GlennCoco

I really like the GRx scope. I ordered it a few weeks ago, and my classmates have tried it out, and 4 of them ordered one also. Several more said they would have gotten one if they hadn't already spent more on other scopes.

Well, I'm sorry GRx doesn't ship to Canada, because they make darn good scopes for not very much money. I'm in my 2nd semester of school right now. We're doing our med-surg rotation right now. Anyways, there are about 40 people in my class. Four of my classmates have ordered the GRx based on my recommendation as well as testing mine out. Several more have tried it and said they would have ordered it if I would have found it before they spent (more) money on other scopes. Maybe you have a friend who can order one for you and ship it to you? Heck, if you paid for the scope plus shipping, I'd ship it to you.

I might be able to offer some insight for you. The college did not flood. Downtown Cedar Rapids flooded BIG TIME. Kirkwood did not flood. Classes were canceled for a week though because travel around town was nuts and they actually used the Kirkwood campus for recovery efforts and FEMA personnel, as well as a landing pad for Marine One. I am actually in the first semester of the program at Kirkwood. If you schedule it right, you can get through the prereqs done in two semesters. You'll want to do A&P I and Health Skills I during your first semester and the second halves during the next semester. Of course you'll need the computer class, Professionals in Health, and First Aid somewhere in there, they're so easy, you may as well try to cram that in the first semester if you think you can handle it or wait until the next semester if you want to ease into it. Only after you get those seven classes done can you get on the waiting list. They'll tell you it will be a 3-4 semester wait. For me it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would. I finished the last of my prereqs in May 2007 and got on the list, and I was somewhere around #188 on the waiting list. Every semester they gave me an updated number. Sometime probably in March or so they sent me a letter telling me that I had been accepted for Fall 2008 and asked me if I wanted to be on the standby list for Summer 2008 if enough people dropped off. I marked that I did, and they told me that they would be calling the standby people on May 1st, 2008. Sure enough, May 1st came around and they called me and asked if I wanted to start the summer, which was May 19th. I said I did and here I am, nine weeks in. If I could have done things differently, the only thing differently that I would have done is assumed that I would have been getting in for the summer and started filling out the compliance paperwork sooner, because basically I had a ton of papers to fill out in about a week. So anyways, for me the wait ended up being exactly a year, or 3 semesters. Another thing you will want to do is either while you in your first semesters of prereqs, or during your 3-4 semester wait, is get started on the other classes that aren't in the actual nursing program but are required to graduate, which would be Intro to Psych, Developmental Psych, a speech class, Microbiology, Comp I, Intro to Sociology, and an elective. Several of those you can take as the Anytime/Anywhere class if you are so inclined. If you can get that stuff knocked out so that by the time you start the actual nursing program you ONLY have the core nursing curriculum left you'll probably be better off. If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.

I don't know how much my opinion matters because I am new here, but I am NOT in favor of universal health care. I don't think the government could do it without screwing it up.

So far I have not heard anything from school about stethoscopes, other than the fact that we don't need to purchase one right now. I have not heard when we will need one though. We're in our geriatric rotation right now and each nursing home has scopes, but the ones at my location are HORRIBLE.

beyondx4 Do you know if the Littman replacement diaphragm will fit on any other stethoscopes, like the GRX?