once I am in the "real world" of nursing, but I can't imagine our charge nurses having patients. I have seen a variety of different hospitals and units through my clinical rotations, and EVERY place seems to do it different!

I purchased the study guide book from the book store. It had a review for each section, practice problems, and explanations. I don't know why the test covers physics (I had a lot of electricity quesitons on mine about amps and ohms!). None of those classes are a prerequisite for nursing school, but they have been testing with that for years, so I would recommend buying the book, and reading up on the info on the physics and such that is offered. It helped me. Good luck to you.

Wow, I hope you get that call! I still remember getting my letter on December 2, 2005 saying "Congratulations!, you have been accepted". I will be graduating from CSN in May. Did you apply for the part-time or full-time program? Good luck. I hope you can find something to take your mind off of it while you wait. December 4th will be here before you know it!

If you don't want job #2, I'll take it! Seriously, they both sound great. If monthly income isn't the factor, I would definitely choose choice #2. If you need the extra money for bills, then #1. They are both great choices. You are very lucky.

Oops, looks like dubkaf posted similar info right before my post went up. Sorry.