SJSU_Mami

It will take you at least 40 minutes to get from downtown to Esco. Traffic sucks both ways especially on 163. I would either work closer to downtown or live closer to north county.. it will be a rough commute. Trust me..

I did the Versant program at LPCH. It was 6 months long. Overall I liked the time spent on the unit and felt supported. The classes were boring and not evry effective. Clinical time is what mattered. In our unit we rotated days and nights every month and did 12 hour shifts. LPCH and Stanford are highly regarded hospitals. This was my first choice, so I immediately accepted my offer without waiting to hear from other hospitals. Good luck!

What units are you interested in? If you like peds, nicu, maternity, etc. I can give you some info about Stanford's Children's hospital where I am..

Lucile Packard jobs: http://www.lpch.org Our pay: http://www.crona.org. That's our union website.. scroll down to pay scale. My orientation in the NICU was 22 weeks.. I love my job.. doing well on my own and learning so much about sick babies! Great place to work. I'll give you a hint tho.. many nurses leave the regular peds floors to work in the NICU..

I actually live in San Jose.. I plan to move closer to work either in Santa Clara or on the east bay in Newark next year. It is too expensive for me to live in Palo Alto but it is a very nice area. Many of our travellers extend their contracts at Packard, return time and again, or even choose to become permanent here. They enjoy working at the hospital very much it seems. Haha sorry I guess you really didn't need the new grad info.. but as far as travelling goes we have lots of them and we get along great..

I grew up in Socal, and went to school and now work and live in Norcal. The cost of living is expensive in both places but I get paid 10.00 more up here so decided not to move back home. I think its a significant difference to me and all the people I went to school with who came from SD and LA have chosen to settle and work in the Bay. Here we get night diffs of 18%.

I'm currently in Packard's 22 week training program for the NICU. Its a great place to work and I never plan on leaving! I love working here.. They have a new program again in July and will probably have another one 6 months after that. They hire in Peds, L&D, Postpartum, Oncology, Transplant, Nursery, PICU, NICU, and CVICU. Here's a link to the Versant RN Residency program which was started at Children's LA. http://www.versantrn.org.

Congrats, RN! You don't need that question mark at the end of your screen name anymore! I too recently passed with 265 questions. It took me 4 terrible hours to complete it, and I don't even recall the last question; I just was so glad it was the last one! Good luck with your career!

Congrats!! Good for you! :rotfl:

Yay for PICURN!! :balloons: :rotfl:

Yay! Congrats to you and me!! I just got my results this morning, after only 3 days too!! :balloons: This is us->

Hmm. Maybe I should call the BRN to see if my file is complete. Our school of nursing warned us about university administration goofing up on sending final transcripts so they send one as well for backup. I'm wondering.. my friend's name posted on tuesday.. do you think they post all passing names every tuesday??

Knowing that you had practice test scores in the 50s makes me feel better.. I'm hoping I see my name show up on the brn website pretty soon! Congratulations on getting your license! :rotfl:

Sorry you feel this way. I took the boards the same day you did, with 265 questions. I'm waiting too, but let's try to distract ourselves! Go out this weekend! Don't assume anything yet.. the way that test is set up is so unpredictable.. good luck!

I wish you the best.. we will be waiting together! Taking the NCLEX isn't fun.. Sorry about how you felt about the experience. I'll see you at orientation monday! :)

Boy, am I drained! It took me 4 hours, with all 265 questions! It was hard, and majority of them priority. I had no select all that apply, and lots of questions with meds I never studied or heard of . A few nutrition ones that I pretty much guessed at, and only one calculation. Sucks.. I've been borderline on my practice tests so I think I was borderline with this too.. I guess we'll see! Now that darn wait begins! Anyways, my NICU job starts monday, my birthday is in a couple of weeks, and I'm getting drunk no matter what my results are!! :crash_com :cheers: :beer: :barf01:

Congrats! :roll

This is it.. I've done at least 1500 practice questions, I reviewed, took a prep class, and I refuse to put this exam off any longer. Still nervous but either I know it or I don't! Starting my new grad program in one week; this is where the rest of my life starts! I'll let you know how it goes!! :

My friend said it took her about 2 weeks.. I'm not sure why the length of time varies.. I'm taking it next tuesday and the pressure is killing me! At least now you can go out and have fun instead of worrying about studying for now!

Good luck! Let us know how it went.. :)

50 mg: 0.5 ml Right? Isn't that how you express that as a ratio?

We got Chevy's restaurant to sponsor us, in which we passed out flyers and asked people to eat there and present the flyer so a certain percent of their bill went to us. It helped some but in the end we all decided to pay 90.00 each out of our pockets. At the ceremony everyone got a refund of 40.00 back.

I remember taking a test before our last semester that we had to pass in order to move on. I forgot what it was called.. But we got 2 or 3 chances for free, then a couple of people who kept failing it had to pay like 50 bucks or so to retake it. I just remember it was incredibly long.. and such a headache to finish. Not sure if this is the same test but yeah I never heard of a mandatory NCLEX prep test. It was on paper.

I notice that many hospitals are starting to include nursing theorists as part of the interview. Some of my classmates have been asked who's theory they base their care on. It was required of us to choose and write about a theorist, and demonstrate how we incorporated the theory into our clinical situations. So we were all prepared to answer if asked. I chose Ramona T. Mercer's Maternal Role Attainment theory. Joyce Travelbee was another popular one. I found that Mercer's theory really helped me in understanding and working with young mothers in the postpartum unit. Nursing diagnoses weren't always my favorite but they helped to teach me what I as a nurse should focus on, factors that I could myself try to resolve or prevent, rather than just the medical diagnosis.

I am starting a brand new "RN Residency" in a couple of weeks. Its in the NICU, and I've read that it is a program started at Children's Hospital LA which is being adapted into hospitals all over the country. http://www.childrenshospitalla.org/12428.cfm http://www.childrenshospitalla.org/body.cfm?id=335 I was hesistant to start in the NICU, but the manager informed me about the 22 week program and how they focused on the new grad developing a solid comfort level and that we wouldn't be thrown out into the unit to hold our own.. we are assigned a preceptor as well as a mentor nurse to discuss our concerns with throughout the orientation. I can't wait until the program starts! RN residencies like this show positive results for new grads beginning in critical areas.