tiffnshaker

No, Henry Ford Hospital where I've worked for 5 years won't hire anyone in the OR without CC experience anymore unless they are extremely hard up. Even the med/surg floors are asking for previous experience. I've been a sterilization tech for 5 years with no patient care experience.

I'm graduating in 12 weeks and we're already being prompted to get those resumes out and make contacts, however all the jobs posted are requiring a minimum of a year of med/surg experience. If that's what I have to do before I can go back to the Operating room where I already work as a tech then that's what I have to do, however even the med/surg floors are wanting icu experience or 1-3 years of previous floor experience. What the heck? I thought we were so high in demand? How do I get a job with no floor experience if they all require experience?

Im graduating from the program in 12 weeks. Good luck you'll need it. I have tons of advice, if you want to hit me up offline I'm here.... I think you guys have Joan Green if I'm not mistaken. She's awesome, listen to every word that comes out of that woman's mouth, even that horrid off-key singing she does. Kim Lindquist was supposed to be teaching 120 did you end up with her too? Those two and Susan Shunkwiler who teaches ob are the best, sweetest, nicest, teachers ever. Pray to god you get them as clinical instructors because you'll learn the most and they don't treat you like dog poo like some instructors. Trust me the clinical instructors can and do get worse. I almost didn't make it out of 126 on account of mine, but after that I never had a problem. Take as much clinical supplies home as they will 'let' you and practice practice practice at home. Lab time is not enough time to practice your clincal skills and feel confident when you get in front of your first patient and their whole family watching your every move.You will feel dumb, stupid, incompetent, and no better than carp food but it gets better. After this they will throw you in psych where you don't pass meds or do any patient care so stay fresh on your skills when you hit med/surg. I found utube to be helpfull if you forget how to put in a foley or insert an ng tube. Plus they only show you in lab once or twice and then you feel like an ass because you don't remember what to do when you get patients. I could go on forever but it's memorial day and have to get caught up on the house/yardwork that you won't have time to do anymore. Feel free to email me.

i'm in the henry ford employee partnership program. we will be graduating in august. we are the second group of mostly employees to be graduating from this extended campus program. basically it's the same as on campus but you finish in 16 months. the workload is the same but we are different in that we also have to maintain a certain amount of hours on our jobs which is tough. of the original 60 that started in may of 2007 there are roughly 20-25 of us left. when people drop or fail a course they pull from the college to fill the slots but you still have to sign a 3 year work commitment with the health system if you join our 'special' group because they are paying for the purpose of having future employees. you don't have to work downtown at the main campus just anywhere in the health system full time as an rn. i'm sure you have lots of questions as i did when i began, with not many people willing to give you a straight answer. i wish there had been someone to offer advice about this program when i started so if anyone wants to contact me offline i'd be happy to give ya some advice. so you have less of this later on. you can email me privately too. moderator note, please do not post email addresses as per terms of service

I can lend a little bit of experience to this thread because I've signed a 3 year work commitment with my employer. I'm in an accellerated (16 month) program that's being funded half by the state of michigan and half by the health system I work for. The deal was that 60 of the hospital employees who had all of their pre-req's finished attend class at an off college campus site and do their clinicals at the hospital. Our "off-site" campus ended up being at the hospitals' coorporate headquarters where we have an enforced business attire dress code. Our teachers and clinical instructors come over from the college. We attend class and clinicals 12 hours a day twice a week and have some kind of crappy mandatory 6 hour self study time at coorportate too. This is an extra six hours that 'normal' students wouldn't have to attend. They pay for our tuition and books, and some of us got a computer. In return we have to maintain employment at the hospital while we're students and commit to 3 years as an RN at the hospital afterwards. What they don't tell you is that basically they own you and could give a crap how much you give up personally to be in their program. They are doing you a favor in their minds because you aren't personally paying for anything. And lord don't complain about their incompetent teachers or question anything at all because there are 300 people behind you scratching and clawing to be where you are. I'm in my second year now with 7 months to go and if I had known it would be this bad I'd have paid for everything myself. We all pretty much are working at least 30 hours because our department managers wont let us go down to part time hours. We all have a huge monkey on our back because if we fail any classes or our attendence gets bad at work and we get fired we'll be in breach of contract and have to pay back about $10,000. This just happened to a friend of mine who is in the program with me. The hospital is giving us a $400 a month stipend on top of this but if we fall below an 80% grade in our class we immediately have to pay that back along with whatever $$ we have received previously. We're talking wage garnishment and everything. And when the hospital pays our tuition late the school takes it out of our financial aid and any aid we can get is held up. The program is so intensive because it's accelerated that there is no way I can work full time and go to school full time as well, even though we were told it's "highly possibly to do this program and work full time if we are focused" before we signed the contract. I'm having to borrow money and go into debt anyhow just to keep my house, so why not attend school on my own terms and be free of the huge burdan on my back if I don't succeed. Originally there were 60 of us and we're down to about 40 people left going into the second year. If you get pregnant, sick, your husband gets a job transfer, or you don't maintain your 80% academic standing, well then, oh well that's your problem and you are in breach of contract. Not to mention that when you do graduate you're competing with 60 other new grads for spots at that hospital and your choices for a position in an area that you want to work may be limited. This may be good deal for some who really want to get through school as quickly as possible, but personally had I known there were other options at the time I would have found another way.