Cathyxis

As a soon to be new grad I know that the positions that I have looked at require ACLS... but they will pay for it once I am hired. Just thought I'd offer my , since I know that money can be tight.

Contact your local hospital's nurse recruiter and ask if you can schedule a shadow with a nurse on a Gen Med floor. This will give you an idea of how much "dirty work" they have to handle. I'm in nursing school, but work as an NA on a Cardiac floor. I think a great NA shift is when I can actually talking to my clients and not go from Code Brown to Code Brown.

Accept the fact that you are not going to be perfect at everything that you do.

Oh how I feel for you! I didn't pass my skills exam the first time because I forgot to brush the tongue when I provided mouth care (it was a bolded skill in the handbook). Talk about a humbling experience. I just recently took it again and passed with flying colors. The difference between the first time and second - I talked to the client all the way through telling them what I was doing and why. It calmed me down, helped me think about what I needed to do and filled the silence. I also prepped differently the second time. For several days I verbally went through the skills with someone to make sure I wasn't missing any steps. This helped a lot because one of the skills I had to do a second time was transfer from the bed to the wheelchair and I kept forgetting to lock the bed wheels - I remembered them on test day because of the verbal reviewing. Good luck to you!

I used the Nursing School and Allied Health Entrance Examinations book, as did most everyone that I have ever talked to about it. Can't say I have ever heard of the other one. Check your PM.

I'm a rising third semester Watts student, so I can't answer anything about waiting lists but can speak about other things. I love Watts, it's the hardest and most rewarding experience of my life. I'm an older student, so I felt I needed more of the hands on experience that Watts would provide. I worked a FT, 45-50 hour a week job while taking my pre-req's. If you don't have any college credit, then you will take most of your pre-req's at Watts at night, two days a week for 4 hours a night. I took three online courses (because of previous credits) and took three classes at the Watts campus to fulfill my obligations. I had other classmates that had to take all the pre-req's at Watts and still held full time jobs. After I finished my pre-req's, I quit working. Not everyone in my class is that lucky and there are some that work 40+ hours. I have NO idea how they do it. Feel free to PM with any questions you may have. Good luck

I ended up buying two of them. I first got the Littmann Cardiology III and I love it. I decided that someone else might love it as much as I do (my name can be scratched off the tubing), so I got a Littmann Select (with my initials on the diaphragm)for clinical. I am happy with the Select for my use during clinical. It fits into my uniform pocket and if it is around my neck it isn't that heavy. Sound quality is OK - but I am comparing it to the Cardio III. Another student used the Select one time and raved about how great the sound was on it. If I had to do all over again, I would have just gotten the Select.