Just1nRN

I'm not sure if you're currently enrolled as an LVN in an RN program and are thinking of continuing on with the RN-BSN at UTA? Or if you're already an RN with LVN experience who hopes that the LVN experience could be used in lieu of an elective? Keep in mind that UTA's program is only for RNs. Regardless, the national certifications that can be used in place of an elective are certifications like CCRN for critical care or CEN for ER nursing. You'll have to speak with an academic advisor for an exhaustive list. If you have one of these certs, you can send documentation to your academic advisor and pay $15 to get 3 hours of elective credit. If applicable, this can reduce the amount of time you spend taking courses at UTA. Most places of employment will reimburse you for exam fees and study materials and may even give you a reward/bonus for becoming certified in your speciality which is an added bonus as well.

Yes, but you'll need to take two nursing courses at a time (at one point I took two nursing courses and an elective for a total of three). To save time, you'll also probably want to use a national nursing certification in place of an elective (which I did). I was able to finish in 9 months.

Taking Medical Terminology with Prof. Nursing A/B is very doable. There are 3 or 4 (can't remember) 50 question multiple choice tests that comprise your grade. No other assignments besides the tests. The tests basically cover medical definitions.

This is what they say, but I was able to enroll anyway and nothing ever happened to me. Not endorsing this...just saying I did it without a problem (enrolled in other nursing classes).

I took Professional Nursing A&B along with Medical Terminology (elective) and Older Adults. Made A's in all of them and didn't stress either. Totally doable.

Sometimes, if UTA doesn't have an exact equivalent of your course at their instutition, they will simply transfer the course as something generic like "biology transfer," but you will still get credit if your academic advisor approves that course as being equivalent for their program. For example, I took American Literature since the Civil War at another instutition (that also offered American Lit before the Civil War). However, UTA's American Literature class combines both before and after portions. They transferred the course as "English Transfer", but this satisfied the literature requirement. Same for statistics, I took PSYC statistics, but UTA doesn't have this course. It transfers as "psychology transfer", but it counted as my stats course. Whatever is on your course map is exactly what you need to complete the program (excluding electives, of which I recommend taking Medical Terminology). Medical Terminology is completely online and your grade is basically made up of 3 or 4 online, multiple choice tests. Very, very easy.

Discussions (one each week for 6 points (6 pts * 5 weeks = 30% of your grade)) - the discussions are typically very straight forward and minimally time consuming like the other courses in the program. Journal entries (3 points each for 4 weeks = 12% of your grade) - these are basically 1-2 paragraphs of writing each week answering a prompt about your RN to BSN experience and your professional growth/development over the program. Again, minimally time consuming. Journey paper (10% of your grade) - basically taking your 4 weeks of journal writing and putting them into a formal paper at the end of the program with some modification. This takes probably a few hours of time. Capstone project (42% of your grade divided into 3 parts) - Basically, you develop a presentation (PowerPoint) from the perspective of the nurse as a leader, educator, or clinical expert. The perspective and topic are completely your choice. Your presentation must have information supported by a minimum of 9 peer reviewed research articles cited in APA format. The presentation itself as well as a few planning documents and evaluation forms comprise this portion of the course. Resume - Basically, submit a professional looking, error-free resume at the end of the course for 6% of your total course grade. That's it! No quizzes, no tests, no shadowing a nurse leader, nothing outside of your home. Easy course. Ended up with an A+++ (almost a perfect score). Everything is very straightforward. Follow the directions, meet all criteria in the rubric, and you get an A. The curriculum continues to use the scaffolding style in which each week's assignment builds on the previous week to culminate in a larger final assignment (such as each journal entry being used in the final paper, and each week's presentation portion building up to the final submission at the end).

Having finished this program, the references to state laws primary deal with things that are either common sense or exist in various forms in other states. Things typically discussed include: -Safe Harbor: you have the right to protect your license from sanctions by the BON if you object to an unsafe assignment but management refuses to make accomodations -Peer assistance: Specifically, Texas has the Texas Peer Assistance Program for Nurses (TPAPN). These programs exist in other states too but may have different specific rules/regulations. There is a quiz over this in the Professional Nursing course, but most of the answers are easily looked up on the TPAPN website and/or in the lecture/notes provided -Laws, rules, and regulations aimed at professional conduct, malpractice, and patient boundaries: these are thoroughly discussed in the lectures/notes and are primary common sense. Don't come to work drunk, don't have sex with a patient, don't accept financial gifts from patients, et cetera. There are plenty of people from out of state that have completed this program without any issues whatsoever. You are just slightly disadvantaged because most Texas nurses are already very familiar with these topics and Texas' approach to them.

As a Texan, I can attest to the fact that we are a little full of ourselves... hence why our government mandated this lovely course that doesn't apply to out of state students.

This flyer: http://www.uta.edu/nursing/files/RNonlineflyer.pdf Gives you a course-by-course breakdown of exactly what you need to complete, including the two electives required, in order to graduate. College algebra can be taken at a local community college instead of at UTA if the on-campus final is an issue. However, many community colleges will also require in-person exams for college algebra because it is so prone to dishonesty (can easily use applications/websites to solve the problems).

amyrnfa is correct, you will need something that has the full functionality of a computer. A netbook or ultrabook might prove to be more portable than a traditional laptop. An example of a netbook would be the Acer Aspire One. They are miniature laptops with the full functionality of a PC, but are extremely light and have very long battery life.

They had no problem accepting PCCN. Keep in mind that PCCN is a relatively new certification, however, it is on the list of approved certs (and the academic advisors aren't nurses, so I don't know why they would say anything about not recognizing it)... A few weeks later, I had to email my academic advisor back because I never heard from them about it... so you have to stay on top of them. They are slow and inefficient...

Here's the Syllabus for Professional Nursing A/B. N3645_Syllabus_AP.FALL.11.pdf

If Tech Writing is full, see if you can't take speech, philosophy, or an additional literature course instead. Your advisor will let you know if any of these courses are available that qualify as a substitute for tech writing.

LGJMan, Clewi102 is correct, Tech Writing (or equivalent) can be taken concurrently with Professional Nursing A/B. You may have to get your academic advisor to manually register you for this if the online system is prohibiting it. Sometimes the system isn't "smart" enough to know that you are actually meeting the requirements, and it just sees that you haven't done Tech Writing and stops you. I would email your advisor.

I work full time, but I'm not a new grad or in any residency/internship program. I have been an RN for a few years. This is my experience: I finished absolutely ALL prerequisite courses ONLINE at a community college, which I would recommend unless you do not live in Texas (Texas colleges and universities will only accept government that includes teachings regarding Texas government, and UTA is sometimes pickier with out of state transfer courses). This is much, much cheaper. You will most likely find that the prerequisite courses are easier as well at a community college, and many of them also offer the 8 week course format that UTA does. (It is my understanding that the prereqs at UTA are 8-week courses, since I never took any of them at UTA I cannot 100% confirm this, but I do know and can confirm that all nursing courses are 5 weeks, with the exception of Prof. Nursing A/B which totals 10 weeks in length). After finishing all prerequisite courses, I enrolled in UTA's online RN-BSN by taking two courses at a time except for the last course, which they will not let you take with another nursing course (the capstone). The order I took them in was professional nursing a/b and older adults, then health promotion and health assessment, then research and vulnerable populations, then leadership by itself, and finally capstone by itself. The courses that I found easiest were: -Professional Nursing -Older Adults -Health Promotion The harder or more time consuming courses were: -Health assessment (very time consuming assignments) -Research (probably the most difficult) -Vulnerable populations (very time consuming assignments) Leadership and management was fairly easy; however, part of the course involves you shadowing a nurse leader which may be difficult to schedule in between your internship classes and your scheduled shifts on the floor. I would save that course for later. The capstone is extremely easy; however, it must be taken by itself. If I were you, I would pair one of the easier courses I listed here with one of the harder ones. Also, I took introductory philosophy instead of technical writing (also took at a local community college), and there are several other courses that qualify as a substitute for technical writing (look at the UTA website or consult your advisor). You may find that this is an easier option.

For most of the classes, discussion board postings were due on Wednesdays, and assignments (more involved than the discussions) had to be posted by Saturday. Some classes will have discussions due on Thursdays and assignments due on Mondays. But..in general... you will have discussions due in the middle to end of the week and assignments due on sat/sun/mon.

Hello everyone, I am starting NURS 4455 "Nursing Leadership and Management" on Monday, and I am writing to ask if anyone that has already taken the course can offer any feedback to ensure success. I appreciate any feedback offered.

Hi guys, I just started this course (nursing research) this week, and I am already feeling a little intimidated. Can anyone who has taken this course provide any feedback or tips for success?

I am currently enrolled in Health Assessment. The quizzes are extremely easy (I went ahead and took all 5 of them to get them over with, even though we're on week 2). The only difficult part seems that the subjective/objective data weekly assignments are like care plans when it comes to grading. The coach is very nit-picky taking off big points for minor things. Like not stating the patient has 10 fingers. Anyway... So far, I've taken Professional Nursing A/B, Older Adults, Health Promotion, and Medical Terminology as an elective. I used my nursing certification (PCCN) as my second elective. I am coming up on Research, Management, Vulnerable Populations, and Capstone. I have doubled up throughout the program and haven't encounted a problem yet. Do you mind ranking the classes that you've taken from easiest to hardest?

UTSW has a few ambulatory nursing positions and even though they ask for experience, I know that they will hire someone without. It is not hospital nursing (very much like a doctor's office), but it will at least get your "foot in the door" so to speak at UTSW. As a plus, the positions are M-F 8am to 5pm and the work is rediculously easy. Their policy allows you to transfer internally after 1 year of employment.

The best example that I can give is that sometimes, when we are short on CNAs and we have an available RN, the RN will have to work as a CNA. The thing is, even though you are working as a CNA, RNs are always held to a higher level of accountability. We have CNAs that will not report a low oxygen saturation, high or low blood pressures, and so on, and they are really never held accountable. If an RN is working as a CNA, and they took vital signs and failed to report something like that immediately to the patient's actual RN, you can bet that management would be all over it.

Any medication not given should have the pre-printed administration time circled in ink. If the nurse from the next shift administers the medication, he or she will write the time, draw a line, and sign their initials next to the time the medication was actually administered. Any time a medication time is circled, another nurse cannot come back and initial that time. If the medication was not given, a reason must be indicated. Our MARS have codes (N for NPO, A for Absent/Off Floor, C for Condition of Patient, etc). If no reason can be specified for why the medication was not given, I would circle it and time the entry in the nurse's notes as to why it wasn't given. Anything left un-circled or unsigned for your shift is just asking for someone to come behind you and sign your name. But, with automated dispensing systems like Accudose and Pyxis, they should be able to verify that you never pulled the medication. Unfortunately, for medications not on floor stock, there would be no record that the medication was actually "pulled" because it would have had to have been sent over by pharmacy.

Just because you are pulling the medication and it's not on the profile doesn't mean there isn't an ORDER for the drug. It just means that the pharmacy hasn't yet put the medication on the patient's profile. The problem with this is that the pharmacist hasn't yet reviewed the dosage, interactions, lab values, et cetera pertaining to the order to make sure it's safe, as is done in my facility and I am sure is done elsewhere before it's allowed to be dispensed from the Pyxis. For common STAT medications, we have an override list that is approved by our unit manager and can be pulled from the Pyxis using the override function.

Does anyone else now have "RNSG 1001" showing up on their Blackboard homepage? It seems like some sort of clinical orientation.