JY10

Congrats on the baby, the best quote i have heard about being a new parent: "Having a baby is like getting into a fight, you can have a plan but once it happens you just do whatever it takes to survive." I always thought this was funny and very true, you will have a lot of changes but after a 2 or 3 weeks you will wonder what you did before you had the baby. If you dont have a DVR for your TV then you might as well forget about watching any TV I would guess your days will consist of school/baby/study/baby/ get a little sleep and then repeat. If this is your first baby you wont know any different, you will get through it, navy seals function on 3-6hrs of sleep for days and weeks at a time and u will get more atleast that evey night. Good luck and welcome to the daddy/student nurse club.

I do not like OB/post pard either and it was pretty uncomfortable being a 25 y/o nursing student and doing my clinical rotation in OB, so I too am a little biased. But my take is that as a CNA you would most likely be doing post delivery care i assume and this is when most women are back to feeling modest, I agree that they dont care who sees what in delievery but the next day they are usualy back to being modest and with all the things that happen during childbirth they dont want anybody looking at their "china". Some women would not care one bit but some would, my guess if they need to float someone to your OB dept they are busy and it only makes it worse when half the pts end up not wanting a male helping with them. I started out as a float nurse and when i went to OB the look of horror an some of the younger moms faces when i went into the room made me feel embaressed for them, I would always smile and ask what i could do for them and if they seemed very nervous I would ask politly if they would be more comfortable with a female nurse. After a couple of shifts there my supervisor asked what i thought about it and I told her I was fine but that it seemed to complicate things when i went there because I was a man, we laughed it off together and i did not float there again. I understand your problem is with the way the carge nurse acted maybe she was projecting her views on the subject as she would probly hate to have a male pt in that situation, in any case I would not consider this discrimination myself given the situation. If they could send a female to the unit knowing that the likely hood of someone not being comfortable with her is much less then you it was just a good call, however if it was costing you hours at work or if you were denied a job in the OB dept because you are a man then you have a case. In this situation i would just chalk it up to the charge nurse not communicating with you, reguardless dont sweat it in our field better care provided/skill wins out over gender or age of the nurse everytime in the long run.

It seems the male to female ratio is about 1:3 in ICU and ER, all the other dude nurses i know including myself work in those 2 fields not sure why. I almost never saw a male nurse working the floor when i ran EMS and in my clincals as a student it also held true. Some people will always view nursing as a female job but what r you going to do. In the few cases outside of work when someone has been a real a-hole about it and tried to make me seem less manly then they r my response is to ask them how they would feel about getting beat up by a male nurse, its kind of juvinile but it makes me feel better and usually gets a laugh. Once a janitor at work made a comment to me in front of co-workers and I replied "Yeah I know real men wax floors and transport dirty linien." Bottom line, we have a great job and at the end of the day thats all that matters.

I have been on nights in a cardiac ICU for 2yrs, my wife works days so i try to get on a "regular" schedule on my days off so we have time together. I used to work all three shifts in a row but now i do 2 on 1 off 1 on then 3 off. I know some people work 1 on 1 off it is different for everybody. I would suggest doing a couple different routines and see what works for you. Get some blinds that block out all the light for your room and try to get 6 hours of sleep, I usually try to crash by 10am and then sleep till 4 or 5. Night shift is a great shift to improve your skills on in my opinion and its a little more laid back.

I studied the same way for this exam as I did for all the others I have taken so far and I got an A. I would say you should do whatever you think is best but if you passed all the nursing exams you have a good general knowledge of A&P already. I have no doubt in my mind that someone who can pass the nursing exams can make atleast a C on this testas long as you study.

Oh do u think that my post was saying to much as far as the test goes? I took the honesty policy to mean that you wouldnt give out test questions or get real specific. I def do not need any trouble as far as violating that rule. The only book more dificult to read is the micro book, that dude must have thasauris out as he wrote it.

Hi I just took this test as well, I got a C and I was a little suprised because it is the only C i have got so far. I only studied for 3 wks but o well I am also going on to repro when do u plan to take it?

I studied about 5wks just one chap at a time and made note cards, I used the TCN book as i have for all of my test and they have worked well for me. I thought it seemed to be more about how the systems worked together or were affected by hormone levels etc. There were some questions about where things r located and stuff but if u go into the test and dont know the levels or the order in which the resp tract goes or the layers of the kidney u will not pass anyways because if you dont know how something is built its pretty hard to know how it works. Dont sweat it though its just like every other test, study and you will pass. Good luck. P.S. Did anyone else who used the TCN book feel like the person who wrote the book was using every long and odd word they could think of when writing the book. Sometimes I would read something and then stop and think "Why in the world would you describe something like that."

I used TCNs book and the free content guide from Excel. They dont match up as far as the chapters but it tells you what percentages of each area will be on the exam. I studied for about 3 or 4 weeks I just read the book and made note cards and I got an A. The test seemed to have more questions about how things worked or were related to each other then questions about the location/names of bones and or organs. Goodluck hope this helps.

I work 7p-7a and my wife works 8-5 and we have a 1 yr old daughter, my schedule is very flexible so that helps and I usually work 3 12s one week and then 3 12s plus an 8hr shift the next. We both enjoy it but my wife is not needy, before we had Reece (our daughter) I could golf or do whatever I wanted on my days off and then still be with her at night and I try to cook dinner for us on my days off. Now my wife gets jealous of all the time i get to spend with Reece and I can still send her to the sitters if I want to golf or study or just say I am gonna study and then sleep. The only unexpected consequence has been that my wife now expects me to clean up the house on my days off!!! My advice would be if you think ur significant other is the type who wants you around all the time and does not do well entertaining themselves you may want avoid the night shift and you have to have trust in each other because you will be gone atleast 3 nights a week. It works great for us though, I hope this helps.