Altruisticnurse

Very irritating, as a man in the nursing profession, it angers me to see sexism like this is alive and well in of all things, an undergraduate nursing program! This is a sad statement that the faculty of this college of nursing are making. No doubt the male staff and physicians of the hospitals you will be doing clinicals at love it when your college is there. It seems that nursing schools often try to overstress, and irritate students in order to "weed out" the less serious students. Unfortunately, overcoming this adversity is just the first step in your nursing career. A nursing education is extremely difficult without the added possibility of being sexually harassed for your student uniform. This "outfit" is a throwback to the days when nurses wore dresses and caps and had to get up to offer up their chair whenever a physician entered the area. I hope that you and your classmates can unite and present reasons why this "outfit" is no longer acceptable in the healthcare industry. Part of your education as an undergrad nurse is in leadership and how to effect change on grassroots level; show your faculty that you are a leader. If they don't want to listen; just like a job that you can't endure, go somewhere else. There are undergrad programs that value professionalism and will teach you how to be an excellent, dignified, professional Registered Nurse!

Friend, I think you carry some of the blame for nearly nodding off during clinical, but I do think you should have received a warning rather than expulsion from the program you were in. My advice is if you were enrolled in a BSN program is to use the credits you already earned to advance yourself in a biology degree or another health-related degree at another institution. Many of my classmates who didn't continue in our nursing program continued on to get degrees and jobs that they are very happy in. Nursing students are known for their dedication, intelligence, and work ethic. If you do decide to continue on and are accepted into another nursing program, take the experiences that you have and excel in the new program. Once you pass the NCLEX and get your first job as a RN, remember that you are going to be constantly watched during your orientation. The people you work with are not friends, and you are not really considered a "real nurse" until you've been there at least a year. Your professional demeanor and your aptitude in nursing safety and care are all you have to save you from being dismissed. Even then, you may be assailed by other nurses who will attempt to get you into trouble just because they can. Good luck, you're going to need it!

Being a newer RN and reading many of the posts, I see that many fellow professionals in nursing seem burnt-out, dissatisfied, or generally unhappy as to how we practice our profession. My question is this: How would you change the practice of nursing so we could better do what we are meant to do? Given carte blanch as to what could be changed and make a better working environment, what would you change? Would you decrease nurse-patient ratios? Would you follow the military model of nursing in which the RN is more of a supervisor of care and heads up a team? One-to-one or team nursing models? After all that, how could we actually make these suggested changes possible? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this subject.

Hi all, I have been a RN/BSN for a very short time (since August) but throughout my clinical education at two hospitals and my later employment at one of those institutions. I have seen how electronic and written documentation impacts the people who interact with them. I have become interested in the field of informatics just due to this. Nurses who have to spend an extra hour or two charting after the end of their shift impacts the hospital's budget as well as causing the nurse additional stress, impacting the nurse's health. Medical reconciliation issues, messy written orders, and loss of time involved in deciphering physician orders or in telephone orders cause me to think, "There has got to be a better way!" However, from reading many of your threads, I think I may be too inexperienced yet to form such a opinion. I have been researching options for getting my master's degree in nursing informatics and hope to get some input from those who practice nursing informatics as to what I might do and if this specialty may be right for me. I hope that one day nurses can interact with electronic charting systems that will be more of a help and less of a hindrance so we can focus more on the patient.

Hi, when I read your post I couldn't help feel like I was in the same boat as you. In July, I took the NCLEX after studying not nearly as hard as you have been. In college, I was usually a good test taker, but I knew that the NCLEX was no joke, and studied accordingly. Going in to the test center (after not sleeping at all the night before) I was a bundle of caffeine-fueled nerves. My advisor had told me I "wasn't ready" and that I should reschedule. After the first 75 questions, I expected the computer to shut off, but it didn't. 262 questions later, I was done. I went out to my vehicle and called my advisor. She said that I probably didn't pass and that I should have followed her advice and rescheduled. Two (or three) weeks later, I found out I had passed! Long story short, it was kind of fun to inform my advisor that I had passed. My advice to you is to go in there and just take the test and apply what you have learned and studied about in school. You'll do fine! If you don't you can always take the test again.