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I think the thing many are forgetting is you may be able to run 1000mcg/min of a certain drug but there comes a point where more isn't necessarily better.

Hey, I'm an RN looking into possibly going to NP school. I was wondering if some of you wouldn't mind sharing some info with me. What kind of NP are you? (acute care, peds...) How many hours do you work a week? How many hours do you take call a week? Any info helps. Thanks

Sat and Sun 7p-7a

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. It's not that dying as a whole upsets me, almost 1/2 of the pt's I take care of sometimes will never make it out of my unit and I know that. The weird thing with this lady was that it was so quick and I hadn't even thought about her dying. Normally, you're gonna know that they're about to die but this lady just...died. It was a peaceful way for her to go tho. Thanks again

Not to be too descriptive but I admitted a nice older lady from the ER last night. She was coming in with SOB d/t (from what the ER told me) a chronic condition that had apparently been somewhat stable. She was a DNR. She woke up about 0300 and I gave her something to help her rest. I left the room about 0400 telling her to get some rest. I was tending to one of my other pt's for about 20 minutes and when I walked out of her room I was gonna chart some. The monitor in the room was going off so I walk in and there my pt is. She brady'd down to about 20 or so and I had stopped breathing in that short amount of time that I was gone. It didn't take long for her to pass but I didn't expect this at all! I knew it would happen sooner or later but I didn't think it would happen last night! Looking back it's really weird and upsetting because this lady was talking to me 15 minutes before. I told her to get some rest and "goodnight" to which she replied "goodnight son." This has just kind of upset me because I kind of shrugged her off because she was so talkative and I had given her something to help her rest. I think in the end she was scared to go to sleep because she knew she wouldn't wake up, so she just talked and talked and talked! Has anything like this happened to you guys before??? Thanks

It sounds like you are freaking out about the test to me. IMO, the number one rule when taking NCLEX is to not freak out. If you failed with 75 questions then you are either not taking in the material correctly, freaking out or a combination of both. I don't think Hurst review is helpful one bit, we don't need to know content, we learned that in nursing school. What we need to know is how in the world do I answer these questions!? NCLEX may throw a lot of big words at you but if you can sift through the question you may realize you don't have to know anything about the big word. I would highly recommend KAPLAN. KAPLAN will teach you a little bit of content but more importantly how to answer the questions. It's very pricey but very worth it. If money is hard for you then at least get the KAPLAN qbank and answer the questions. The KAPLAN questions are NCLEX questions from previous tests. Good luck!

Most of all I would say that I'm laid back. I think one of the most important parts of being a good ICU nurse is your ability to remain calm when everything else is going downhill. I'm also very task oriented, if there is work to be done it's going to get done, most of the time before it has to be done. Last but not least I pride myself on my organization, I rarely if ever leave late and most of the time I'm the one who get's the 3rd patient in an ICU.

The math tests that you are required to pass are on basic drug calculations, very easy. The teachers tell you exactly what you need to know. When I went to Jeff State we had 2 times to pass with a 90 every semester. Jeff State's nursing program is not hard if you put the time in to it to study and not be an idiot. Anyone can pass anything if they put their mind to it IMO.

We had a list and they stopped doing it because they said it was "stupid." I'm not sure how but whatever. It's not really a problem but when I'm taking care of 3 and the nurse next to me has 1 and is doing nothing it kind of ticks me off.

I'm usually not angry when I get three patient's. Sometimes you can't help getting a third patient when you're short staffed. The only time I get mad is if I get the third patient when some other nurses haven't had a third patient in forever and less acute patient's.

Do you ICU nurses ever have more than 2 pt's? How often if you do? We get 3 pt's every now and then, usually one or two of them are waiting to transfer in the AM. My main question is how do you deal with being assigned a third pt, mainly when someone else is 1:1 with a technically stable pt? Just looking for insight. Thanks

You must be looking in the wrong place. Brookwood has several jobs posted, including ICU.

I knew a guy that worked there before he graduated. Call up to the ER and see if you can get in touch with the Nurse Manager or ER director. If you can't get in touch with them I use to work in the ER at Brookwood and could possibly hook you up.

When an MD "holds" a med it is automatically dc'd by pharmacy to prevent this info from getting lost in report to the next nurse or one nurse not writing it on the MAR. The MD should write it on his progress notes or something so that they will remember to restart it when the time comes. We don't have much problem with it now that the med's are automatically dc'd.

You passed.

The residency programs requires a BSN and you don't have to go through that. The residency program is for people who don't know exactly what they want to do and it allows them to work in more than one area for a couple of weeks. At the end of the program they choose where they want to work.

Who really cares? I'm a male nurse and there isn't really a difference. I work with a lot of other nurses who are male.

I think Jeff State generally requires a little bit of a higher score to get into. I had a friend that got into Wallace with 155 (she failed out twice). Jeff State admits during the summer.

Kaplan is the best. They use old NCLEX questions in their material.

Review courses are helpful but not always necessary. 50-60% on NCLEX practice tests is actually decent. At first I was scoring around there on Kaplan's NCLEX questions but then I was getting in the 70's and 80's. You are not going to make an "A" on the NCLEX, your goal is to get more than 50% right. What I did to study was take the Kaplan NCLEX course, the course wasn't really necessary but when you sign up for the course you get a question bank with over 1000 questions. Kaplan also uses old NCLEX questions so nothing is better. I would buy the question bank from Kaplan (i forget how much it is) and just do questions. I did the entire question bank and NCLEX was easy for me. I finished with 75 questions in 45 minutes. Study hard and don't freak out and you will do fine.

Pt resting in bed, arousable to voice. VS per flowsheet. Call light within reach. Denies pain. Denies needs.

Nurses are nurses and everybody needs them. I don't think it will be much harder to find a job if it passes as it is now.

Why in the world would you ever call a doctor to find out if you need to hold a med or something???????? As nurses we should all know when to hold meds, especially something such as insulin. In your case, I wouldn't have given it. A blood glucose level of 140 will not harm anyone.

The hardest part of 2nd semester for me was adjusting to the types of tests you take. In first semester the questions are more knowledge based. In 2nd semester everything is application based and you may have 4 right answers you just have to decide which one is most right. This gets alot easier as each semester passes.

You will take calculation tests during the pharmacology class and at the beginning of every semester starting with the 2nd semester. Nothing is hard if you study