pacuRN26

Work in a mindset that you don't let the Commission cloud your motivation as a nurse to help that patient. Think of the commission as a fringe benefit for doing your original job.

This reminds me of the shirt "Talentless but Connected". Ahh I think this is just the way of life. I have a few friends who got a job this way, not to say they aren't smart or couldn't have gotten a similar job on their own (actually in this economy...) but why not use their assets?

I would not even take report on more than 8 patients, and even that is not safe. I would say they needed to bring in someone else. 11 patients, that is nutty!

I just got an interview there and I am very excited. This is my first hospital interview, it is for Staff RN and she told me they are in need of tele and med surg nurses. FINALLY. I currently work in a Dr.'s office and an ambulatory surg center. For those who said they work at Thorek, how do you like it?

ufblondi, if you dont mind my asking, what kind of experience do you have? I recently applied there but didn't hear back.

The schedule was M-F in the first semester, depending on how you scheduled your clinicals. The classes are all at the same time, for example one class isnt offered at 2 different times, its always going to be like Monday 9am-12pm or something. But clinicals can be either like at a hospital on mondays from 5pm-10pm or tuesdays 7am-12pm. So if you took the monday clinical you would have a long day, but you would have tuesday off if you didnt have a lecture that day. If you live in Champaign, you can schedule clinicals (as much as you are able to depending on the sites) in champaign. As you move through each semester, the schedule seems to ease up, I remember one semester I had wednesdays and fridays off. which was nice for studying. However that doesn't mean the workload eases up! Hope that helps!

Hello! I am looking for anyone who can give me more information on this school, I live in chicago and I got my BSN, RN and am working two jobs currently around 35-40 hours a week. I was looking into FNP programs in the area and was interested in NPU. Has anyone ever attended this school, even if it was for their BSN? How did you like it? Did you attend any of the satellite campus's (arlington heights, greyslake). Do you guys possibly know of anyone or are yourselves in any of the NP programs? I'm researching schools right now, I applied but I am still trying to get more information. I would love to speak with someone who is currently a student or graduated from NPU. I heard you have to secure your own clinical preceptors for the FNP program, is this true? Is it difficult, does the school assist you at all? I tried looking at existing posts for some of this information but couldn't find any! Any information is appreciated!

^ She was just asking an honest question, I don't think it is about pride. If you are trying to get into a school, I think you'd want to present the best application packet possible, not just get a recommendation from someone you don't really feel comfortable asking. I too am looking into MSN programs and am looking for programs that only require 1-2 recommendations, I know a past instructor who is masters prepared and I worked for another RN who I know would give me great recommendations. However I do not feel comfortable asking my current employer because I don't think they'd like it very much if I chose to go to school over working there, to be honest.

I went there and graduated recently. Danville really sucks, I am a chicagoan so even moving from Chicago was a HUGE culture shock. We lived right by the school so we literally had to roll out of bed in the morning and get to school, if you are considering Lakeview Collegeo of Nursing, I highly suggest living in the northern part of Danville or Champaign. University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana is 30 mintutes/30 miles away from Danville, and it is much more diverse, fun, exciting because there are about 40,000 students on the campus, it is the state school, there is shopping restaurants, libraries etc. Living in danville does have the perk of you really not having anything to do so you will study, but if you plan to have a life outside of school then definitely live in Champaign, if all you want to concentrate on is studying then live in Danville. Some older students would prefer to live in Danville, while younger students might want to be in Champaign. The teachers are variable. Some teachers are amazing, like the med surg/critical care teachers are awesome. OTHERS - not so much, very set in their own ways. However, if you participate in class, and are generally a good student they will respect you. The classes are tough, but that is nursing school after all, you just have to have the right attitude. I know that students are located in danville, around the area have a better time finding jobs afterwards because of the connections they make in clinicals, and etc. While the students who move back to the city, or back to another state might have harder times findiing jobs because they have no connections to other hospitals. My suggestion to this is to LOOK while you are in your 4th semester and try to land a job BEFORE u take your nclex. I was totally against this at first, but I wish I could go back and change that. I do have a job but it is not the dream hospital job I wanted. ATI is hard but they prepare you well for it. I retained a lot of good information in nursing school, I felt like I had learned SO MUCH in just the first semester. For clinicals, try to switch into/get into the hospital rotations and not the nursing homes, etc. If that means an extra commute to champaign in order to be at Carle Hospital, DO IT. You will get much more valuable experience. MAKE USE of your clinicals, be proactive and take initiative to forge bonds with the people on the floor, your clinical instructors, they can def help in the future for references/job prospects. Don't wait to be told to do something! Best advice I can offer!

Hi, so this is my situation. I graduated with my BSN in May 2009. I got my RN license in August. I had such a hard time finding a job, I applied to a million jobs and could NOT find a job. I was then offered a job at out-patient surgical Family planning center, meaning pregnancy terminations for the most part. Though I was pro-choice, I was hesitant to take the job, but I did. I ended up working in the PACU/Recovery for the most part. But I also circulated in the OR. I also circulated/recovered vasectomy, tubal ligations, hysteroscopies, colposcopies, LEEPs, etc. All of these are done mostly under twilight anesthesia or sometimes general. So I've worked there for 4 months but I was hired on temporarily but they kept me but I only work 2-3 days a week..... I recently got a job offer in an OB-GYN office, just seeing OB patients and GYNE patients. It is an office setting so there isn't much to do, rooming patients, a lot of phone triaging, drawing blood basically things an MA could do asside for the phone triaging. I took a 50 cent pay cut but it is full time. I eventually want to become an FNP...With my first job it would have been easier to be in school and work 2-3 days a week, do it part time still and be done in 3-ish years, by that time I will have had 3 years of RN experience. However, I took my full time OB-GYN job offer because i desperately need to work full time, my question is... are there any programs in Illinois where there are night/weekend classes for an FNP...I know there are online programs but are they frowned upon by potential employers? Will the OB-GYN experience be sufficient for by the time im done doing a part time FNP program? I might still keep my PACU/OR job for saturdays so I will continue to have OR/PACU experience but mostly I am wanting to take the OB-GYN office job..they also do tubals, hysterctomies and etc but rarely. The doctors are also training in robotics and acupuncture so I will have had some nursing expereince in those two areas as well. Will I still be able to get an FNP job with this experience once I am done in 3-4 years? I am just trying to plan for the future and I am hoping to find an FNP program that can offer me one class at a time or something so I can still work full time. Do any of you still work full time and go to FNP school, I don't see how I could do it seeing as Id work like a 9-5 everyday. Please help, any advice is appreciated!

I applied for that program, and given my transcripts got there in time I was really hoping I would get a call from them. When did they call you? Do you know if they have already called everyone they wanted to interview?

Kathy, how do you like it there thus far? I am also a new grad interested in the NorthShore Healthcare, orientation begins in October, is there still room to apply then for that?

I am taking July 22nd too!! I hope I am ready! At 8AM in chicago. Ahhhh!! I am so worried!!! Do you guys think I'm ready? I just finished Kaplan, but I am taking Question trainer 7 tomorrow, as well as going over safety and infection control, and just a few management of care questions. I'm also going to briefly look over pharm. On tuesday I plan to just look over Kaplan's strategy book. So far I have gotten these scores on Question trainers QT 1 - 61 QT 2 - 68 QT 3 - 66 QT 4 - 67 QT 5 - 68 QT 6 - 74 I am really worried about pharm and I feel like I did management of care and safety and infection control a long time ago so I need to go over that again! Ahhh I am just so anxious/stress/worried!! I will pray for all of us! :)

Hi guys! I'm a little stuck because I have to do a teaching plan on one of our patients we've had in past clinicals (our clinicals are in a nursing home). Everyone wants the same patient because she is so nice and NOT difficult. Anyway, I thought I could do my teaching plan on Hypertension. For our plan our teaching outcomes have to be in 3 different domains : Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor. I've already said that for cognitive she will participate in a question/answer type of discussion with me after I give her a factual description of hypertension. For affective I said she will relate to me her opinions on why it is important to lower blood pressure and what she plans to incorporate into her lifestyle in order to do so. However, I am stuck on Psychomotor, this would mean that she has to actively DO something. At first, I thought, take her own blood pressure! But that would be really difficult I presume, especially because she is a geriatric. And not to mention, inaccurate. So I then thought, my mom has a electronic blood pressure cuff-thingy she uses and I could just borrow that and have her use that so she can take readings everyday. But I've heard those are inaccurate as well. So I don't know what could be an OUTCOME in a psyhomotor domain relating to hypertension teaching. Also, I wanted to use some visual aids to teach her more about blood pressure and why it is important so I need an idea on a drawing/poster I could do that can simply teach her something about hypertension/blood pressure. Please help!