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. ...

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...

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 have...

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

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 ca...

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 s...

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...

Thanks! I'll check it out.

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...

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 wo...

Suesquatch and Lunah, among others whose names I can't all remember now, helped me get through school. Thanks guys!

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 o...

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 th...

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 s...

I graduated with my LPN 6 years ago and didn't want to apply anywhere until I had passed the NCLEX and had my license in hand. The hospital where I did my clinicals had hired several of my classmates who applied before they took the NCLEX. I initia...

As Fungez pointed out : When I started they had things like transportation, hospitality, etc. Our time was considered too valuable to do nonnursing things. Unit clerks were staffed every shift, even nights. Now, if we get a clerk she's expecte...

We drove from the deep south also. We left on a Saturday driving, made it to Seattle by Wednesday night and spent 2 nights with a friend there, left Seattle and drove to Bellingham Friday morning to catch the Alaska Marine Highway to our final destin...

Welcome to Alaska. I came up as a travel nurse 11/08 in order to make enough money to do the CPNE. It took me a couple of months to get over the move, my new environment, etc, before I could get myself to settle down and study. So I began the CPNE...

Hmmm. The BON is in Macon. One of the few hospitals doing the precepting is in Macon and they're charging $500. Nursing in any town, especially one that size, is a small community. As usual, follow the money.

I had finished all my EC courses and just had to come up with the money to do clinicals when this ruling came out (summer 2008). I had worked 4 years as an LPN on a med-surg unit at a 200-bed hospital. I oriented new BSN and ADN students who did not...

Don't forget I&Os. While doing your 20 minutes checks you want to explain to your patient that you will be measuring their intake and output. If they aren't NPO and they're alert, ask the patient to help you by noting any fluid intake they have...

The fact that people had or caused accidents while working under the influence then is unrelated to legal use of pot, because it's illegal, and these things happened anyway. So you jump to the conclusion that if it was legal, there would be more acci...

The World Health Organization released findings of a recent study regarding the "gateway" theory stating that unmeasured common causes rather than causal effects of specific drugs on others at least partly account for what looks like the pattern that...