aussiemom

My favorites lately have been: -good nursing school friends- you WILL find them- to vent about random clinical situations that your non-nursing friends will not understand or appreciate. You'll understand this later, trust me. -your pain reliever of...

Or formulating nursing diagnoses: impaired mobility r/t alterations in consciousness s/t substantial ETOH consumption

Patient care isn't just for aides or CNAs. Even nurses on high-acuity floors perform these activities. I did an observation day at clinical in the cardiac care unit. I was shadowing a nurse who had two patients. The patient I was following more close...

This is a vent/question for all...I was at clinical yesterday on a tele/med-surg floor. This may seem a little rambling, but I need to set up the situation. My pt had end stage renal disease and receives hemodialysis. He was admitted because of a bad...

I absolutely agree with you. Degrees or not, all persons should be treated with equal respect. I did not mean in any way to imply that a degree should imply a certain level of respect- or not- and certainly apologize if my statement was interpreted i...

I also bring my textbooks to the gym and study on the treadmill...did that yesterday, actually!! lol

Nursing school is more challenging for me than my Master's degree was, largely due to the accelerated pace (it's an accelerated BSN)! I want to learn everything very well, and I think I've been keeping up fairly well. I'm fortunate to have a husband ...

I'll look into some apartments for you. Let me address your other concerns, and I'll get back to you on housing. Having a car will be very valuable for clinical. I know many of my classmates do carpool to clinicals, but it's definitely more convenien...

Hope I can help! I'm a current BAT. There is an on-campus option. I didn't look at it closely since I'm married and am from the area. There's a nice apartment complex nearby on the same main drag (the "Parkway") but I've heard it's expensive. There a...

Best of luck to you all. I'm a current BU BAT, starting the last semester on Monday! It will fly by. Just hang on and stay organized!!

Pretty reliably, I score a little lower on the first exam of the semester than the subsequent exams. After that first exam, I have an idea of how that prof tests, what kinds of questions they like, etc. I wouldn't necessarily worry about an 80- you ...

sounds like you were in my clinical group! lol I also hate it when your stethoscope starts sliding off your neck, getting tangled in your gown, in the middle of a complicated med pass with your instructor in the room of a pt on contact precautions. ...

Thank you for being considerate of your patients and co-workers by maintaining great infection control and standards of cleanliness. You may want to check with your dentist, however, to see if brushing six times daily is damaging to your teeth or gum...

The two-step method is really nice in that it doesn't squeeze the heck out of the Pt's arm, like the machine does. We were given free rein to practice our manual BPs in the hospital during clinicals, though we also regularly used the machines. We wer...

Hello! I have a question for those of you who live near the NY-PA border. I just accepted a position as a GN at Guthrie, which is in Sayre, PA. I live in the southern tier of NY. How do I go about obtaining a PA license in addition to a NY license? A...

Congratulations on your journey! First semester clinicals were a bit unnerving. Could you speak with your instructor about your progress- your strengths, weaknesses, etc, for an outside angle on how you're doing? You sound as if you are careful and c...

You can absolutely do this! I'm enrolled in an accelerated second-degree BSN program. Many of us are married, some with children, some with part time jobs, some with a combination of the above. I find that most of us who have this additional life exp...

Stay focused! You don't mention if they are in your clinical group or in lecture. If in clinical- their true nature will be noticed by your instructors and it will reflect in their evals. Remain true to yourself and maintain integrity in your work. S...

A sample care plan would be a wonderful idea. However, sometimes people fixate on the sample and have trouble generalizing to their patients. Always tricky! More helpful, however, was the sample comprehensive note one kind instructor provided us. A s...

I was just hired by a dialysis unit as a graduate nurse, to start after I graduate in May! Many of the questions were not unlike other job interviews I've had. They're looking for a person who is eager to learn, understands the work environment of th...

My last clinical with my awesome group will likely be in community health/home health. Probably more med/surg for good measure! They haven't really told us much yet, and everything is always up in the air until the last minute. Ah well, roll with th...

I worked as an aide in a voluntary IRA in NY state. We passed meds to our consumers under license of a RN. During our initial training, we were given meds admin training- but only for po meds. One of my consumers had diabetes but tested his own gluco...

Before college, I worked in an IRA (individualized residential alternative...aka "group home") operated by a voluntary agency in NY. As a residential staff member, we were trained to administer medication to our residents under the license of a RN. A...

Ours are hunter green scrub tops (unisex and universally unflattering) with white scrub bottoms, white socks, and all white shoes. On cold days, we can wear white long sleeve tees underneath our green tops. For looking through charts at the hospital,...

Thank you for your help! That's more or less what I was thinking, but it feels like we're pressured to specialize while we're still in school. I'm definitely not the only one stressing about this but some are dead set that they're going to be ICU, ER...