agentarjuna

KitKats, you're looking at the wrong program if you have an associates. This thread is about the accelerated BSN program, which is only available to people who have a previous bachelor's degree (in any field). The traditional program, I believe, has a much shorter list of prerequisite classes.

The best nurse family member I ever had was when I worked on the ortho floor. She ID'd herself to me as an RN, but then went on to say that she worked in L&D and had never even been to an ortho floor and could I please explain this Stryker CBC II drain please because *** does it do? I was a pretty brand new nurse at the time (like I'm old & seasoned NOW or something e_e), and it helped me that she treated me as a colleague instead of a hovering nurse family member.

Not a burn nurse, but a burn survivor here! I had full thickness burns to both hands when I was 17, and it was repeatedly emphasized NOT to allow the wound to breathe. They did perform "deroofing" as described above, and slathered me in Silvadene & did some really creative kerlex wrapping (I had to have each finger wrapped individually; all 10 fingers!) Letting it breathe is pretty much inviting bacteria in. Now, that said, a nurse at the burn unit at Arkansas Children's told me they don't use Silvadene there anymore. I cannot remember what she told me they used instead. Anyone know?

I worked on an ortho floor for a while where we had 3 murses. One was a tall, big guy who'd be great lifting help. Two were very tall, extremely thin guys who were great at a lot of stuff, but not lifting. I'm a short, stocky, strong-as-an-ox woman. People would always come to our floor and ask for "lifting help from some guys". It got to the point where Murses 2 & 3 would tell them "Well, we could go and it would take both of us, or you could just take Arjuna here and get the same result." I loved the assumption that guys would provide the best lifting help. Murses 2 & 3 used to come get ME. Part of me wonders if the "I want a female to help me to the bathroom" is rooted in the view that doctors are professionals, but that PCTs/CNAs and nurses are somehow less than that. *kicks that view in the face*

I won't come right out and say it, and I won't be "that nurse family member" who barges in and is all "I'M A NURSE", but several people have mentioned the "explaining it to a 2nd grader" tone that gets used on families. When I do let it slip that I'm an RN, it's only to let the medical staff know that I speak the language and that they can tell me in specifics, and dispense with the "layman's terms".

Your previous degree must be a bachelor's degree. You must have finished all the pre-reqs before starting (but if you're taking the very last one over summer, that counts, I believe). Your GPA will be fine. Those are the only criteria for admission: GPA, previous degree, and completion of pre-reqs.

Hey all. I'm currently a student in ASU's accelerated nursing program. It seems like you've gotten most of the information you needed, like how high our GPAs are and how many people are accepted. (This year they took 16 people instead of 15, but that's obviously not a huge difference.) My GPA was a 3.47, and I was the first alternate. I got in after a guy dropped out because he wanted to work while going to school (that's not possible with this program; you're in classes 40 hours a week at times, and that isn't counting the outside-of-class work). It's an incredibly intense program, but it is doable. Fundamentals & Essentials, your basic learn-how-not-to-kill-someone nursing classes, happen in 2 & 1/2 weeks. Other classes which last a semester in the traditional program are 9 week courses for us. In our case: we had those 2 classes in August, we carried 4-5 classes at once throughout the fall & spring semesters (with 8-hours of clinical per week, usually on Friday but on Wednesday for one particular class), we had 2 online classes in May, and now we're in our big clinical rotation phase: 10 weeks of 3 12-hour shifts per week. Frankly our clinical rotations are just like working. One of the biggest indicators of our success to me is that when we come onto a floor at St. B or NEA Baptist (the 2 hospitals in Jonesboro), the nurses are happy to see us. Just Wednesday, as I was charting at a nurses' station in St. Bernard's, the charge nurse asked me where we'd be on rotation next week. I looked at my phone and told her we were back on her floor all 3 days, and she did a happy little dance right in the hallway. "We LOVE when you guys are up here!" That alone tells me that we've been well-prepared for working in the hospital. Every floor we've been on has told us how much they got done when we were there. All 4 of us who have applied for jobs, even before we graduate in August, have gotten them. Like I said, it's HARD. It's extremely intense; it's like drinking knowledge out of a firehose, or having the dump truck of nursing backed over you. :typing But 2 people dropped out at orientation, and the rest of us made it through: including the 4 of us with kids (2 of us have toddlers, one has an infant, one has elementary age kids). One of our classmates is due with her first baby on the day of our graduation! I do not think she'd recommend you try that, though.