Mayday!

As a pre-nursing student, I can emphatically say "Hell no!" 18 years ago, my mother struggled through LVN school as a single mother with a 3 year old (me). Since then, I've watched her rise through the ranks to where she is now as a CEN Charge RN. Through my time working in ER/OP Registration, I got just a small taste of what nurses deal with and are excepted to smile through, and that small taste was enough for me to realize how under-appreciated you guys are! Doesn't matter if it's ER, Med/Surg, ICU, a clinic, school nursing, allied health, there's already a lack of respect and recognition for what nurses do. I wouldn't work for $8.50 an hour as a nurse. Not because of selfishness or over-inflated ego, but out of respect for those who came before. But still, I made more than that in Registration, not even including my shift diff, and some days I came home swearing I'd never set foot in that building again. I wouldn't expect ANYONE to work in ANY area of nursing for what amounts to minimum wage, at best.

:ancong!:

For me, typing notes is faster and therefore more convenient, but handwriting them makes them stick in my mind better, and gives me something to associate what I'm reading with. Like, when I'm reading over my notes and come to something I don't fully understand, I can look at my handwriting and almost flashback to the lecture and recall what was said before and after that little snippet. It just works better for me if I write out my notes by hand, the old fashioned way. At my school, many of the professors no longer let students bring their laptops to class at all. They say they have too many problems with students bringing them to "type notes", then catching them on MSN Messenger or AIM, checking their Myspace/Facebook/Twitter, or browsing the web aimlessly. In one of my night classes a few semesters ago, we had one girl who ALWAYS brought her laptop to "type notes", but was always interrupting lecture to giggle over something her friend just said in an IM conversation. The professor finally caught on and asked the student why she couldn't pass any tests or quizzes, since she furiously "typed notes" the entire 3 hour lecture. Just something to think about, whether you could really stay focused without wandering to other computer-related tasks that are, face it, more appealing than listening to your professor blab and blither away.

I'll echo what's already been said; you'll never know until you try, and then you'll always have "what if" in the back of your mind. If this is something you really feel strongly about, then give it hell! Male nurses are incredible assets. When I worked ER/Outpatient Registration, we had a few male nurses in the ER, and it was always very interesting to see how differently they handled certain situations, how they talked to patients, how and when they asserted themselves. We have a "Males in Nursing" sub-forum around here somewhere, you might find it comforting to browse around over there and not feel so alone. Just don't give up on something your heart is so obviously pulling you towards! At least give it one hell of a try, that way you'll have no room for "what if" and regret later on down the line. Best of luck to you!

Have you started on any of your pre-reqs yet? Since you have a scholarship for taking your GED that caps your credit hours at no more than 12 per semester, I would suggest taking a few pre-req courses with that scholarship money, so it at least doesn't go to waste. You could always start with A&P I and Intro to Psych., which would give you 7 hours, and you EARNED that scholarship money, you DESERVE to be able to use it! Good luck!

Hey guys! My name's Sara and I'm 21, currently enrolled in Odessa College, TX, planning on transferring when it comes down to actual nursing school. I'm taking 5 hours this semester; A&P lecture & lab + Essentials of Med Term, which is a 1 hour online class. I wanted to throw in Intro to Psych, but I was a bit late enrolling so everything else was full. Somehow I managed to squeeze into my A&P, thankfully, otherwise I would have been royally screwed. This will be my first semester of nursing pre-reqs, so I still have quite a while before I start appling to nursing school, but everyone has to start somewhere, right? Now that I've got my textbooks, I'm slightly intimidated by the staggering amount of information crammed into my A&P book; I knew it would be a difficult course, but I don't think I realized just HOW difficult it was going to be. Mommy is a nurse, and she tried to warn me, but it was something I really had to see for myself before it sunk in. Now I'm sorta glad I'm just taking 5 hours this semester! I can already tell that it's going to be very time consuming, but I'm ready. Really, I am! I have the coloring book to prove it! I'm reviewing some Bio/Chem basics and going over the chapter outlines in the book already, so I feel pretty good. Just still have those anxious butterflies floating around in my tummy, wondering about who else is going to be in my class, how my professor is going to be, etc. I think it's more curiousity than anything else at this point. This is going to sound really morbid, but I'm honestly looking forward to dissections in lab. I've always been fascinated by anatomy...I was almost 4 when my mom started LVN school, and my parents have pictures of me laying in the living room floor "reading" her A&P textbook. I was just looking at the pictures, of course, but it's still just as interesting to me now as it was back then! Random fact about me? In addition to being a nurse, I want to be a tattoo artist someday.

I think it's Registered Vet Tech, but don't hold me to it!

I'm not a nurse, but I did work in ER Registration, and I do know that our hospital DID have a policy on this. If a patient was determined to need pain medication, Registration staff had a form that we took to the patient and had them fill out and sign, within the presence of one nurse AND the doctor; the form had to be witnessed by all three of us, so four signatures in all. The form explaining the need for an alternative driver, and the patient was required to check the appropriate box, either consenting to pain medication or refusing. If the patient consented, there was a space on the form for the name and contact information of the alternate driver the patient was going to be relying on. Registration staff or the nurse would call that person and verify whether or not they would be providing transportation for the patient; if not, patient was provided with a taxi voucher. I know it sounds like a bit of overkill, but right after I started that job, there was a patient who had said her husband had driven her to the ER but stayed in the parking lot, so she was heavily medicated then discharged. Turns out she drove herself and ended up right back in the ER via EMS for a major MVA. The medical staff decided we needed a new system, and that's what they came up with. Our hospital had worked out a deal with a local taxi service where we bought vouchers in bulk and provided them free of charge to patients who needed them, so even if the patient didn't have someone available to drive them home, they could still get their pain medication.

Would it be possible for you to CLEP math, or see if any of the math instructors will let you prove competency by exam? I know it might mean a little more study-time right now, but it would also keep you from having to struggle with it later on. Short term pain for long term gain, it might be an option for you. Talk to some math instructors, speak with an adviser and see if/which CLEP exams they'll accept, check out the CollegeBoard site for some test prep, and maybe go from there. If you could get the general ed. math requirement out of the way, it would free up more time to cram in all those sciences! Whatever you decide, I wish you the very best of luck! If you're committed and dedicated, anything is possible.

3 science classes at once would be a major challenge for me personally, but it just depends on your situation. Are you working? Do you have children? Other family obligations? Good support systems? All of these things will affect the intensity of your course load and the amount of time you've got to work with in terms of studying. I'd be afraid that I'd get myself overwhelmed and overloaded and wind up totally bombing my GPA, but as I said, it just depends on your individual circumstances. You might want to check with your school, though; I know at my local college, they only allow you to take 2 science courses at once. The best suggestion I can offer is to try to find a student who has taken the Human Anatomy course you're thinking about adding in and asking them how it was. Maybe even see if they've got their textbook or some old notes that you could scan through, just to get a feel for the course material and the instructors teaching style, expectations, etc. Ask them how much self-teaching was involved, on average how much study time they put in each week/class day, anything that would an important deciding factor for you in whether or not the class would be doable, on top of your existing course load. Hope that helps!

Oh goody, my specialty! See, I worked ER/OP Registration for a while, and got to see lots of stupid things entered in ProMed by co-workers. "vomiting, no nausea"--really, guys? REALLY? "paperclip in peepee"--EXACTLY how it was entered into ProMed when I got to work. The triage nurse thought it was hilarious. I was mortified. "pt has bugs"--....whut? "exposure"--care to be a little more specific, there? "diarrhea, coughing"--nice combination! No one wanted that patient... Aaaand my personal favorite: "dental pain, anxiety, numbness/tingling, medication request, chest pain, SOB/wheezing, psychiatric, knee pain, ear ache, constipation, weakness, insomnia, lady partsl bleeding"--...do I even need to explain this one? This woman spent probably 10 minutes at my desk rattling off her symptoms; as soon as she'd go to take a seat in the waiting room, she'd think of something else wrong with her and have to get back up and tell me. *headdesk headdesk headdesk* I wanted to just write "yes" in the Chief Complaint section and call it a night!

i'm using the same book to study for the net, and it's wonderful! i got mine very cheaply at my college bookstore, but i know i've also seen it at barnes and noble, hastings and chapters, and i'm sure you could find it used on amazon! i haven't taken my net yet, but working with this book makes me feel much more prepared and confident.

http://msjensen.cehd.umn.edu/Webanatomy/ I haven't taken my college A&P yet, but I had an A&P class in high school, and this site saved my life! There are lots of really great resources available there, and it actually made the material fun for me, which made it a lot easier to retain and recall. I plan on using the same website next semester when I take A&P I. ETA: Specifically for joints, the following link might help you out: http://msjensen.cehd.umn.edu/Webanatomy/skeletal/bone_joint_movements_1.html Good luck!