sully75

To answer the question: I studied off and on for several months but I really wasn't doing too much of anything for the first couple. I crammed it the last month or so (quite unpleasant but that's kind of how I work). Like any of these tests, I think you need to study for the test as much as anything else. The questions in the ENA review book are generally fairly similar to the kind of questions you'll see, so generally I would expect questions at that level of detail and knowledge. You don't need to study deeper than that. The nice thing about Mark Boswell's youtube lectures was that he gave just a little more than you needed to know, so it set you up pretty well. Oddly enough I was getting 68-72s on all my practice tests (barely passing-passing is a 70), but I got an 86 on the actual test. Seems like most people get closer to their practice test grades. I'm a pretty good test taker, I think, but a pretty poor studier.

Hello, I just passed the CEN, first try. I've been an ER nurse for about 1.75 years now. I don't feel like I ever got great training, so I had to teach myself a lot. Some thoughts -Mark Boswell Youtube lectures are awesome and free. I listened to all of them, and took notes in a google doc about everything he said. In some ways it's kind of nice that you don't have the powerpoints in front of you because you have to write everything down. I reviewed my notes a day before the test and that helped tremendously. The lectures don't cover everything but they give you a pretty good start. The Toxocology lecture was definitely helpful. A little lacking on ortho maybe and that's a weak point of mine too. I need to catch up on that. -The ENA CEN review book is really good and kind of necessary. 5 book tests and 2 online tests. I did all of those tests and then carefully reviewed the answers and rationales. It definitely showed me stuff I was missing. -I also paid for the Jeff Solheim videos which are online. There's like 7 of them. The topics are pretty sporifice, but the electrolyte stuff was really worth knowing well and I'm glad I did them. Apparently he has a taped lecture series but I could never find it. -I also got a used, somewhat outdated copy of the Lippincot Q&A Certification review in Emergency Nursing. I got the 2005 edition on Amazon used very cheap. There are definitely a few outdated things in it but generally it was totally useable. The questions are HARD and that helped. I never finished the whole book but it was worth buying. I looked up a lot of stuff on youtube. There's a lot of good ER videos. Larry Melnick is some ER doctor who puts up a lot of live videos in the ER, some of them were helpful. Looking up things like placement for a needle decompression and other things that I've read about but never seen. -Be prepared to really hunt out an answer. For me the questions on the test were simpler as far as the knowledge required relative to the review book but took a little more figuring out, the answer wasn't obvious, you had to use your knowledge of the situation to piece together the answer. So I'd just be prepared for that. There were no major curve balls though. -The test is long, long, long. Just get ready for that. Anyway, good luck! It was totally worth doing. At this point I'm more clear about what I don't know than what I learned but it was helpful for illuminating that. And a special thanks to Mark Boswell. I appreciate your generosity very much.

Thought I'd bump this, somebody just downloaded the stuff I put up, so maybe it's still useful. Good luck to you NCLERs. At a certain point you'll forget that you even took it.

To sum up: I have about 5 months independent on the floor of a rural hospital and I'm doing ok on nights. I want to move back to my home city as soon as possible, with the eventual goal of working in the ED here somewhere (many hospitals in the area). Do you think travel nursing would be a way of working my way back into the market? I'm worried that applying from out of state is going to limit the attention my resume gets, and also I'm really, really sick of being lonely all the time, and would rather move sooner than later.

Hi There, I graduated last Summer and started working in Nov of 2010. I moved from a major metropolitan area to a rural area that I previously lived because there were no jobs in the city. I thought I might be able to resettle in the area (beautiful place). I had two months of training, and I've been on my own since January. I work nights. I'm doing pretty good on my own, haven't had too many problems (knock on wood, literally!). I can't say I feel super confident, but I feel as though I'm doing ok. I get freaked out sometimes, and definitely ask advice from the charge nurse a couple of times a night but in general I feel as though I carry my own. I'm very pleased that I really like a lot of the people I work with at night, and we have some awesome CNAs which make things pretty easy. I usually have 4-5 patients, occasionally have had 6. Sometimes it's easier with 5 than 3 because I find 3 makes me lazy. Cutting to the chase: Anyway. The job is going ok. I'm learning a lot, although not nearly as much as I was early on. I am not totally stimulated by med-surg, and feel bored a lot. More importantly, I'm extremely lonely as I'm single, living - literally - in the middle of nowhere and the area is mostly filled with retirees. So no dating prospects. And all my friends, basically everyone I love, and all the things I like to do, are in the city. My goal is to get back the my city, and to, at least eventually, work in a good ED there. I'm worried about getting further depressed where I am, and would really like to get out of there as soon as possible. It's been a really rough couple of months. I'm also worried that while I'm living out of state, it will be hard to find a job in the city. There are definitely a lot more jobs open now than when I was looking, and my friends who stayed all eventually found jobs (we have BSNs for the record). I have been getting a lot of emails about travel nursing opportunities in the city. I am still a relatively green nurse, but I have been wondering about taking a travel nursing job in the city so that I would be here for 3 or 4 months and could apply here. In the meantime diversifying my experience. I know that it would likely be stressful and hard, but I have to balance that against being away from my friends and really hating my life at the moment. At this point I feel like I'd rather be stressed out among my friends than sad and lonely away from them. Any thoughts?

Hi there, Looking to switch jobs potentially and don't have time to wait to take ACLS at my current job. I'd like to pay somewhere to take it. Any suggestions for a place to take it in MA, preferably the Boston area? I can pay, of course.

Yup...I talked to the Board Of Nursing (was scared to bring it up but I finally did) and they said that they include prereqs in the 2 years. Funny though, that brings me to exactly 24 months. I really sped through the process. Didn't have a college level math or science class before that. I'll be in coastal Maine. I know it well, looking forward to it!

Hello All, I got offered a job in Maine and I'm working on getting licensed there. I graduated from an accelerated BSN program recently, this will be my first job. On the Maine Board of Nursing website, it says something about graduating from a program of "at least 2 years". My BSN program was 14 months but I already have a batchelors degree and a lot of prerequisites. I'm a little concerned there may be some hitch up, as it asks you to state the length of your program on the application. I'm just going to fill out the application and hope for the best, but is this a possible problem? I believe Maine has some accelerated BSN programs of its own. Thanks!

Hello All, I'm applying for jobs online in a really tight market (MA). I'm finding jobs to apply for (starting to look at some less well known hospitals). I'm a new-grad. It definitely feels like dropping your resume into an abyss though. I've heard people suggest putting a suit on and walking into HR offices with your resume. Sounds like a good idea, but it's also a lot of time/energy invested. Wondering if it would be worth the time to apply for 20 jobs online just to put my resume in the hands of some HR secretary. Any thoughts? Thanks!

I'm a guy, 35. For whatever that's worth. I find myself rolling my ankle occasionally. I wear them too often (they are basically my only pair of good shoes...job hunting and broke). I do find that when I roll my ankle, it scares me, but it doesn't hurt much. I'm not sure if I realize that I'm doing it earlier and have some reflex to protect my ankle, but as of yet (knock on wood) I've been ok. Not sure what the alternative would be. I know my feet would be screaming in sneakers or whatever the alternative is. One thing I might consider is Nike Air sneakers. They are very low and are sort of supposed to feel like being barefoot but with a bit of support.

I just passed the NCLEX (75 questions) and I'm job hunting right now. I have sold most of my books on Amazon, at least the theory and review books and things I definitely won't need. I'm definitely keeping my pharm textbook because there's a lot of stuff in there I'd like to refer to. And my pathophysiology book. At least...I think I'm keeping that. My med-surg book is worth a lot of money though (Lewis). In school I found it bloated and unreadable, way too much information and not really helpful in answering questions. I'm tempted to sell it. Do you think I'll need that on the floor for my first job? Since it wasn't helpful in school, I'm not sure it will be helpful at work either. But I don't want to sell it if I'm absolutely going to need it. Have you used your med-surg or Perry and Potter since you graduated? Thanks!

It's all fading into memory at this point, but I would say expect strange questions on all those topics. Most important thing to me is be emotionally prepared to guess between two answers.

I realized that the mnemosyne file I uploaded had some of the categories shut off (you can do that to study certain things). I re-uploaded it and I think it's working now, you should have more questions if you use it. Very interested if any of this was helpful for anyone.

That's cool. I'm sure everyone's test is different. Most people from my program seemed to feel pretty much the same after talking about it though. I had one question out of 75 where I felt pretty confident I knew the answer, even that one was a little weird. Most people I've spoken to were sure they were failing at 75. Anyway, I'm sure it's different for everyone.

Sorry, if it's not clear, you have to download the mnemosyne program, and then download the database and open it (from the file menu) into the program.