Grapenut

I used Saunders and I didn't get more than 70%, sometimes not that high, on practice tests. I passed the NCLEX on the first try with 76 questions.

If it's going to be another year before you come up that will help you get a job -- at least a year of experience. There are jobs but most hospitals want a couple of years experience at least. If you're in a specialty (ICU, ER, OR) that helps too. You can go through a travel company. But they usually require at least one year experience, sometimes 2. Good luck.

That's weird, because I have fingerprints for Alaska and Oregon (those states mailed them to me), and I live in Georgia, metro Atlanta as a matter of fact, and cannot find anyone to do ink scans. All the police departments and the UPS stores that do fingerprints only do the Live Scan.

I joined MedCeu October 17, 2012. Paid $39.99 for a 2 year membership, as evidenced by the charge to my Wells Fargo account. Now I need to send my certificates to one of the states I'm licensed in, and their website says I'm not registered and haven't taken any courses. One phone number says it's disconnected, another rings and rings with no answer. The link to email them ends with an error message. I have filed a complaint with the BBB of Florida. I'm going to see if Wells Fargo will investigate their bogus charge, but it's been 4 months now so we'll see. Beware. I should have Googled this company first, but it was recommended to me by a friend who had used them before, and I get unsolicited emails from them all the time. It was just too easy.

It's a Long Term Acute Care hospital (an LTAC). Most people don't know what that is unless you've worked at one. It isn't LTC, like a nursing home. It's an acute care hospital that the regular hospitals send people to when they've done all they can do but who still have skilled nursing needs. They don't want them taking up a bed at the "regular" hospital any longer, but they're still on ventilators, have extensive wound care, traumatic brain injury, spinal injuries, multiple organ failure, and it's going to take weeks, sometimes months to get them stable enough to move them along, if ever. Really the sickest of the sick. I worked in ICU at one. We could take weeks to wean someone off a ventilator, where an ICU at the regular hospital wants to get them off quickly and free up an ICU bed. It was a challenge.

Looking at an ad for a position at Regional Hospital Seattle. It's an LTAC. Anyone have any personal experience there? Thanks.

What part did you not pass? I would focus on that. I passed the first time. Rob's CPNE helped me know what I was walking into, but you already know because you've been there. But his study guides helped me as well. You can Google him. I spent several months prior to testing memorizing the critical elements--Rob's CPNE will help you with this using mnemonics - I can't stress enough how that got me through. He has a DVD you can order. Practicing the care plan process also put me over the top. I went to one of Excelsior's seminars when it came to town that sort of simulated the CPNE. But I spent a lot of money on it and it didn't help me much. Like the other poster said, when I was there that day I was so disoriented that one of the instructors asked me " do you really think you're ready for this???" But I was an LPN on a med-surg floor for 4 years already, and once I got to the actual CPNE in the hospital I was very comfortable in the environment and relaxed as soon as I got in the room with the patient. And I had memorized the critical elements using Rob's mnemonics, knew how to write a care plan and assess the outcomes. I had studied the Study Guide front to back several times, knew how to do everything according to the standards they were looking for (which are outlined in the Study Guide). If you take the time to do all that you can pass this. It's basic stuff, nothing hard. Study the Study Guide. It tells you everything you need to know. And get Rob's CPNE study guide. About $40. Feel free to PM me if you have questions. Good luck.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

I don't know if this is the right forum for this topic, though it deals with a career issue - continuing education credits. I've been using a company (medceu.com, if I may mention it). I spent $39.99 for 2 year membership. I took about 18 hours of courses there. But when I go back in, it says I'm not registered and haven't taken any classes. So I wrote them and addressed the problem. It seemed to be fixed as the next time I went to the site it recognized me and showed my record of courses. Then tonight, same thing. It doesn't recognize my log in, says I need to register. You shouldn't have to go through this over and over with a company. Anybody have any good online continuing education sites they want to recommend (if that isn't against the rules here). If not, I guess this will be censored. But I did want to warn people about this company as their website is not reliable. As for recommendations, PMs are welcome if they aren't allowed on the post. Thanks.

From all the posts I've seen, and my own personal experience, it is notoriously hard to get on somewhere in a specialty without any experience. Having said that, I know that Providence occasionally posts positions for new grads that they advertise as Internships. You can go to their website and apply. I think there's a lot of competition for those positions, but they do exist. If you see one in a department you are interested in, after you have applied I would call the hospital and find out who the nurse manager for that department is, and then give them a call, let them know of your interest and maybe that will help them pick your resume out of the crowd when it comes in. They will usually give you an approximate date they are hiring for. So call back and check on it after you apply. Be the squeaky wheel. There is also Alaska Regional Hospital and Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. I don't know if they hire new grads, but you never know. It's worth a try. The worst that can happen is they say thanks but no thanks. You might also try Fairbanks. There's a small hospital in Ketchikan also. Good luck.

Try St. Elias Specialty Hospital in Anchorage. They were hiring new grads a few months ago. It's an LTAC (Long Term Acute Care), meaning, it is an Acute Care hospital, not a long term nursing home situation. Good place to start building your skills.

Where did you do your clinicals? I'm guessing Providence, Alaska Regional, Native. I didn't go to school in Alaska. But I was in a similar situation. When I graduated, first I waited until I passed the NCLEX to apply. Many of my classmates already worked as techs at the hospital where we did clinicals, so they were just immediately hired as Nurse Graduates when they graduated. I wanted to have my license in hand before I applied so I took the NCLEX first. I applied through HR. I waited and waited and never heard from them. I finally decided to put on my business casual and go to the hospital to 2 of the units where I had done clinicals to just stop in, introduce myself to the nurse managers, hi-do you remember me-I did clinicals on your unit . . . and tell them how much I loved the facility and their unit, what a great experience it was and how I would love to work for them and grow my skills there, be part of their team . . . I didn't even get to the 2nd unit. I was hired on the spot by the first nurse manager I went to. She did remember me, and it so happened she needed to hire someone. It seems the wheels turn slow in HR everywhere, but if you can just break in line and go straight to the Nurse Manager, be humble, be polite, but be enthusiastic, they can call up HR and let them know they have someone their interested in. And HR can get your resume to them. Or you can also take it with you and hand it to them, but of course they still have to use HR to get all the hiring paperwork done. Seeing a live person instead of having to go through a stack of impersonal resumes can make all the difference, I think especially in Alaska where they get resumes not only from locals, but from people all over the Lower 48 that want to come to Alaska. Good luck to you. I'm sure you'll break through that wall.

I agree with your point that if everywhere you go you get treated with some degree of hostility, maybe you need to take a longer, harder look at yourself. But that's not to say that bullying doesn't happen in nursing. When I graduated, I worked PRN on a med-surg unit as there were no full-time positions at the time. The first full-time position that came open was on a different med-surg floor than the one I was working on. The floor where I was working PRN was great. My nurse manager was very supportive, the nurses I worked with were kind and supportive, with a couple of exceptions, and everybody knew who had the queen bee attitudes and just let it roll off. When I transferred to the other floor to take the full-time position, I jumped into a pit of vipers. The exception on that unit were the kind, supportive nurses, and the majority of them were bullies. It wasn't 'they had a bad day' because that was there modus operandi every day. And the nurse manager was the same. I've never had a problem getting along with people. Even the people that other people pick on because they think they're weird or whatever. But these nurses actually enjoyed attacking and tearing down other nurses, not just new grads but even nurses that were just new to that hospital, and especially if they were from out of state. They were like a pack of feral dogs looking for fresh meat. I was on that unit 14 months before I was able to transfer back to the unit where I started. During that time these nurses ran off several good nurses that saw the writing on the wall, that they were just going to get beat up by the mean girls on the playground every day, and there wasn't going to be any end to it. I tried to convince these nurses that they should try another unit, because they weren't all like this one. I knew this because of the experience I had on the floor I started on. But all of them just left the hospital and never looked back, and it was really the hospital's loss. When the administrative person in charge of a unit condones it, it is not going to change. I have met a few very squirrely people that in my opinion should not be nurses, and some of them may be the folks you speak of that get the bad treatment everywhere they go. But bullying in nursing is out there. If every place I worked was like that one horrible unit, I'd quit nursing and find another way to help people. Life is too short. I've worked at 2 other facilities since that first bad experience, and I've never had another negative experience on that level. But everywhere I go, there are always those with that tendency to be condescending or just plain bully others. Fortunately, they have not been in the majority.

My former user name was AreWeThereYet. When I first joined allnurses, my main topic of interest was the distance learning program I was working my way through. It seemed all of us posters on this subject had this journey in common and this goal at the time - graduating from the program. Thus the name AreWeThereYet. At some point I had trouble logging into my account and thought that if I changed user names and login info it would help (which it didn't - though I finally got the problem straightened out with the help of allnurses tech folks). That's how I ended up with Grapenut. I happened to be eating some wonderfully sweet grapes as I was working on this and I'm not very good at thinking up user names.

I don't. I think it's a specialty that you need to feel a calling to, just like any other nursing specialty. To be honest, I didn't want to work there initially -- I just applied because I had to have a job somewhere and I needed the money. What surprised me was how much I actually enjoyed it. I loved the residents. Just like any nursing job, it's hard work. It was difficult to squeeze all the charting, assessments, passing meds, admissions, transfers to acute care, and other duties into the amount of time you have to do it and not go into overtime, which was strictly forbidden at this facility. It was especially hard for me as a new nurse. Time management is a skill you develop, but it is a real challenge for a new nurse to be responsible for 21 residents right out of school. I was following the advice of seasoned nurses who told me that as a new grad I should work med-surg for a year or two, so I pursued that route. My hat is off to the nurses in long term care. It's a special calling and I was impressed with the skill and big hearts of the nurses who oriented me there.