bdanders

I did my practicum in an Emory ICU and applied to the new grad program. I have an interview scheduled for Monday with the unit director of the floor where I did my practicum. Hopefully everyone hears about interviews soon!

First try pass rates up through 2009 http://www.usg.edu/health_workforce_center/documents/nclex_rates.pdf

Perhaps you need to narrow down your topic. General "heart assessment" is very broad and not likely to result in many articles you're interested in. What is it about cardiac assessment that interests you and what outcome are you looking for? Are you looking at pediatric or adult populations? Does your target population already have a diagnosed cardiac condition? There is a lot to think about! For our evidence based practice research we set up our research questions in "PICO" format (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) and then conduct our literature search using these criteria. Learning to navigate the databases can be tricky and frustrating at first but you'll get the hang of it!

Whether you resign or are fired within the three months still means you did not meet the terms of your contract. The way I (and I imagine most employers) see it is that the $10,000 doesn't belong to you until you fulfill your contract. They were just kind enough to let you hold onto it in the mean time. If you're planning on resigning soon, look at it this way. You expect to receive $10,000 plus your agreed upon salary for 1, maybe 2 months of work? Use your critical thinking skills, this is not reasonable.

Sorry you're in such a tough situation. It sounds like your program needs some revamping... What do your school's NCLEX pass rates look like? If people have been continuously cheating, I imagine many would have a hard time passing. I would bring this cheating to the attention of the professor for the course and if you don't get any response there, to the administration. Any professor or administrator worth their salt should take your report seriously and look into the matter. It sounds like this 'group' is making it rather public that they have old exams or have access to exam material through other sources. They're bound to get caught sometime. I know that our academic honesty policy states that if you know of cheating and you don't report it, you're also responsible. I would be documenting (dates, times, places, people involved) and reporting accordingly so you don't go down with the ship!

Most (all?) schools consider it against academic honesty policies to post previous exam questions. For practice questions you can use the CDs and study guides that go with your text books or get a couple of NCLEX review books with practice questions.

We're using the same book for our Med-Surg course. Definitely get the study guide that goes with the book. There are a lot of NCLEX style questions and case studies that really test your ability to apply the material in the chapters. Good luck!

Here is a link with a list of places that offer BLS for healthcare provider classes. Most will run you about $50.

I would just say, "I'm sorry, I wish I could help you out, but my work schedule has been set and cannot be changed." Leave it at that and don't feel guilty. You're in school for YOU, and you've made appropriate arrangements to accommodate your clinical schedule. Additionally, re-rearranging your work schedule when you already had something worked out may make you appear unreliable with your boss, making him/her less likely to work out such arrangements in the future. There are 8 others from your group she can ask and ultimately it is her responsibility to make it work.

I can only speak for first semester and only for Athens as the other campuses have different lab/clinical schedules. For the first part of the semester we had lecture on Mondays from 9-4 (with 12-1 break) and lab most Tuesdays and Wednesdays (either morning or afternoon, sometimes all day). Clinicals start at the midpoint of first semester and then the schedule shifts to Monday (all day lecture), Tues OR Wed (clinical - 7-3) and Fridays (labs/skill check offs). For clinicals we have to be at the hospital at 6:30am, which makes for a very early morning especially if you'll be commuting from outside of Athens. There is also paperwork that needs to be completed the evening prior to clinical and additional documents to be submitted the day after clinical. First semester requires the least amount of clinical/lab time (185 clinical/lab hours). I believe that in 2nd and 3rd semesters we will have ~2 clinical days each week maybe more in summer since the semester is shorter (total of 285 hours each semester). 4th semester we do a residency with an average of 36 hours per week in clinical (total of 585 clinical hours). As far as time commitment goes, there is always something that needs to be done and once the semester gets going exams, quizzes, papers, and skill checkoffs come one right after the other (ie, time management is invaluable). Yes, its fast paced, but absolutely doable. To answer your question about how things are recorded, all of the lectures are recorded using a program called Tegrity and can be downloaded to an iPod.

You're definitely not limited to only working in Georgia. Once you pass NCLEX your RN license has reciprocity so you can work in any state. There may be some paperwork to complete to verify your license in a new state, but its no big deal. If there's a specific state you want to work in after graduation you can even just take the NCLEX in that state and avoid any additional paperwork!

Looks like the consensus is no (link) pudding is not counted as intake. Good question, though!

I agree with everything that Chenda said. I'm also at the Athens campus and love the program. Our group is amazing. We have very diverse backgrounds and work very well together. I love that there aren't classes scheduled every day. I'm usually doing school work on our days 'off' but not having to physically be at campus makes things a lot more flexible. One thing I would add is to have someone look over your resume, and definitely highlight your tutoring experience. Being able to teach others is a great quality to have, as patient care will involve patient and family education.

While a person with loss of cognitive ability may be able to move, they may have limited sensory perception, which is one factor analyzed in the Braden Risk Assessment Scale. In otherwords, they may have the physical ability to move, but the signal that says "hey, I can' t feel my sacrum, time to switch positions" may not be functioning. As for bone pain causing immobility, when something hurts, we avoid the stimulus that causes the pain. If bone pain is bad enough a person may avoid movement to the point of becoming immobile.

nope, I decided to attend MCG's accelerated MSN program. I've heard great things about GSU's program, too :)