NurseStephen

OK. With a BSN, you are looking at a Nurse 2. With Nurse 2, there are 12 steps...one of which you will be put on. For instance, you may be a Nurse 2, Step 6 (or whatever you are brought in at). To understand what pay you may get, you can visit the Title 38 pay scales VA website for Texas here - https://www.VA.gov/OHRM/Pay/2024/LPS/TX.xls. When you open it, look down the first column and go to 671 (for San Antonio). If you are going to work at the main hospital campus and not a clinic in another city, then only look at 671 (not with additional letters behind it). Then, look for the registered nurse pay scale, then look for Nurse 2. This will show you what Steps 1-12 pay are. The link is to 2024 rates. Please note that the US President issued a 1.7% increase to each pay step for 2025 rates. The step is going to be determined by the manager based on several different things...years of experience is just one. Some facilities (very few) grant waivers to Nurse 3. I am not sure if San Antonio does this...but I would not bet on it. Hope this helps!

CCNE is a national accreditation and will be fine when transitioning schools.

I think this is dependent on what you see yourself doing in the future. If you see yourself staying in nursing management, then a MSN in Leadership is fine. You will learn a lot about leadership, nursing budgeting, and policy. If you want to move to a more executive nursing leadership role or see yourself leading disciplines outside of nursing, then having a MHA or MBA would be beneficial. The MBA will teach you a lot about finance and strategy. I hear the MHA is preferred for more hospital leadership, like CEOs/COOs. I personally went through the MSN leadership route and then went back for a MBA to get better competencies with hospital finances.

The VA Nurse Qualification Standards changed in January 2024. There are no longer 9 dimensions to write to (now down to 5 woo hoo!) and no longer any nurse professional standards board. During the actual onboarding process, HR will send you a worksheet to fill out. Make sure to fill it completely out and return it back before the due date! HR will then send that information to the selecting official (usually a nurse manager) to review and set the pay based on the completed documents. It then goes through a robust approval process and you will be provided your pay. Nurses must be reviewed by nurses, so your pay will never be set by just HR. Hope this helps!

Thanks for sharing. The extra workload seems to be the biggest concern. If you haven't already, I would recommend just sharing your concerns about the workload and your current situation to your supervisor. If you feel you need union support, by all means, invite them to the meeting with your supervisor. Remember, the important part is that your supervisor wants to retain you and not see you leave. Just open the conversation. good luck!

Honestly, I felt the same way my first semester. Talked with others and discovered that the imposter syndrome is real and affects a lot of returning students. You got this. Just breathe and push through it.

No. The Joint Commission would not report a violation to the Board of Nursing. They would defer to the facility to make the reporting.

I obtained a MBA after my MSN. I wanted a broader knowledge on financial management and organization-wide perspectives. The program was beneficial and I believe will open more doors to executive-level opportunities.

@BJPMH & @Mergirlc - Yes, a MSN from a Bridge Program with No RN experience would be a Nurse 1 Level 3. If there was at least 1 year experience, then probable entry to a Nurse 2.

The best thing I can tell you is that your examples need to be focused on how your actions affected the service (Nursing Department) or the organization as a whole. For Research, if you did a literature review and changed your practice with your patient (Nurse 1 example). If you then shared the information you learned with your unit’s coworkers through a discussion or presentation (Nurse 2). If you created a poster or did a presentation for multiple units (ICU, Med/Surg, ED, etc) (Nurse 3). Make sure to broaden it out and see how it affects the most people. Good Luck @Eloisa

Helpful hints: You have 9 dimensions of nursing practice you must discuss. Make sure that you put in an example of how you affected the unit on each 9 dimensions. If you talk about what you did for your patient only, that only meets a Nurse 1. This gets difficult for the ethics and resource utilization domains. Don’t be generic “I stayed up to date with TMS, BLS, etc.” Be specific about what you did for the unit. Hope this helps!

Most VA nursing positions are in the Excepted Service. If you compare the benefit, leave, and promotion capabilities, you want to stick with the Excepted service.

Yes, fingerprinting, as well as multiple proof of US citizenship, is required for employment at the VA.

I am not quite sure of your new position, but it is very common at my facility to share full detail calendars with supervisors and co-workers. For me, it is an easy glance to see when my supervisor is available to meet and the same vice versa. Let's face it, most of our days are filled with never ending meetings anyway. I hope this helps!

Just remember: PRN nurses do make more money, but they are not offered benefits (hence why they are paid more).

While there are a couple of hospitals in Hot Springs you could attempt to work at, I would recommend looking at hospitals in Little Rock. Hot Springs Village is about an hour from Little Rock and the average pay, that I have heard from friends, is higher in the capital city. Plus, you are looking at 2 hospitals in Hot Springs, there are approximately 6 in Little Rock.

Yes. In most hospitals in Arkansas, LPNs can administer *limited* types of IV medications. Check with your hospital's policy.

I have also applied for the Fall 2012 semester and would like to know how you are enjoying it.

I work on a 40 bed Med/Surg floor. If I am doing primary care it is 1:5 usually 1:6. If I have an LPN it is 2:10 but normally 2:13. My extremes. 1:7 by myself. 2:14 with an LPN. My floor is notorious for being a "nursing home" unit to where it is not uncommon for me to have 3/4 of my patients being total care.

thanks for the response Johnny!

Five questions to answer: 1) What type of setting do you perform nursing? 2) What type of nursing care do you perform - team nursing, primary nursing, or other? 2) How many patients do you care for usually per shift? 3) What is the maximum amount of patients do you care for? 4) What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? :) Let's see what response you can throw at me! Here are my answers - 1) What type of setting do you perform nursing? Med/Surg 2) What type of nursing care do you perform - team nursing, primary nursing, or other? Both team and primary 2) How many patients do you care for usually per shift? With team - 10-14 patient, With primary 5-7 patients 3) What is the maximum amount of patients do you care for? Team - 14, Primary - 7 4) What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Good support system of other nurses, daily debriefing with mother (who is also an RN), and sleep

YAY! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:yeah::yeah::yeah:

So, I was just wondering what is the CRAZIEST, most OUTRAGEOUS story you have from nursing school? So make me laugh! I will share one of my stories first! Last Spring, while doing my Women's Health and Care of the Newborn baby clinical rotation, I was placed in the Emergency Room for the day. About 6:30 AM, the registered nurses told me that I needed to go assess and clean up a new admit. I walked into the room and saw an older, obese black lady who was complaining she couldn't breathe. She was wearing a diaper. As the good nursing student I was, I checked the diaper, it was soiled. So, I begin to change the diaper. As I pulled the diaper off her body, I noticed this HUGE feces-covered mass hanging out of her lady parts. It seriously looked like a HUGE hairless testicle freely hanging out of the lady parts. I FREAKED out (because this is not a normal finding) and I had to get the registered nurse. I told her about what I found and she said she would examine her too. After the nurse noticed the poo-covered mass, she told me "Oh, that's her uterus. It has prolapsed out of it's normal place." Still in shock, I ask the patient if she knew she had a prolapsed uterus and her response was "I have been meaning to have surgery to fix that." I asked her how long she had known about it and she said "About 3 YEARS!" I could NOT believe it. For 3 YEARS, this woman has been peeing and pooping ALL over her uterus. And there is NO way this woman could have walked normally with the size of a football hanging down between her legs. So, cleaned up her uterus and shipped her to surgery for a hysterectomy.

Ok...I am a Texas resident. Ok...I took the test on Wednesday, June 17th. Stopped at 89 questions. I was freaking out about the test afterwards. I tried to reregister 2 hours after the test (after PearsonVue said that my report was "successfully delivered") and it blocked me from going to the payment page. I continued to check a few hours afterwards...no changed...I checked 24 hours later...no change. When it was approaching the 48 hour mark, I checked...no change. At EXACTLY 48 hours from my appointment start time, I payed for quick results...AND PASSED! The Trick Worked!!!!! It really does!

"Holy salmon, the infection control questions were never-ending! Maybe it didn't like my answers (I didn't particularly like the answer choices), but I swear I had at least 10 on this subject." First of all CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2nd. I had about the same infection control scenario on my test too. I was amazed how many of these suckers were on there! Again...CONGRATULATIONS! :)