cindyloulou

I have a good friend who had a baby girl 10 years ago and did not know it until 2 days before the birth. I was a real skeptic about this whole "I didn't know I was pregnant" situations. However, I spent a lot of time with her during her pregnancy and I never suspected that she was pregnant. She was married with two children and would have loved more so I know that it wasn't a case of denial and not wanted the pregnancy. She had been taking birth control the whole pregnancy and spotted here and there so there was nothing suspect on her part. I swear she did not look pregnant (she has always been somewhat overweight) and she did all kinds of activities during her pregnancy that she did not do during her previous ones such as social drinking and getting on ladders during a home remodel. So, with this experience, I am a believer that these things do happen here and there.

I do school nursing with special needs children but I am located in one classroom and do not move around school sites. I deal with g-tube feedings, trach care, oxygen use and non-ambulatory kids. The kids come to this program 2-6 hours a day and then return to their homes. It follows along with the district school schedule so I do get all the normal holidays and days off including Summer time. The pay is $28 per hour with a $1.00 raise every year till it caps out at $36.00 per hour. By the way, I am in California. For the type of work you have described, $14.00 seems rather low to me.

I work nights on a tele unit. We do 12 hour shifts and self schedule. We have to pick up 3 weekend nights per 4 week scheduling period. Otherwise we get to pick and choose. If we absolutely cannot work on certain days, we put an "R" for reserved. This is great as long you don't overuse this during the month. To have our shifts not moved around too much, the staff looks at the schedule and tries to fill in the gaps where needed. We usually need 8 nurses per night so if there is a night where there is only 5, we will try to work it out amongst ourselves, otherwise the manager will do it to make sure there is adequate coverage each night. We try to make it work because self-scheduling is the best when it does work. Now, there will be occasions when you cannot please everyone, but I would say 80% of the time, everyone is happy.

I went from full time to per diem abut two months ago and love it. The one nice aspect of my unit's handling of per diem hours is that I schedule myself at least 6 shifts per month. I usually don't get called off unless we are low census which does not happen very often. I like to schedule for 2 shifts per week and then if I get called of 1-2 days per month, I am o.k. with that. I do not get any benefits with the per diem position, but the pay is around $52.00/hr which is nice. I believe the biggest benefit for me is the flexibility to work when I want to work (either by increasing or decreasing my days)

I was in a similiar situation and the decision to change from full time to prn was the best thing I ever did for myself and family. I also work on a very busy tele floor and we are required to schedule at least 6 shifts a month. I work nights and currently schedule myself 7-8 shifts a month. At first, I was worried about whether I would be called off, but that has not been an issue. Although I do not get any benefits as far as insurance, holidays and/or pto, the flexibility to schedule how much I want to work and when is priceless for me. Also, the additional per hour salary increase is fairly close to how much I was making when I was working full time.

I used to have a full time position but elected to go per diem due to having more flexibility and not having the need for insurance benefits. I am required to schedule for 6 shifts a month, up to 12 a month. My unit (tele) rarely has low census so being called off is usually not an issue. I like the flexibility in choosing the number of days I want to work and I find that working about 8 days (2 days a week) is perfect for me.

I say "go for it". I too have my Masters in Social Work and worked in Hospice for 7 years and then another 5 years with an adoption agency. After spending some time staying home with my two kids, I decided to pursue my nursing degree. I felt that my social work background would work beautifully with nursing. I haven't regretted the decision. Also, I am also 44 years old. The thing about nursing that is great is that there are so many options out there. Right now I am doing cardiac nursing, but I will probally pursue hospice nursing in the future. I also have an interest with diabetic teaching, so I may end up in that area eventually. As a previous medical social worker, there is only usually one position in a hospital; whereas with nursing, you can have the benefits of various units and you will definitely utilize your social work background as a nurse. There are many instances as a floor nurse when I do put on my "social work" hat along side my "nursing" hat.

Here's my story. I have always been a mostly "A" student in school with a few scattering of B's. I never really got that nervous before test or finals. But....the NCLEX was different. About 3-4 days before the Big Day, I started to get the runs and could not for the life of me get a decent night sleep. I could feel my heart beating faster. I was getting nervous and my body was reacting. I studied Kaplan (my school paid for it), learningtext and the prioritization and delegation book. I studied for a month solid 3-4 hours per day. I mainly did questions and looked at rationales for both the correct and incorrect. After taking the NCLEX on 7/7 I felt that the test was most similiar to the learningtest (http://www.ncsbn.com). The format and question style were very close. The NCLEX questions are not wordy (maybe 2-3 sentences max) and neither is the learningtext question format. After doing all of the Kaplan questions, I am still not sure if it was a real benefit. Let's just say that if my school did not fork over the $500.00 for the program I would have hit myself for not just sticking to learningtext. I feel that the http://www.ncsbn.com provides a great resource for a great price. If money is a factor for you, I would suggest to go with them. I got mostly priortization, infection control and pharm questions. As far as pharm questions are concerned. I don't know if I would have recognized half the pharm questions by studying anymore. I literally got a few SATA pharm questions in which I did not recognize the medication; not even a flint "oh yeah I've heard of the med but I still don't know what it is for". It is too overwhelming to know every med out there; learn the basic categories and the teaching that is important for those. I also thought that the prioritization and delegation book was helpful. It got you thinking about those questions pertaining to "who would I see first" and "who would I delegate this to". Now the good news. After reaching 73 on the NCLEX, I did a quick prayer that it would shut off at 75 and two questions later the screen turned blue. I did walk out there thinking "I have no clue how I did". I could only say that I studied by butt off and knew I did everything I could do to prepare for the test. I did the "pearsonvue" trick and got the pop up. This morning I found out that I am officially an R.N.!

Ahh, nursing school tests are so different from anything else I had experienced with a previous degree. Criitical thinking and learning to prioritize are key. Going over nclex questions from saunders and reading the rationales did help. With time, these types of questions will become more familiar to you.

Clinicals can be difficult, especially with instructors that expect a lot from you. I have learned that if I go to the hospital the week before clinicals and do a "scavenger hunt" and get to know the lay of the land, it has helped. Just try to as organized as possible and have a good "brain" to work with throughout the day.

Out in California, I have seen slight increases in our area but this will probably taper off. As the economy has slowed, I have seen less hiring at all the hospitals.

I thought OB/Peds was tough. We had our OB/Peds clinicals for a very short time so the knowledge and experience base was very limited and therefore the test were more difficult for me.

The cost of 2 year degree at a community college is so reasonable. So far, to complete the program with tuition, books and lab fees, it will be around 3,500.00. I consider that very cheap to get a great education and come out with a degree that is marketable.

I took the TEAS a couple of years ago and from what I remember it is pretty basic. I think it is a good idea to complete the study guide and go over any weak areas. For my school, we had to have a minimum ( I don't remember the number) in order to pass and be accepted into the program.

Wow! Talk about crazy clinicals. Even during most hectic clinicals I have never run across such scenarios. You seem to have good sense of humor about it all which is not a bad thing.