Jamie2887

As far as points, it changes every year, and I don't rememeber what it was for LPN/RN when I entered in 2006. I have heard rumors of the entrance exam, but dont know any truth too it. As for NCLEX scores, I just graduated in May, and we had 197 graduates, 89 of us have taken NCLEX thus far, and 87 have passed, so were kicking butt! They really changed alot of things in our last semester, and have tried to improve the program, I think alot of the kinks have been worked out and I see Calhoun's program really excelling.

The thing with HURST is they guarentee passing if you MASTER the content, meaning the whole book they give to you, simply going to the review does not mean you get the full affect, or even glancing through the book, you must study the book and without a doubt know everything in it. I'm skeptical when I see that people failed who did HURST, I'm wondering if they really put the effort into the course? With that said...my school offered it to our graduation LPN class last summer, so I took it then, and again in May after graduating the RN program, through 2 years of school I could not wrap my head around some content, such as hypokalcemia, hyper, hyponatremia, ect....I knew basically what they are, but as far as remembering which s/s went with which...I was always lost...HURST did a FANTASTIC job outlining these very easy for me, and the Live instructors we had were great. The advantage to doing it online, is you can do it at your own pace and rewind, ect. The CD's are very helpful also, but I admit that the mock exam didnt seem to help, it was nothing like NCLEX (I took it this morning).

It's called Prioritization, Delegation, and Assisignment, but Linda A. Lacharity....I bought my copy at Barnes and Noble, for $29.95, I'm finishing it up today, I test tomorrow :-D So far it seems to be very helpful for answering priority, has great rationales.

I LOVED hurst review, it's a good way of refreshing all of the content you've learned, you only do questions on the last day, which i enjoyed, our school payed for a review, and we did questions for 4 days...8 hours a day...she just read them to us, it was awful! Hurst also sends you home with 2 CD's, one that contains a mock NCLEX, the other has LOTS of useful info on things to refresh on, immunizations schedules, insulins, ect.... I highly recommend it!

On my floor, as a nurse tech (and in my last semester of NS), I do VS's, FSBS, I&O's, baths, helping pt to BSC, toileting, answer call lights ect. We can suction with a yanker our trach pt's, I'm on respiratory. Help feed patients. We do not do anything foley related (besides emptying), no dressing changes, nothing with an IV. The only time the nurses may let us D/C something is if the person has passed.

Hello everyone, I am in my next to last semester of nursing school, we are studying the DREADED cardiovascular system right now...learning how to read EKG strips, our teacher gave us an EXCELLENT website for learning how to read them, and I thought i would share. www.skillstat.com then click on "tools" and then "ecg simulator"

No ones mentioned it yet, but I live in Huntsville, it was recently on the list for one of the greatest cities to raise a family. I've lived here all my life, and absolutely LOVE it. Take a look at www.huntsvillehospital.org that is my workplace, HUGE hospital, and has one of the top NICU's in alabama, among other things. Beautiful city, lots to do.

A techs job?? From my understand YOU are the tech while you are the nursing student...I am also a nursing student, and in clinical, we do the Tech's job, we bath the patient, assist them with their ADL's...and I have cleaned many poop off floors, beds, and patients. I am also a tech, and I've had this situation, I get some paper towels, get up the big pieces, and then use a towel from the linens to get the rest, and THEN call housekeeping just to mop when they get the chance to make the floor clean again from what I can't get up without a mop.

I didn't read every single post, but so far I havn't seen anyone with a system like ours...so this "call light" thing seems odd to me. We have a central station at our hospital where whenever the patient presses their nurse button, it gets sent there to people who's entire job is to answer with "what can I help you with" if it's something such as "I need help to the bathroom" or any other tech duty, it's sent to me (I'm a nursing student working as a tech) on my pager, and the pager screens reads what the patient wants...which is convienent because if it says "need help to bathroom" I can run in there, but if it says "wants ice cream" I know I don't need to rush and leave what I'm doing. If it's "my iv pump is beeping" it only gets sent to their nurse's pager. So therefore I suppose it's only that particular patients tech/nurse's job to answer, I like our system so far, I don't get bothered with anything that is out of my scope of practice, and the nurse's can get their work done, and if I need their help I just grab one and their always very willing to help.

I know 2 girls that are in my current class (4th semester of 5) and both failed out last year due to trying to plan weddings, and had to rejoin my class this summer. So I would advise against it, unless your planning something very small that wouldn't take a whole lot of effort to plan. I couldnt imagine trying to plan a wedding in nursing school.

In Calhoun's program, ERI is not just one exam at the end, you take them your entire 2 years in the program, you take an online exam, much like a nursing school exam, multiple choice, its timed, and if you score poorely, you listen to lectures on the ERI website and handwrite pages of notes, and then...you must pass the ERI exit exam before you are allowed to graduate.

ktaylor, every year is completely different, depending on who applies, the total points flucuate greatly, I cannot remember the points accepted when I applied, but the cut off was pretty high for the RN program, and alot of people from my biology classes didnt make it by like 10 points.

Hankins, I know school has started for you now, but still, if you have ANY questions at all, feel free to send me a message, I am in Calhoun's RN program 4th semester out of 5, due to graduate in May. I know i was really nervous this time last year also.

I was in your shoes 1 year ago, we start our second year tomorrow. First off, if you ever have any questions, feel free to send me a message, i'll even give you my email, because i know how you feel, I was so nervous when we first started and would have loved to know someone that had been in my shoes. With that said, our reading was posted a week before we started, and I too did the reach for an A, you listen and write on the notes. As far as what books to bring, I had my potter and perry taken apart at kinkos and three holed punched, then i only carried the chapter i needed for that days lecture in a 1 in 3 ring binder, I loved not having to haul my books around...Our med-surg book for 2nd semester was also HUGE, and i had that de-bound also. But really, i hardley ever looked at my books during class, I brought my laptop and copied and pasted the lecture from the website into word, and then added my notes during class, and went home and printed them out...some teachers talk way to fast for me to keep up w/writing. And if it makes you feel any better, 1st semester was really not that tough, the people who failed out were ones who realized it wasnt for them after experiencing clinicals or those who just were there for the wrong reasons, or didnt come to class, ect. It's 2nd semester that will kick your butt. But I still LOVE calhoun's program, and still get excited about starting back each semester (we start back tomorrow) so good look in your journey!

I recently bought "pathophysiology made incredibly easy 4th edition", you can find it at Amazon, and Books a million, its a GREAT book, and it'll help you understand things and be ahead before you start, lots of good colorful pictures and diagrams also.

With 265 questions, you have a 50/50 chance, even the NCLEX officials will tell you that, and like everyone said already, that means you were borderline the whole test and it couldn't make up its mind whether you had gotten more correct than incorrect, but as you know, it cuts off at 265, so it decided after it shut off. but GOOD LUCK! and I hope you do well.

I have something to add, I mentioned about the pilot questions, turns out there are 15 on the NCLEX RN and 25 on the NCLEX PN

to clear up confusion about nclex and (some rumors i've seen here on this site) and just some tips... ~nclex is not graded like nursing school exams, where you have to make a certain score to pass. ~you must show that you are more consistently right than wrong when answering test questions, so that means you must at a minimum, get more test questions right than wrong. ~if you had 265 questions, you have a 50/50 chance of passing. what it means: you kept the computer guessing, at no point did you convince the computer that you were more consistently right or wrong, so it kept giving you more questions to try and figure you out ~if you had 75 questions and didnt pass, you have alot of studying to do, it meant that at 75, the computer already determined that you were getting more consistently wrong than right ~there is no such thing as "a random test subject getting the whole test", this is a huge myth ~it is true that there are questions that are "pilot" questions, but you dont know which ones, and they dont count toward your score, there only here to ensure they are valid so they can encorporate them later into the test as a real question. there however is no magic number. ~the test is not trying to search out your weaknesses, this is a computer, not a person, it has no soul. ~if you go past 75 questions...your not failing, your still passing! if you were failing, it would have just cut off at 75, you are still getting more questions right than wrong. hope this helps someone. good luck everyone!

I too am entering my 4/5 semester, and my mother passed away during my first semester of nursing school, so i understand what you're going through. Although my mom died of lupus, and she had been sick for a while so we knew what was coming, but that still dosnt prepare anyone. I wish you the best of luck these next two semesters! And if your grandmother is anything like mine (whom I live with) and couldn't have done any of this without, then I know you'll be fine! Best wishes ~Jamie~

I have done this to all my huge books, and LOVE it, however my staples said they did not have a machine big enough, whatever they meant by that. I had mine done at Kinkos. With my HUGE fundamentals book, this helps tremendously, at by the end of the semester, i had many followers.

my #1 is probably; SHOPPING and coffee (or the two combined) Sex would be a very close 2nd Playing with my Dog Scrapbooking (always a HUGE stress reliever) Ice cream, milkshakes, or something equally sinful always makes me feel wonderful also.

And another thing, how would you know where to begin? Theres 1000's of drugs, and our school asked for about 10 at a time, but we have no idea which 10 until the assignment is posted. You'd be better off studying out of Saunders comprehensive NCLEX book, that would have helped me a great deal before school, to get familair with the way test were going to be structured, or purchase "pharmacology made easy" and just get a feel for drug classifications.

Honestly, that probably wouldn't be very productive, I've seen every NS's "drug card" be different than the rest, and you'd probably end up re-doing them. For instance, my school wants Broad classification, specific classification, generic name, brand names, indication, common side effects, and assessment (or teaching), other posters will give something else I'm sure.

Danielle Steel's "His bright light" it's her only non-romance book, its about her sons struggle with bi-polar disorder, I suppose its not really a nursing book, but I really enjoyed it, and she was educated on the subject.

Thanks for everyones responses, and northshore08, I have a WONDERFUL instructor, I just met her today, but she was a breath of fresh air.