chickpea9

I agree with Mimi. The new tegrity recordings SUCK as far as content. However, the quality is much better. I remember way back when I could depend on them but I quickly found out this past semester that that is no longer the case. Last time I checked, I am a literate human being. I don't need to listen to someone reading the PP slides. I thought I could remember what we covered in 3rd semester, but I'm suddenly drawing a blank and my 3rd sem content has been taken off of e-campus. The things that stick out are asthma, DM, and AAA. Don't ask me why these 3 stick out, they just do. Whatever you do, try to learn as much as you can. 4th sem builds on 3rd sem content.For example, 3rd sem covers angina (chest pain) while 4th sem builds on that by covering myocardial infarction. Lucky for you, you have summer break in between sem 3 and 4. Use it to review what didn't make sense. You'll be happy that you did. I think the pathos will help you. When in doubt, refer to the syllabus. Anyhoo, sorry for the rant. I'm just glad that I made it out in one piece. Good luck to you all. You CAN do this. -chickpea, GN

Personally, and I say personally because everyone is different, I have never owned a Littman and made it through 3 semesters of clinicals just fine. i can't remember the name of the one that I have, I think it's made by sprague and it has double tubing (lots of colors to choose from). i've seen them at almost every scrub store and they are only 15-20 bucks. Like RN2B, the walmart one will cut it for check offs because the instructor is more concerned with your placement (midclavicular 5th intercostal space for apical, 4 quads for bowel sounds, bilat checking of breath sounds, etc.) than what you hear. use your walmart steth on a loved one ....can you hear the heart ok? breath sounds? bowel sounds? try listening again through a shirt? can you still hear ok? if you can, then you might not need to get another one. btw, did i mention that i lost my steth 2nd semester during labor and delivery. i probably would have been really ****** if i had spent a lot of money on it. just my 2 cents. hope this helps, chickpea

Just wanted to say hi and good luck from a 4th sem @ NLC. I wish I had some advice for ya'll but everything has changed since my 1st sem. Let me know if there are any questions I can answer. I'll be more than happy to try and help.

Hi there. 3rd sem NLC person here. In reference to the DVD, you HAVE to buy the book box from the NLC/ECC bookstore. It cannot be purchased anywhere else. I bought the box for 1st semester and experienced the same sticker shock (I think it was around 700-ish). From what I hear, they've made a lot of changes to the boxes. Our 1st sem box had a lot of study guides and clinical companions that no one had time to use. In my opinion, i'm glad I bought the box because i still use them on a regular basis. If you buy the box, it's nice to have them on your laptop, the actual hard copies (these suckers are heavy), and on the Evolve website. The website is something that they added that is new. you can access anybook on your dvd from a computer with internet access (i do this @ work all the time). Iggy is used in 1st and 3rd. Potter and Perry (fundamentals) is one that I still reference frequently when I'm having a brain fart. Anyhoo: Good luck, get lots of sleeping and relaxing done, and don't forget to be flexible for the first few weeks. We had lots of last minute schedule changes (ie hospital orientation dates and times).

Hey masha, I'm in the same boat that you are in. I guess the only difference is that I know why I'm failing (76%) - I don't study and I dislike kids and babies alot, and I mean A LOT! The only tip I have for you is to remember some of the strategies that you used in 1st semester. For example, I have to re-write things over and over in order to remember them. I hate to do it because it wastes paper but I have to, so I definitely know that I'm gonna include that in my strategy to finish this semester strong. Also, I noticed that I started my bad habit of changing test answers again this semester. Unfortunately for me, I'm usually (99.99%) changing from a correct one to a wrong answer. have you seen your past tests and the answers that you chose? if you have, can you identify why you got them wrong? (lack of knowledge, not reading the question fully, etc?) that may help point you in the right direction. good luck -chickpea

Might be a long shot, but did you try the library?

when's orientation? godspeed - did you get my e-mail w/ the reading assignments?

sorry for the delay. i didn't waste any tine get my hours increased at work so i've been MIA. I sent the reading assignments via e-mail to everyone that requested them. If you didn't get them or can't open them let me know. i agree about having a good printer. I've spent more than early morning (like 4 AM, if not earlier) trips to Kinko's than I care to recount. There will be a lot of good resources on e-campus for you to download/print. not to mention all of the different forms and stuff you'll need for clinicals. Another book that I really like is 'Nursing Diagnosis: A guide to planning care' by Ackley and Ladwig. I didn't completely depend on it but used it to give me some ideas when I my brain was fried and I couldn't think of any meaningful rationales or interventions. I'm not even sure if I would buy the book because you can access pretty much everything online. http://www1.us.elsevierhealth.com/Evolve/Ackley/NDH6e/Constructor/ Potter and Perry (the main 1st semester txtbk) has a new edition coming out. From the sample chapter that they posted online, it seems like they have made some good changes. i never thought about buying another fundamentals book for extra examples but seems like an ingenious idea now that I think about it. i'll be sure to let you know if i think of anything else.... -chickpea9

Maura, did you send me your e-mail addy in a message? the allnurses messaging system doesn't have an 'attach' option. Billie - i e-mailed it to you. let me know if you can't open it.

No problem for the info. I've been meaning to post answers to your questions for a while but hadn't found the time. There aren't any alternative options for lecture, there's only one. Clinicals are picked in a lottery type setting during orientation. Everyone gets a sheet with all the clinical possibilities listed. You figure out your preferences out of the possibilities. Then everyone gets to pick a poker chip that has a number on it. As your number is called, you get to go up to the sign in sheets and sign up for clinical. This basically means that it sucks to get called last because your #1 choice for clinical is probably already full. That's how you end up with your clinical site. For our class there were 5 options: 2 @ Presby, 2 @ the VA, and 1 @ RHD. I was at the VA. The clinical locations change every semester so you might have 5 completely different locations to choose from. The thing that they don't tell you (or maybe they did and I wasn't paying attention) is that for the first few (i can't remember how many exactly) weeks of the semester you have skills lab on campus instead of going to the hospital. They're supposed to be changing the way they do it for next semester so i'm sure you'll get better details in orientation. You also have to take in to account that the day before your clinical day you have to go up to the hospital and get your patient info. So I'm not sure how you would balance that out with work. I didn't start working until the beginning of April. You have to be very flexible in the beginning of the semester. Hmmm, what did I do with the rest of my time..... In the beginning, I had skills lab on Monday/Tuesday and lecture on Wednesday. After class, I'd go home and study. Thursdays I usually caught up on my sleep and spent time with my boyfriend. Friday and Saturday I would study and run errands. Sunday was to review and prepare for the upcoming week and go to bed early. I know it seems like a lot of free time but it's not as much as it looks. Once I got into the hang of things, it allowed me to add bits and pieces of a social life in. I think one of the key things is to figure out how you study best and stick with it. As far as the older editions of the books, I'm not sure. I doubt that it matters for the kind of subject matter that you learn in 1st semester. Although I don't remember anyone bringing a different edition to class. Even though I did most of my reading on my computer, I also like having a hard copy. I also didn't want used books because I plan on keeping them for a while and I don't like other people's notes/highlighting because I find it distracting. I kid you not, they had a copy of a fundamentals textbook @ the nurses station @ the hospital. I'm sure that I'll refer to them in the future.

Hey everyone, now that finals is over I can finally post this. Sorry, I've been busy. Congrats to everyone that got in!!!! I just finished my 1st semester @ NLC. I bought some cute flare leg black scrub pants and absolutely love them. The pants from the school vendor have tapered legs which does nothing for your figure (especially when you have wide hips like me, hee hee). I guess I should be thankful that my CI didn't notice my pants. She did however notice that some people weren't wearing black socks. She was a big stickler about that. She was also a big stickler about scrubs being ironed and starched. For my lab coat, I usually took it to the cleaners. It was not worth my time to tackle the coat on my own. Our CI also made us wear a black shirt under our scrub tops so I bought 3 (short sleeved, 3/4 sleeved, and long sleeved - try old navy or target). Also, Clorox2 has become my new best friend. I haven't noticed any fading at all. As for my schedule (I'm @ NLC), we had lecture on wednesdays from 8-1:30 with an hour for lunch from 11-12. My clinical was on Tuesday from 7a-7p. We were on the floor from 7:30-5 (minus lunch and a morning break), the rest of the time was spent in pre/post confrence. Me personally, I bought the book box because it came with the dvd. I priced everything individually and the book box was a lot cheaper. Having all of my textbooks on my computer was really convenient since I take my 'puter everywhere I go. Another thing that some people did was to take their 2 major textboks to Kinko's and had it unbound. Then they punched holes in the pages and carried only the chapters that we were covering in lecture with them in a 3 ring binder. Personal preference I guess. Fundamentals for success just published a new edition last month. a lot of people used it w/ rave reviews. I didn't get it until last week. Wish I would have gotten it earlier. It gives you a lot of ideas on how test questions can be presented on specific topics. I bought a barnes and noble discount card and it has more than paid for itself. You get 10% off everything and they are always e-mailing you additional coupons. One in particular was for 40% which I used for my NCLEX book (saved $20). I was trying to cover all the questions that were asked but I'm sure I missed something. Let me know if you have any others and i'll try to help. If anyone already has the books, I can message you the reading assignments for the first test so you can get started.

I was trying to think of some helpful info for you but I can't. The only thing that I would start stocking up on is money. I didn't exactly plan financially for starting NS and now I'm regretting it and it's only been a week since we started. I know that seems like an obvious resource to stock up on, but it's the best one that I can think of right now. The only other one that I can think of is a book/class on critical thinking. Try checking out a NCLEX test review book from the library. They seem to show you how to prepare for nursing exam style questions. Don't get discouraged because you don't have the nursing knowlege to answer them, but look at the strategies they provide on how to answer. I wish I had better info for you, but I don't. maybe someone else can chime in with something additional. As far as medspub, I'm still trying to figure out what it is exactly. Seems like a tutorial type program. i think you can only access it through the school program as opposed to buying a subscription on your own. I read the Potter and Perry (can't remember the title) book almost cover to cover in between the time I took HPRS summer '07 and Dec. '08. It helped me understand some of the procedures that we are currently discussing in class.

Glad I'm not the only one! I've been mentally preparing myself for this since i rec'd my acceptance letter but it's still shocking. Same thing with orientation. i had prepared myself for the costs but was still a huge shock when I saw the price of the book box and all the other misc. things we had to spend $ on. Well, i just fixed a nice cup of tea and about to curl up in my bed with my laptop and work on these modules and medspub. I don't think there are too many NLC people on here. I did have a chance to meet 4mylife today during class. I might have to do some advertising on Wednesday @ lecture and get some more people to get on here.

Just wanted to check-in on everyone and see how their 1st week of NS went/is going? Me, myself, and I are starting to come out of the initial shock from Monday. I'm glad I have this Thurs-Monday to play catch up and get organized.

I think it was generated through the roster on e-campus. Maybe you hadn't been added to the class yet? I started wondering about the lecture time when I paid for my class. During orientation, they had told us 9-2:30 but the receipt showed 8-1:30. I'm c and p'ing the e-mail below. Also, I'm not sure if this includes your clinical group, but 3 of the clinical groups are meeting tomorrow @ 8am-12pm @ NLC. I found this out on Fri. 1/11. Go fig. I'd hate for you to show up tomorrow if it isn't for your clinical section, but if you're free I guess it couldn't hurt anything? The e-mail doesn't specify which one of her sections is the one meeting tomorrow. Check e-campus and see if they have your class loaded yet. -jen to"2008SP-RNSG-1423-7130", dateJan 11, 2008 3:08 PM subject1423 Class time: 2008SP-RNSG-1423-7130 mailed-bydcccd.edu Need to clarify the lecture time. Our class meets from 800-1:30 on Wednesday in T-107. Three clinical groups will meet on Monday at 0800: one of Ms. ******** groups, Ms. *******'s group and my group. Just check the board outside of T107 for your room assignment. See you next week.