baldee

They are more than you think. The one thing you can do is assist in taking their license away, throught the proper channels for the sake of the Nursing Profession. They can't work as nurses, they can only do harm as nursing professors, and they will never correct their tragic life-scripts until after they hit bottom: a lose-lose-lose chained scenario that must be 'nipped' by those who have the knowledge and courage. God save the Nursing Profession!

To get the RN, you will still have to have pre-reqs. The difference is you will have to have at least a 3.5 gpa minimum and 4 nursing semesters (2 years no Summer predominantly) ADN. The bridge with LPN may get by with a 2.75 gpa minimum enter on a Summer and 2 more Semesters (1 year predominantly). LPN is more competitive than before these days and a boot camp atmosphere for 10 months (and getting longer up to 15-18 months at some places already, but may be with breaks). The LPN by some accounts is a waste of time since CNA job wages but no LPN jobs (I can't confirm this). The LPN would help at clinical skills, but if you are a female, it is easy to fly under the radar with most clinical instructors (CI): guys have to be more perfect with some females who have passive aggressive tendencies who built up these defenses to compete with aggressive males. So as a female, you have the choice of the ADN if you have 3.5 gpa+ or LPN if you don't. But beware the LPN may expose themselves to may hospital born (nosocomial) diseases they do not understand fully. With your kids, you are already blessed but they are an overtime occupation I understand. Good luck and be safe, and keep exploring before you rack up a huge education debt (to get what you want the first time hopefully). It's a racket!! Look at Retention rates (there is none in C.C.'s usually), demand, future demand, and alternative programs. Weigh it out, get in, get out, and be happy.

That is always a probability, but for the most part unsubstantiated. My experience is women generally do not mind men nurses unless they are real old and/or brainwashed. Jealous husbands are a main source of problem in OB. Generalizing a biased specialy to nursing in whole is a far-fetched rationalization borderlining on delusional (if no meds or medical injuries are involved). My patient feedback is near 100% excellent, but the Clinical Instructor's (CI's) subjective ratings are borderline at best - well, after drop date anyway. My observations of RN sexes on the floors are the reverse of your assumptions as well: maybe due to a higher standard for the guys vs the gals. There are never any objective ratings from the CI by significant evidence or trends, but rather "I feel" comments. If a guy sees a vag delivery, it will be without the husband there most likely. And most likely it will be an empowered woman giving birth to a lucky holistically healthy child. Dr. MLK Jr. said it best, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Peace!

" what finally made them stand up and take notice was when i found out who their accreditation agency was and found out how to file a complaint with them. the nursing department paid attention then and started kissing everyone's a**. until then the nursing department pretty much had contempt for all agencies b/c they knew the university would cover them. " dude, or dudette, inquiring minds want to know!

1. It is the truth to the best of my judgement as 2nd semester adn, 4 previous degrees. 2. What about all the people that will make decisions in the future? Lie to them? Not. 3. If you can do the LPN route, then you are definitely ahead of the game in experience. 4. Don't get your panties in a wad, it will be all right. The truth never hurts. No one is right and no one is wrong. Everyone is different, every place is different, and everyi probability is different every second of each day. 5. I try to help people the best I can, and its overbearing opinions like yours that blanket this site. That deeply offends my intelligence.

$26/hr? Your cost of living is way higher than down south where it starts $13/hr, but that is good. And LPN's do make good if you dedicate a portion of your life to it. The bottom line in my book though having pondered it is 1) will LPN job make it impossible to get ADN due to job time requirements? (its hard mainly because its the most desired and competitive degree in the world) 2) will LPN prepare you knowledge-wise to protect yourself from nosocomial diseases, the 4th leading killer in the USA? Do you feel lucky? No doubt if you spend 12 years busting your LPN buns, you can do competitive to a RN with greater hours or living in a big city in PA up north, if that is what you want and call success. Just be sure you are not rationalizing a reason to skirt a hard academic battle competing with brilliant nursing students. It never gets easier in no way, and the knowledge does have a shelf life, like LPNs with all the available RNs. RN's have more clout, and LPN's are a long shot gamble probability wise. Good luck.

go, go, go

MOst will. Just see the specific Professor who works at a Veterens Hospital. I could have gotten in 1 year or two earlier if I'd known and be out by now. Good luck.

If you hear a distant swishing like a baseball bat striking out, that's me. But I'm happy as long as I can survive. When they ask for charity work, since charities pay minimum wage often, I feel like that is every job I've had in school. In a addition, I help wandering souls, young and old, focus on essential goals in live. Well, that and $3 will buy me a cup of coffee though...swish, swish, swish...

Yeah, but East TN is the best and most pristine place in the world, with good roads too (for motorcycling :>) Now all employers are saying 1 yr hospital experience (minimum): not RN, not a certain field, but just HOSPITAL experience. So you are way ahead of the game. I'm going the ADN route to get RN quicker. I was offered the VA sponsorship, but no money so I could not afford Summers w/o mo' money or FASA loans one. I do security guard so I can study on midnight shifts. It helps me get through school. I am trying for PCT job so I can get my one year timer clock ticking, but the market is tight. So I'll probably try to use my VA preference and get back in the VA program my last semester if possible so I can say I was sponsored! Once you start your clinical classes, those are tough (or they make them tougher than they should be to learn better). Keep up the good work! I'll have my ADN in Dec, 2012. And then I hope to go to a 2 yr undergrad and graduate combined program BSN/MSN since I already have 2 undergrad and graduate degrees. The RN is the toughest to get from my perspective, and the BSN/MSN is more money (or sponsorship $$ after get RN). The pressure is on the LPN's to stay employed and pass RN clinical classes. I could only handle a day or two hospital shifts per week going to school (and rest of 40 hr's study job). Hopefully you will see my midnight blue BMW F650 motorcycle flying around the mountain hill corners by 2013, with a big smile on my face under my full coverage helmet face shield. Peace.

Tony, Thanks for the info. That's about what I assumed. The "Greed motive" sucks a lot of people in no matter how smart they are, and head of household's feel obliged to take that route. I was delayed 2 or 3 semesters taking classes in ADN route waiting to get accepted, so not to start paying back FASA loans (another school scam), but I figured it would count for BSN (and I enjoy classes I can pick for my career). But you almost have to take extra classes since all schools require different courses, and you never know where you are accepted until 2 weeks before class. So you almost have to take 1.5 x pre-nursing curriculum's for 2 or 3 different schools! LPN's get a break there and are almost guaranteed a spot w/o having to have 3.5 to 3.9 GPA (ie 2.7 gpa) to get in and a semester less. LPN route rocks if you can handle it. CNA's have a difficult test, and that is quite an overworked and respected accomplishment now. I am a 2 week cram from passing it, but they are changing CNA testing in Aug/11, so I'm going to see what is going on first: the timing is not exactly good. Anyway, I start semester II in ADN in a month now, so my Spider senses are starting to tingle and need to start getting ready for that tough semester (w/pharmacy class in it). I love TN, but no real good job supply, so you may be near Nashville. I'd love to live in Chattanooga, but... So Greenville, SC is on the other side of paradise and is on my roadmap after I get out of God forsaken FL! Regards

My swag is they were verbally pacifying you. No one is 'too' good to prevent nosomial diseases (4th leading killer in USA) or know everything in complicated humans physically, mentally, and spiritually. If your number one goal is not the Pt and your fellow workers, then everyone is in danger. Hospitals steal years off life spans, so consider it a blessing. Yes, the Lord does work in mysterious ways. Of course you get what you pay for, OR we really are jealous of you being 'too good' :nurse:

To put this in better perspective: Where may I ask do you go, and what program? How many hours per week do you work? Are you living on your own or with your parents? How many average hours per night do you sleep? What is your class average? Our test bank has 10% nullified no matter if you got it right or not. Then another 10% can be nullified PER STUDENT only. i.e. ambiguous questions. If you do not have ambiguous questions, then this thread may not concern you.

It's part of the "RN instructor job security" plan: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It is a crying shame because learning theory states that high-need achievers learn best with immediate feedback. What a joke!! :nurse:

Me too, in Pre-nursing. Unfortunately, not in ADN and/or not at my school. I just wish that my class time could be used as study time. Except for clinicals, it has been like a bad dream. Hopefully, my 2nd semester looks better. Its all up to the lead instructor. My last one held the class back with her dementia: and with an iron fist with heavy subjective grading influences/test mistakes. It really is not 'that' hard. It can be 'made' incredibly hard though with incoherent (1500 page) syllabus, illiterate slides (lumped in thousands of files unorganized), nonsensical classes, and library pc's that have 1/2 G RAM when it takes 1.5G just to run in the network on them. That will be my main goal next semester: to study during class (maybe with earplugs-??). At least it can not get any worse... in the Twilight Zone. :nurse:

So your hypothesis is to take time and resources you do not have and pray like hell? Interesting and intellectual. However, by making sure you are the bottom line dollar investment for the hospital with adequate education appears to be significantly higher chance of acceptance for initial experience. As well, it is possible. Of course if you are not supporting yourself, then I'd expect you to do those things even though it shows you have more spare time than critical missions in your life. Otherwise, they are not probable nor advisable to accomplish.

Cheapest person gets the job: plan and simple, unfortunately. Since that is the motto up and down the organization, the quality of selection boils down to that or indeterminable nuisances of an unqualified person. Life's a ***** and then you die. :nurse:

Great idea! That was my plans, but was researching alternatives at the last minute. I did get a $895 suit for $282 incl. tax from a Dillards outlet store on Memorial Day, so that may help me with other academic credentials. Heck, you can't even find a number to call HR in 10 hospital networks here. I've blown half the summer already, but first things first! Thanks a lot. :nurse:

Well, that was my orientation. Next semester looks much better. But I did learn not to depend on ANY instructor's advice except at realtime clinical situations. And I don't think I'll make an instructors job any harder since there are thousands of students waiting to get in. Nor will I make someone's job in the hospital harder when they are not performing but the minimum duties required (they are on the way to be rotated out anyway). Hopefully my experiences with instructors will change. But my patient interactions were the best, and I felt I did the very best to those who entrusted their care in me. Instilling blind hope in instructors is definitely a greater wrong than preparing someone to trust themselves mainly. How you can presume you can align everyone's motivations to your blind wishes is not therapeutic, nor realistic advice. :nurse:

Relax, its job security for old nurses. They wave things in front of you so fast, you won't grab their job. Its all subjective and omnipotent knowing. Keep your mouth shut, shake your head yes, and talk good things about your instructor constantly and you will do fine. Its not a collegiate environment, and the real education will be your responsibility! Clinical is cool though, so don't hesitate to ask questions about your specific patient real-time. RN's at hospital do not know things correctly sometimes due to cost-cutting measures (illegal unqualified RN's, LPN's, etc...). There is always a lot of opportunity for me and you, so RELAX and do the very best possible for the patient at hand (and pretty much to hell with the rest at that time). Clinical's are magic when you change someones life for the better :-)

Relax!

LOL, the whole health care field starts out at near minimum wage as possible and holds you there as long as possible, for the golden carrot, "work a long time where you are at and you will do better". FFFFTT! As an RN student, this places HC as part time only when I can makes the same studying for my NCLEX on my current job w/OT. If they want a dedicated employee, they will have to pay for one. If they think dying patients and minimum wage is good for the bottom line, then I don't need a job that bad. I strive for the Pts in every way I can, and it is good knowing my employer is as serious as I am. But employers are dying for good people here so I am sure diligent efforts will be rewarded. And I am sure you will be rewarded too! :nurse:

At my first hospital clinical, the RN's would just write down 5 or 6 random laundry list to do items: period. Nothing more. Of course RN's were just med admins and little else there. The hospital did not care and was going for the cheapest labor, and the cheapest labor was doing the least possible in return or maybe that is all they knew. Good RN's would pay off (not LPN's or imported RN's who did not know English or other things very well). And Hospitals are where everyone wants to work? Wherever I go, hopefully they will listen to a value engineer break down revenues, cost, and overhead. But sometimes the skin-flints don't know anything, so they hope to get ahead by not spending any money at all. It works for a little while anyway. I'm not saying the care plans are good or bad. But if there are only so many available, why reinvent the wheel every one? Implementation may never take place if you complete them after the Pt is gone! But don't get me started on the lack of human factor engineering in Nur teaching plans and instructional effectiveness. Its all about 'JOB SECURITY'. We have only ONE Dr. that I know of in our whole school: one of the nursing directors. She carries a heavy burden, and after mid semester to the end, all the life looks sucked out of her. Poor thing. I hope she gets paid well. I had a poor start this semester since I just figured out some of the instructors are repeatedly posting (lies) in ratemyprofessor.com! And then mysteriously, the computer network crashed when instructor reviews were due (for a limited time, only when the computer was crashed on the surveys). IF I could only wake up!

The usual things: flash light, pen, scissors, gait belt, 3 bottles of 5 hr energy Max, 1 16 oz water bottle, 1 drug manual, 1 lab manual, 1 RN small binder, keys, wallet, X-large gloves, alcohol swabs, cotton balls, stethoscope, BP cuff in bag, (I'm sure there is more, but blank now). I need a belt on my pants: they keep falling down!

THANK YOU! PCT wages are not a bed of roses around central Gulf FL! Thanks Again!! :nurse: