CrazyHands

I agree we all should wear a mask. I wore a mask all last year during "Flu and COLD season". And guess what? I didn't get the Flu (no vaccine here), nor a cold, nor bronchitis or whatever rhinovirus or URI that was going around from the multitude of patients and co-workers that I came incontact with - and let's not forget friends, family, general public. Perhaps it is because I am not high-risk (according CDC), I don't smoke, when I come into work I clean every surface (phones, keyboards, mice, etc) that has been touched and I might use, I wash my hands, use gloves when appropriate and use hand sanitizer. My point? There are other ways to protect yourself during the Cold and Flu season, then to jump on the propaganda bandwagon. The flu is only one small hazard in the healthcare or public arena. As nurses we can protect oursleves and patients to the best of our ability by following good infection control practices across the board. Amen.

Who ever said FOLLOW THE MONEY is absolutely right. Who benefits the most? The pharmaceutical companies who are pushing for flu vaccines - I agree if you are high risk- you should probably get it. But to force normally healthy people with adequate immune systems is probably not necessary regardless of where you work. If it becomes common place in hospitals and healthcare settings, what is next? Teachers? The argument could be that they are around children, then maybe retail employess - afterall, they are serving the public. Above all, this is setting a precedent and nurses are caving, not out of ethical obligation, but out of fear. Hospitals are able to FORCE this on employees and especially nurses now because they CAN due to economics. But it constitutes nothing more than battery and bullying!! This is the United States, the land of the free, we need to stand up for ourselves and freedom of choice and say "no thank you, I don't think the flu shot is right for me; I am a healthy adult, able to make my own decisions without fear of retribution or job loss." And until someone catches on and initiates a class action law suit against these hospitals and stops this practice, more and more hospitals will continue to follow suit. CrazyHands

WPU has a reputation as a good program- I am awaiting a reply on an application, but cannot locate the RN-BSN curriculum sheet (it is under construction for sometime now). This would be my second bachelors. It seems nowadays an ADN is not useful in the job market. I am steering clear of Ramapo. I took - or attempted (I withdrew and wasted a lot of money.) - to take non-matriculated on-line masters courses, the nursing dept doesn't communicate necessary information such as how to access your classes, instructors do not reply to emails for weeks and it is poorly organized. Ramapo's nursing program is an offshoot of UMDNJ - and I have heard, believe it or not, their nursing program is poorly run and their Masters program are merely money makers. I took IV Cert there and felt that was just a racket too.

I am in Northern NJ and have had no luck. I didn't think that hospitals would be knocking down my door, but I didn't think I'd be totally ignored either. I don't think there is a nursing shortage, I think there is a shortage of HR personnel who can return a call or email. I am releived though that I did not pin all my hopes and hard work on this nursing degree. I am currently employed in another field, but feel that if I don't get a job in nursing soon I will start forgetting a lot of what I learned. Ironically, I've seen other students get hired who struggled through the nursing program, some failing and being readmitted, and/or almost didn't pass the NCLEX and they get hired. And I would think that since I did very well in school with no prior medical knowledge or experience and passed the NCLEX in 75 questions that hospitals would want people like me. Guess I am wrong. CrazyHands

Hi,. Maybe I should call this "things that I wish other people told me". Anyway, I will be done with school in Dec. I am doing an evening ASN program since I work full-time plus. I have found that the pre-reqs that are required (Chem, A&P I &II, Micro, etc) for this program (I am not sure of the exact req for all programs, but most seem similar) are the BARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS. If you do well enough, they will get you into the program, but by no means do they indicate if you will do well. We started with 80 students, went down to 45, by the second semester. Many people who failed who had all A & B's in the pre-reqs. Nursing is very heavily centered around Chemistry. If you struggled through or hated chemistry, you will NOT like Nursing. Perioid. I wish I had taken MORE CHEMISTRY. MATH - take more. You need to be very, very comfortable with math. Each semester we have a make or break medical calculations exam. So if you hate math, see above comments. If I had to do it all over again, I'd take my time doing the pre-reqs. I rushed through them to apply, and was not finished in time to apply the first year and had to sit out an entire year before being accepted. On the bright side, I did take an extra statistics class and an intermediate algebra class for the reasons sited above. I really should have taken more chemistry, that would have been a nice boost. Overall, as you may have heard, Nursing is probably one of the hardest programs no matter what state, what college, what program you do. I call it Nursing Bootcamp. The current role of nursing has moved away from bedside nursing to more delegation, and documentation. If you are going into nursing thinking it involves a lot direct patient care, you may not like the job options. Hospitals aren't interested in nurses who can't keep up with their documentation (or wait until the end of shift and then go into OT) throughout their shift. That's my advice. CrazyHands

My associates program started out with total of 80 students, I beleive that 15 were male. At the end of N2, I think we have 50 students left, and lost 9 out of 15. I wondered why the attrition rate is so high for males ?? Any ideas? CrazyHands

Absolutely correct, business and logic do not coexist. Are employers really concerned with retention? NO. They know the costs to replace an employee, but where I work (non-medical, large corporate company), my department doesn't care that we have a high attrition rate. In fact, they joke that no one stays more than 14 months. Have they tried to fix that, not really. They will eventually get replacements to retrain. Bottomline, new employees are cheaper. Both in wages and retirement packages. Hospitals are businesses too. I'm sure they would rather have new graduates come in, and if they leave the leave. My take away is, nursing is not really any differnet then any other job. You will have people come and go and you make what you want out of it. Not everyone is going to be a AVP, and not everyone will succeed in nursing. But there are many other options in the corporate world for those with nursing degrees if the determination that patient care is not for you. CrazyHands

I don't think you can say that community colleges are pumping out new RNs. In NJ, for every 250 applicants, only approximately 50 will graduate every two years, this does include the 2 average years it takes to get accepted. So every 4 years, 50 new graduates will be in the field if they pass the NCLEX rightaway. It's too bad the other 25 who drop or fail out each year aren't in the field, but I think that is a flaw in the cirriculum. If critical thinking is such a big part of nursing why isn't a critical thinking course part of pre/co-reqs? That might aid in the nursing shortage. CrazyHands

It seems that family and friends really do have a misconception on what it takes to get throught nursing school. I was telling one woman at my job (corporate america) about a fellow student who needs to withdraw this semester due to medical issue and hopes to apply for re-admit, but prof's were giving student a hard time already. She made a remark "what's the big deal, like they have so many people applying?" And I said, "actually yes, they only take about 25% of applicants any given semester." What do people think, you just show and up and register or like corporate America, get your buddy to get you a job with no qualifications or education? CrazyHands