RNPATL

We do evaluate our students on their caring behavior, but these characteristics are listed in the student nurse handbook and referenced in the course syllabus. I would have to agree with you that objectively evaluating "caring" behaviors without a clear definition of what these behaviors might be can prove challenging and if, by chance, you were to fail a student in clinical, based on "caring" behaviors - you are right - no leg to stand on in appeal. I might suggest that you use the current CET you have as a framework for the development of one that fits your ADN program better. Or, if you like the tool, provide an addendum to your handbook that defines caring behaviors so students are aware of how they will be evaluated in clinical.

Congratulations on securing a position that provides you with a period of transition. Embrace this time and use this opportunity to learn a great deal about time management, becoming a part of the team, critical reasoning and developing skills. All new graduates face many of the same challenges you face. You are skilled and you will soon be able to apply the knowledge you gained from school in you work environment. Just be patient with yourself. When you go home after a shift, use your text book to look up information about the certain types of diagnosis that you have cared for during your shift. This will help familiarize you with the nursing care. There are many theories on how new graduates transition into practice and most call for a period of time where the new grad is paired with a more experienced nurse. Ask lots of questions, take a look at the experienced nurses you work with and see how they practice and how they function. Many will be great role models for you. Always remember .... RN practice is autonomous practice, so this means that regardless of how you are oriented ... you are responsible for your practice and for doing the right things for your patients. Congrats on your first position and best wishes for a smooth transition to nursing.

Sorry for the delay in response. If you are interested in defining your variance to hours assigned, simply multiply the hours you ran for the 24 hour period by your total census. If you ran 6.28 hours and your census was 24 patients, this means you ran a total of 150.72 hours for the day. if you were budgeted to run 6.00 hours, that means you were over budget by 6.72 hours. 6.28 X 24 = 150.72 6.00 X 24 = 144.00 Variance to budget: 6.72 hours. Hope this helps.

Great! I am glad to see that this thread is still helpful to nurse managers even today! As far as assessment is concerned, I have always gone with the premise that your policy should speak to how your hospital or unit assesses patients. For example, we know that the patient in an acute care environment must be assessed by a registered nurse every 24 hours. Defining a specific timeframe for this assessment is something I would avoid. If you are unable to meet your policy expectation for some reason, then you are out of compliance. Better to simply say that the patient is assessed every 24 hours by an RN. Hope this helps!

I really just discovered this thread and am so sad to read some of these stories. New nurses need to be embraced by our profession and given really and true opportunities to transition to practice so they can realize the difference they make in the lives of patients they care for each day. We need each and everyone of you in the profession today and I am thankful that you have made the choice to become nurses. I have been a nurse now for almost 26 years and I am not even old yet ... :) But I have seen the ups and downs of the profession and can tell you that being a nurse is the single best decision I have ever made in my life. Your transition can be hard! Fight for the orientation and training time that you need. Remember ... as a new RN your practice is your practice and you need to define your time frame for transition. While I recognize the pressure many new graduates get from employers to "get productive." At the end of the day ... you are the professional and you need to define what you need in order to be effective for your patients. Remember however, there is a lot of learning. Ask many questions - find another RN you feel comfortable with and utilize him or her to guide you. Stay in contact with your nursing instructors, fellow graduates and continue to build a network of nurses around you. Keep your textbooks close at hand and continue to study and learn. Your first year will pass and before you know it, you will be talking the talk and walking the walk. Just remember .... when you finally do transition and you are the experienced nurse - remember that new graduate and provide them with the support, compassion and networking that you needed when you started. For those of you that are interested .... many organizations have heard your voice and are calling for a much better development period for new graduate nurses .... this also includes LVN/LPNs. The National Council for State Boards of Nursing are working to conduct a study of new nurses transitioning into practice. This study will provide some wonderful evidence as a means to support your concerns. Also, the IOM has called for nurse residency programs that offer new graduates with a reasonable time frame to get use to their new responsibilities. They are hearing you. NCSBN Link: https://www.ncsbn.org/363.htm Best wishes to each and everyone of you. Come back and post frequently - tell us how you are doing.

RossayRN - cut yourself some slack here. If you consider the amount of learning that takes place during your first year of nursing, let alone during your entire career as an RN, then you will see you are doing just fine. I know this post was in November and I have not yet finished reading the thread, but I hope things are going a little better for you now.

Hi All - great to see where this discussion thread has gone over the past year. I did enroll with Capella in the DNP program (launched in October of 2010). The program is strong and has a great time investment, but worth it. I am moving on to my second quarter in a 10 quarter program. If you want to know anything - give me a shout.

I think you raise some very good questions here. Attending an accredited program is very important as you move up the educational ranks. Accreditation speaks to the quality of the program and also demonstrates the commitment of the university to scholarship and to adherence to a set of acceptable standards. Both universities you have listed here are great. I am an alumni of Walden University. I earned my MSN at WaldenU. I am currently a DNP student at Capella. Capella University is working on their CCNE accreditation for the DNP program right now. Take your time selecting the program you want and make sure the University is a good fit for yourself. Are you looking for a Masters program in Nursing or Doctorate? Best Wishes! Patrick

First of all bravo on wanting to be a nurse educator. We need as many as we can get. For me, when I first began my educational journey to teach - there were little resources and very few people really knew what direction I should take. Thanks to several folks on allnurses.com, I received some great information. Like you - I started out as an LPN with a strong desire to teach. Today - I am in my PhD program and have been teaching in an ADN program for several years. It has been a wonderful road and I have never had any regrets. To start off with - you really need to finish your RN and get some practical experience in acute care. You can accomplish this by working in acute care while you are earning your bachelors and masters degree. Once you have a BSN - you can generally teach as a clinical adjunct instructor in the hospitals through the college. This will get your foot in the door and also give you some wonderful experience dealing with students. Of course - after you finish your masters degree - you can teach full time at the ADN level without too much trouble. Teaching at the university may also be an option, but more and more university programs are requiring a terminal degree to teach in their nursing programs - including BSN level. While this may not be true every where - your options may be somehwhat limited until you have a terminal degree. I hope this helps and best wishes as you move forward with your nursing education.

While I understand your concern here - I think online programs in nursing are well accepted by the nursing community. Walden University has a very solid reputation of being a research based organization of higher learning that is focused on global change. I graduated from the MSN in Nursing Education program in August of last year. I never had any problem or questions raised about my MSN because I was a graduate of an online accredited university. Academia can be elitist and at times look down at online education. However - this attitude is beginning to change because adult learners are demanding flexibility in order to achieve an advanced education. Mainstream universities are beginning to see this changing tide and most are beginning to offer their undergraduate RN completion programs and graduate education online. Take a look at Kaplan's new commercials - they are compelling and really speak to the need for adult education to be flexible, relevant and accessible. Best wishes in your decision. I know from my experience that Walden was a great choice for me. Patrick

First - congratulations on your decision to return for your MSN in Nursing Education. The primary issue with graduate education is learning how to articulate your message via writing and developing skills that demonstrate your advanced knowledge in nursing, particularly nursing education. I think the best thing you can do in graduate school is to be prepared. Research and scholarly writing are pretty important at this level of education. Be certain your APA knowledge is strong and that you understand the different terms relating to research and how to read it. During my graduate program - I discovered that for everything I wrote - I needed to support my argument with literature from scholarly sources. While initially this drove me crazy - as I rounded out my program - I really discovered that this was a reasonable way in which to write and support my position. Best of luck! Patrick

Hi Denise - thank you for your response. My biggest question was more about the program and how you liked what you were learning. I also was curious about the class room format - whether it was easy to navigate and find things. I am planning on starting with Capella either in January or March of 2010. Thanks for your response and best of luck with the completion of your doctorate. Patrick

Hi Shari, First - congratulations on your progress in the program. The 7 classes will go pretty quickly. I remember when I was at that stage and thinking I would never get this done. But the time does pass and all of the sudden you are completing your last class and wondering where the time went! One of the things I did to prepare for my portfolio was to make sure that I saved every single document I had ever created in the program. I kept my files on my computer hard drive under a separate folder and also kept another copy of files on a thumb drive. This helped me a great deal. When I did my portfolio - I had all the documents they wanted on the first go round without having to find things. Some of the students in my class could not find papers they completed at the start of the program. They had to call tech support, have them locate the paper from 1 or 2 years ago - it was really crazy. I had them all because I saved everything! In terms of the practicum - start thinking about who you would like to do your practicum with and ask them early. The person you do your practicum with needs to be a MSN prepared nurse. You need to identify a project that you want to do for your practicum. For me - I was in the education track so I selected an educator that I respected and we developed a online Nutrition course that was for credit. I helped to co-facilitate this course for my practicum. It was great because I could do most of my hours from the computer as I graded papers and added to the student's discussions posts for each week. It feels stressful as you are approaching this portfolio and practicum courses - but Walden really does a wonderful job of making sure you have what you need to get everything done. My course instructor was the same for my last two classes and she was AWESOME! Best wishes for your success.

Hi Catherine - thanks for your post. Tell me what sold you on the program? I looks like a wonderful program and after speaking with some of the folks at Capella - it sounded like a good match for me. But I learned that they don't really employ many of their graduates and this concerned me. I know that many other colleges employ their graduates - so perhaps this is not really an issue. I do like their program though and it seems very doable.

How are you doing? I see that you are now an APN ... did you go back and get your post masters certification? I have been exploring that route as well - but kind of hanging out not really sure what to do next. I know I need the doctorate, but I really would prefer a practice doctorate even though I am in education. I would like to balance both education and clinical. I hope to find something that fits me soon. Great ot hear from you and I hope all is well. Patrick

No I really have not, but I will now that you mentioned it. I know from past reviews - they did not offer a PhD in Nuring Education, but I will take a new look. Thanks!

I will agree with several of the other posts. I think I would add that there needs to be student engagement in the class. While I agree that this is college and the material needs to be learned, by the students in the class, I do believe that there is a need to help make the material somewhat interesting and provide detailed information on the concepts (such as acid/base) that can be difficult to conceptualize. You mention several times that you have a couple class members that have previous degrees at the masters and doctoral level. This is really irrelevant. Nursing school is unlike any other education you will receive at any point in your life. You are being prepared to take a national licensure examination that covers an amazing amount of information. In addition, the test is designed to target your weakness. Understanding the material for each class is the total responsibility of the studnet. Mostly because the student will be the one taking the NCLEX - not the instructor. I think my overall suggestion would be to make sure you are reading the chapters prior to your lecture. Highlight the concepts that you do not understand so you can target these in class with questions. If the instructor does not proviede you with the information necessary in class to understand the concept, make an appointment with her to go over the concepts that are difficult. I think meeting with her and telling her that her lectures are to fast will do little to solve the issue. Remember - she is required to cover a lot of material in a short semester. Best wishes and I hope it all works out for you.

I agree ... I have never been very fond of group projects with distance learning.

No - during my MSN there were no group projects required. All projects and assignments were student centered and did not require group involvement.

I just graduated from the MSN - Nursing Education program with Walden University. It was a wonderful program and I learned a great deal. The program is truly great for those nurses that plan on teaching. The nursing speciality courses taught me a great deal about adult learning principles, student-centered learning theory and how to be a better, more informed nurse educator. It took me three years to finish, but you can finish the program in 2 years if you don't take any time off. I found the faculty to be great and the responsiveness of the university to be very good. Best wishes and I am sure you will really enjoy your time with Walden.

I am still looking for a program that I feel is a good match for me. I have been looking at Capella, but I also would like something that is ground based and somewhat local to me in North Carolina. Best of luck in your application.

Thank you for the link - the program really looks wonderful. Would not work for me because of the required residencies, but overall a very strong PhD program. Thanks again.

Thank you. Please post more information or a link.

Ok - so for those that have followed my threads, I have recently graduated from Walden University with my MSN in Nursing Education. I am now in the process of exploring PhD programs that are mostly online because I am unable to relocate to a traditional ground school and there are no PhD programs in my area that meet my specialization. Anyway - I have been looking into Capella's PhD program in Nursing Education and have been pretty impressed with the overall program. I had the opportunity to speak today with a member of the faculty and asked many questions. All of her responses were really pretty great. I am seriously thinking about enrolling into their program. But, my tradition has been to post here on allnurses first to get feedback from anyone that might be in the program, or whomay be in the same position as I am and considering this option. So - is anyone currently enrolled in the Capella Nursing Education PhD? If so, please provide your thoughts. I know the program is new and I am certain students in the program probably have some unique challenges. I am ok with that. I guess I am just looking for your feedback. For those that may not be students with Capella, but have some information you think would be helpful for me to make this decision, please post - I really would appreciate your comments. Posting here has never served me wrong and I really value the input from my nurse friends and colleagues VickiRN - please feel free to post also with your thoughts! Thanks everyone - Patrick

Just a quick update for those that are following this thread. I graduated from Walden's MSN Program two weeks ago. I can tell you that the portfolio and practicum almost killed me! But in the end, I could see the value of both experiences. I was very pleased with the entire program. Learned a heck of a lot that is for sure. Now - looking and researching PhD programs - so here we go again. I will do my PhD with a ground based university though.