future L&Dnurse

UNM is based on gpa, science especially, your application essays, and letters of recommendation. They also prefer to take New Mexico residents and really like previous experience in health care as a tech or volunteer or something.

UNM does not have a waiting list, actually. You have to complete 2 or so years of prereqs and apply for the nursing program, and then you either get in or you don't. It is fairly competitive, but there's no waiting list. CNM does have a waiting list, I understand it to be about 3 years long at the moment. I don't know about the other programs available in NM.

The best person to answer your question is your clinical instructor. That said, I have chronic problems with tendonitis and what I suspect is carpal tunnel in one wrist. My wrist started aching last semester and I had to wear a brace for about 3 weeks to let it rest and make it stop hurting. I wore the brace to clinical - I asked for help with any lifting or moving, I pulled an extra-large glove on over the brace if I needed gloves. Not a big deal, it worked out just fine. Ask your instructor, he or she is the best person to know whether you can do it or not, but in my experience you probably can, as long as you aren't doing heavy lifting with that hand.

That's awesome. :)

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I didn't end up subscribed to the thread for some reason and didn't know you'd posted! Thank you so much for the offer! I interviewed someone I work with who has 1 year of experience during my last shift, so I won't need to interview you also, but I really appreciate your willingness to help. Thanks so much, this is why I like allnurses.com . Thank you for the offer!

failure is not an option. This, too, shall pass. They were a lot more positive before I started nursing school but I'm just plain burned out at this point. I've got 73 days until Graduation and can't wait to be done!!

I'm 6' tall and I have had good luck with Lydia's Pro-Series tall scrub pants. They're still slightly short but don't look anywhere near as ridiculous as the other "tall" pants I've tried. Mens also work well, as far as length goes, but most of them have that tapered ankle and I don't like that style.

I had the same problem a couple of times - you want to do it as fast as seasoned nurses do it, but simply put, you can't at your level of skill! It's okay, you'll get there. I would slow down. Slow way down, think things through. Chances are that you are not going to be working in a life-or-death situation in clinical this semester, so it's okay to stop and think it through before you start. Another thing that I think is helpful is to ask the nurse or your instructor, BEFORE you go into the room and get started, if you can briefly walk through the procedure with them and then tell them what you think the procedure is. That shows that you are thinking about this and are aware that there are policies and standards of practice, and that you are at least generally aware of how you're supposed to do whatever it is you're about to do, and it also allows the instructor to correct any mistakes before you're "in the moment" and feeling frazzled and freaked out. I also have decided that I somewhat disagree with the assertion that you should always volunteer to do a skill if the opportunity arises, because you may not get another chance. While that's true, I've realized that sometimes it is SO much better to say "I have never done it, I would like to observe you if that is okay." They may still have you do it, but there is the understanding up front that this is the very first foley/IV/whatever and you are going to need guidance. Hang in there. It sounds like you have a really tough instructor which really will benefit you in the end, but meanwhile I would really open up the lines of communication with her and let her know that you are trying very hard, and see what she thinks you can do to improve. (ETA: I didn't realize this thread was so old, and should have read the whole thing. My advice still stands for any future nursing students who find this thread, though, and OP I wish you the best in your new program!)

I have an assignment due in mid-April. I am supposed to interview nurses who have worked for 1, 5, and 10 years about how they approached nursing when they first graduated, what they do differently now, etc. If anyone is willing to let me interview them via email or on the phone I would be very grateful. You can private message me or post here and I will private message you. Thanks in advance if you're able to share some of your time with me!

If I understand it correctly, dependent is lower. Have you ever seen dependent edema? It shows up in the legs, the scrotum, the forearms if the arms aren't elevated etc. I had a patient who had really severe dependent edema - his hands were so swollen, we put them on pillows, and within about an hour (if that) his elbows were swollen and his hands were much less so, but looked wrinkled and saggy because of the strain on the skin. The fluid went to whatever was the lowest point in his body. So your textbook means to raise the foot higher than, say, the knee or hip.

I would be surprised if anyone here has not felt that way at least one day of nursing school. I would spend more time with your patients. Get to know them, ask them those questions, ask them if they'll tell you about their history of whatever illness they've got, since you are still learning. There are an awful lot of lonely people in the hospital, and giving someone an ear to talk to is sometimes the very best treatment you can give. Offer to help nurses. If someone else's patient is discharged, help the techs clean the room. They will appreciate it, and will remember. Make sure every nurse on the floor knows that (insert some nursing skill here) is something you really want to try/practice/see, and if any cool or interesting (or even mundane and routine) procedure needs to be done, you want to do it. And if all else fails, ask to take on a second (or third, or whatever) patient.

As a student I think I would strongly prefer #1, simply because my experience with a peds rotation and an ob rotation is that both of them cover a TON of material and trying to do both at once sounds extremely hard.

You can usually get more than the school offers for Stafford loans, you just have to request a loan increase. I've had to do it a couple times. It depends on the school but the max can be up to $5K. Might be worth looking into if you think you are going to stick with nursing, but if you quit it won't be worth it unless you can go straight back into a program like nursing where you KNOW you'll be able to get a job when you graduate.

You are insane. That is all.

no, I don't. I've done an ICU rotation and while it was different, it wasn't harder because my experience was that the higher acuity of the patients was balanced by a lower patient load. An ICU nurse around here has 1 or 2 patients. A general med-surg nurse has 6 patients. A nurse with a full load in mother-baby can have 8 patients (4 mom and baby couplets) and there are some pretty high acuity patients on the regular floors, too. ICU is definitely a different area to work in compared to a regular floor, but my experience in clinical is that the work load feels about the same there as it does elsewhere.

No practicing bed baths here, but in my first semester my classmate had to do a head-to-toe on me. I wore a camisole and pants but I was blessed by the breast fairy so heart sounds were not necessarily that easy to assess for her! We just laughed about it though, it was no big deal. You get to know some of your classmates very well (and not just through practicing procedures!) that it just isn't that big a deal when you have to do this stuff. I can almost guarantee that EVERY other person in your class is feeling the exact same way - be honest that you're a little uncomfortable, and I bet other people will too. It'll go faster and easier than you are probably expecting!

Same here, I get disappointed by even something like a 97 because darn it, I wanted that A+, not just an A. I know it's silly, I just can't help it. I don't get totally devastated by a lower grade the way I used to though. I got a B+ in a class last semester and one other B in my first semester of nursing school, and I'm okay with it. I think the grades were fair if disappointing and frankly with that B+, if I had studied harder it would have been an A. My own darn fault.

I think it does. I have nursing central and it just "expired" February 1, but the programs still work fine. All it means is that I won't get my drug guide, lab guide, etc updated next time they update their databases. FWIW, they only updated 2 times last year that I can recall, so I'm not losing out on a whole lot. I'll probably re-subscribe to it after I graduate and have a good job but I'm a poor student right now and it's not worth $150 right this second, so I'll wait. I wouldn't buy a brand new drug guide every time one was released, and I usually double check if I have questions (on Micromedix at the hospital, for example). I did initially install a second drug guide (epocrates) but it insisted on installing itself on my PDA instead of on the card I've got in the PDA, which ate up all the space and memory so I uninstalled that one and haven't tried it since. I did it because that one is free and updated all the time, so if you can get it to install right it seems like a pretty good program.

Okay, best comeback ever. I'm filing this away for future use, thanks!

I hate that. Truly hate it. I've gotten that question a couple of times, too, and usually when someone asks "why are you 'settling' for nursing, you should be a doctor!" or something similar my answer is "If all the smart people were doctors, who'd catch the doctors' mistakes? Besides, nurses get to do all the fun stuff, doctors do all the paperwork." The bottom line is that nurses are a fairly clever group of people and I'm sure the majority of nurses could easily do the work of a doctor. I, personally, just plain don't want to.

I started pre-reqs at 25, will be 28 when I graduate.

student1000, I know Office Depot carries 90 and 120 day wall calendars, that's where I got mine. Just ask them where the big dry-erase wall calendars are. It makes life a lot easier to have your whole semester written out in one place!

The hospital would be an awfully unhappy place if we all wanted to work in the same unit, so please don't take it so personally that I don't want to work in the same clinical area that you chose when you were a new nurse. My career plan really and truly has NOTHING to do with you.

I could have written almost your entire post. I finish in May and between not liking my current clinical rotation at ALL, and worrying about finding a job, and not losing that job for complete and absolute incompetence, and passing the freaking NCLEX, I am in a near panic mode a lot of the time. I commented in another thread that even though this semester is "easier" I feel so stressed, and I really think that it's because not only do we seniors have homework and class and all that to worry about, we're almost done being taught and we actually have to DO this now. It is very scary. The nurses I've worked with in clinical, when asked, all say they felt "okay" within a couple months, but that it took about a year to feel "good" about nursing. And they all reminded me that we don't get the title of RN and that's it, teaching is over, sink or swim because you are completely on your own. That's really not how it works. We'll all be okay. (and honestly, none of that inspirational paragraph I just wrote makes me feel any better, either. You're really not alone).

Thanks, everyone. What I had generally expected was 1-2 shifts per pay period, which is fine with me. I had a friend do an OR rotation that had frightening amounts of on-call time, though, so I figured I should ask and see if the hospital where I did my clinical was just odd, or if what they did (2 shifts per pay period) was "normal" for L&D. It sounds like that's pretty normal. Thank you!