cjbarnes2006

First semester clinicals are 8 hour shifts, plus about an hour post-conference meeting with your clinical group and instructor. They are every week excepting the first few weeks when you are in lab and the last week or so before finals. The write up is a care plan. You will learn to hate them. You go to the hospital the night before clinicals where you will pick a patient and make note of their medical history, diagnosis, medications, etc. and then you take that home and develop a written plan of how you will care for them. The one I just did this week came to a total of 32 pages when it was completed, and that was with roughly 15 medications. My first care plan was 37 or 38 pages with 20+ meds on it. They take hours to complete when you do them properly.

I'm currently taking pharm and, in addition to listening in class and reading the covered chapters, I bought Pharmacology for Nursing Made Incredibly Easy. It helps me understand the material better. I also make drug cards, which include the drug family, Trade and generic names, MOA, and adverse effects.

At the nursing school I attend, graduating with honors applies only to nursing course work. But, every student does the pre-requisite courses at another institution and transfers in, so really it levels the playing field. That being said, you have to have at least a 3.25 to have even a chance of being accepted, and most have higher.

I wasn't saying to never use half.com, as I have used it often in the past and will continue to do so in the future. It was just a word of caution. My best advice is to make sure you check seller ratings, etc. I got lax because I assumed that if something happened the buyer protection policy would cover my butt and that was not the case.

Be careful of Half.com. They have a "buyer protection policy" that isn't. I ordered a book there that I never received, after contacting the seller with no response I filed a claim. That was in August. They are still "investigating." Meanwhile, I am out over $100

I emailed them to ask about this issue and the reply email stated the packet will contain whatever we need to accept/decline our spot.

I agree! I'm seriously considering framing mine!

You were on the waitlist? That's great!

There are several nurses in my family and everyone I know has recommended Littman to me. I was also told, though, not to spend a lot of money on one for school because of the likelihood of theft and the rough treatment. I have the Littman Classic II on my Christmas list, and I'm having my name put on it just in case. It is only about $70, plus $14 for personalization, on allheart.com (medical supply website recommended to me by my aunt).

I believe I remember being told that you will be asked if you prefer morning, evening, or overnights and that they will TRY to accomodate the area you live in (i.e. by not putting someone from the northwest side of Houston in a southeast hospital location).

No, but I got ANOTHER official transcript evaluation in the mail that I THOUGHT was my admission letter. I jumped up and down and did a dorky dance, only to open it and find the third transcript eval I have received to date. It felt like false advertising lol!

Sorry folks, the position of My New Best Friend has now officially been filled by Ali haha

Awww thanks. :redbeathe Does that mean you're going to take notes for me?

Like anything else it probably depends on the professor. I know clinical space is hard to come by though, the woman who interviewed me told me because most of the nursing schools in the area (ADN and BSN alike) have increased their class size clinical space is at even more of a premium than it ever has been before, so it might not just be a matter of making up the days later. Just food for thought. On this same note though, I am going to miss the first two days of class because I will be out of the country. My brother is legally blind and rapidly losing what little vision he has left, so several months ago our parents arranged for a trip for him to go to Rome (we are Catholic, and my brother is very devoted, he has even considered the priesthood) before he goes totally blind. Unfortunately, because of the differences in the law here and in Italy, my brother can't take his assistance dog, so I'm going as his seeing-eye midget (he is 6'2" to my 5'5" haha). So at orientation I'm hoping to talk to the professors of the two classes I will be missing. Hopefully they will be understanding. I'm also hoping someone *cough*one-of-you-guys*cough* will be nice enough to fill me in on what I miss lol.

I have a friend currently attending UT and she says it is one 8 hour day per week for the first semester. Other semesters are differnt (some have two 8 hour days or one 12 hour day).