Janus Rising

personally, i'd rather work with 2 nurses who could meet those "difficult" requirements than 15 who couldn't. nurses are responsible for people's lives! how comfortable would you be with your pcp if you found out s/he flunked out of med school three times (or even once)? i'll admit i don't have many ideas on how to actually reduce the shortage, but i do know that lowering the standards is not the solution

That's why I love military time! Color coding times are a recipe for disaster IMO. Can't comment on how bad a mistake it is, but I would hope (think) that if it were a once daily type med, shouldn't be too bad.

Our school uses questions taken out of various NCLEX review books... since we have a 99% pass rate on the NCLEX I guess it works! I'm sorry that your school isn't preparing you the right way. I know you probably have a TON on your plate, but you may have to just get some books and look at those... but one thing our instructors tell us is that as long as you are comfortable with the concepts of Nursing, the question format shouldn't matter.

Toughy! Please note that these are my personal opinions and not my professional ones: On a personal level, I am a big proponent of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, yet as a Nurse (student) I am not "allowed" to follow that train of thought. I honestly believe that if a client has the ability to clearly make their needs and wishes known that those needs and wishes should be followed. As far as vegetative clients, I think it's selfish on the part of families and usually the state to keep these people alive forever. After a certain amount of time, if there is no improvement, they should be allowed to go in peace. One poster stated that people who have advance directives do so becasue they wisdh to live (paraphrased).. for me it's the opposite. I have my advance directive so some yahoo doesn't get it in their minds to keep my going long after I should. My wife isn't keen on talking about stuff like this, but she understands where I'm coming from and will honor my wishes. We even have an agreement about our daughter (who's 1) just in case. I sincerely feel that advance directives, etc. should be the focus of a massive public education push just liek cigarettes and AIDS.

OK I just gotta ask...and it's a dumb question, but what do they make the guys wear? Always kinda wondered that from the era of caps.

I second that. Organic chem is a great precursor for nursing.

Perhaps it depends on the state? I'm a tech/nursing student and as long as I've had the skill in class or lab, the nurse's have me do it. Granted, the hospital I work at is "OUR" hospital (literally 3 blocks from the college).

Doing postmortem care was never a problem for me. While I'm not religious, I do believe that dying usually ends a person's suffering and I'm honored to be able to be with them at that moment (ok, re-reading that sounds like I'm killing them.. but you all know what i mean I hope). The first death I ever handled was a resident that I was VERY close too.. I was actually the only one she would allow to come near her (I think I reminded her of her son... we're both big guys and have blond hair). I was actually in the room when she passed. The hardest part of it all was expecting her to breath again. It freaked me out a little because it just... stopped. But the whole pm care thing wasn;t that big of a deal.

I'm a second year student and have yet to be told by anyone that I can't assist or view something. My first day in OB I assisted with a lady partsl birth. It's just a given that as male nursing students (in my program at least) get to experience everything.

We were taught both the maximus and the medius. Maximus only the upper right quadrant (in essence, make a plus sign on a butt cheek and go for the top right), however my instructors are firm believers in the medius b/c of the danger of hitting the cyatic (sp?) nerve with the maximus.

When someone is giving me a 'tude about taking their meds: "Look, I gotta get these in ONE of your holes.. you can choose which"

I usually say dumber than a box of rocks on a hot Sunday afternoon. Don't know why... just came out one day and now I'm known for it in Nursing class.

Carpe Scroti -- really bad Latin for Seize the balls! Normalcy is a narrow-minded view of reality Jeez Luise, Mary, Joseph and the rest of the apostles (my pet saying when I'm exasperated)

Congrats on the week... we're just starting week 5 tomorrow and I can't wait until break!

Personally, I say screw the co-workers. He's there for the patients. I know that's waaay easier said than done, but I've been there. I bever had any time for small-minded bigots.