Twiggi

I felt this way about my current job. Organizational issues make me want to drive off a cliff and I am very thorough like you are. I'm going to take a moment to vent like you. I love my job but it honestly drives me to drink some days/weeks. Some of my favourite moments. 1. Having the fire alarm go off in the middle of my late med pass WHILE I am in the middle of giving report to paramedics. After I had wasted 45 minutes convincing the family that she needed to go yet again. 2. Transferring mx residents to hospital in a shift. Not as simple as it sounds. I probably have done mx assessments, VS, interventions, called the doctor, called the family for each resident and later complete thorough defensive charting. I always have to send in the middle of my AM med pass. 3. We have electronic MARs. They have gone down and we have had no back up paper MARs to replace them. I have no where to look to give a medication so I have to run meds from a hardwired computer on my orientation day. And then AM pass became Lunch pass. Then the oncoming shift complains that the med room is a mess, while raising their voice at you. You get to thank them by handing them freshly printed paper MARs that management has finally conjured at the end of YOUR shift. 4. I have just called 911 to send a resident to hospital. I have already printed off all the needed information.. Except our printers in the whole building are down and it didn't print. I have to write down all allergies, hx, meds given etc, personal info since I have no transfer papers. All while the paramedics stand there. You can forget about faxes or labs you are waiting to receive. 5. There comes transfer down the hall with a gurney for a resident who is leaving for dialysis. This is the first I've heard of this. 6. Fielding wars between staff or telling staff to do their jobs. Don't make me tell you to answer a bed alarm.... DON'T MAKE ME TELL YOU TWICE. 7. Family yelling at you for popping their loved one in isolation. Meanwhile, another patient dies in hospital from the flu. 8. Topping the worst possible day off: acutely confused sweet(now mean) lady suddenly spits crushed meds into your eyeballs. The top three things that !@#$ me off: 1. Having a rainbow week where I work multiple(new) units. I have to send their residents to the hospital that should of been sent on a previous shift or days ago. I don't know the residents hx or baseline. They usually come back for kidney failure, urosepsis or some !@#$ing nonsense. I honestly feel like the angel of death. I can never trust judgement calls made by regular staff who KNOW their baseline- yet time and time again fail to act. I will see charting from days previous: confused this shift, lethargic this shift, vomiting+ lethargy for 4 days in a row yet NO ONE HAS REASSESSED, DONE VITALS OR FOLLOWED UP. They passed the buck. If I am filling in on a unit I should not be cleaning it up. 2. Running out of vital supplies like MOM, butterflies, I'm not even going to make a list. Having to waste 30 minutes looking for things that aren't in the building. Having simple things like oximetry or the unit's stethoscope go missing. Repeatedly interrupting your med pass to restock the med cart with insulins, puffers, boost, needles, look for missing meds or clarifying orders. 3. Processing orders that have been put off for no reason. I don't have TIME to put in YOUR APPROVED admission orders that I see timestamped as received at 1700 LAST NIGHT. Having to fix wrongly inputted orders. Pharmacy calling me to reinput orders that people randomly d/c. Going through 2 years of orders to clarify redundant, irrelevant, incorrect or unclear orders. Missed orders. I still love my job. But the extra nonsense and disorganization... I deal with things you describe every day, throughout my day. I can deal with it because I stuck through it and now organize/cluster my care. (Although I fully support and agree with your decision to quit). When you don't know the residents, don't know the meds/treatments I know how impossible... and potentially unsafe.. it is to deal with. I just do the best that I can and prioritize.

I haven't had that yet, other than the helpful bit about it being unhelpful to reorient alzheimers patients, I thought that you did a good job and was in awe of your composure in a difficult case. I totally understand that you would take it personally, I think that you are able to rationalize it was the dementia talking, but it still hurts. I totally get it. My heart broke a little about nurse1952fun's patient. Its important to remember that "Ethel's" can be just hurt and lonely individuals. Perhaps that is how they have learned to get attention and cope with isolation. With some of the assault cases, if it was an alert and oriented client, or a visitor, I would be charging them. Behaviour like that is unacceptable, and hard to tolerate from the clients who have an excuse for it ( dementia, brain injury, tumour etc)

I am sorry you had a rotten experience. Things will get better. You learned some valuable lessons today and you will not make those mistakes again :). I think your instructor was a bit harsh. She sounds like the "lay down the law type". Unfortunately, you will likely have to work with her, but if you encounter a serious problem, where she for example, was berating you on a daily basis no matter what you did to try and please her, do not hesitate to bring it up with your school. Sometimes we have a blooper moment during clinical, and I think that was yours this semester. Put it behind you and go back to clinical excited. I was nervous when I first started as well. When I had a tough week, I reflected and then I went back the next week motivated to have a great shift! You will have good experiences that outshine this, and you will laugh at yourself for what happened on the first day of clinical in the future. Best of luck future nurse!

I really have no idea why they would be doing this to you. Just play it safe for your last 3 weeks. You can consider bringing it to HR, but things can get a little messy. Make sure you DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. Best of luck and I'm sorry about this happening to you.

You did a good job, and you were a kind and caring soul during the most difficult time in a families life. Your story and your compassion brought me to tears, and I thank you for sharing it. You are and will be an excellent nurse.

Good for you two. You are not the only ones either, there are multiple readmits in my program. You will make it- just keep your head up. In regards to helping you learn Toiya, I have an iPhone and sometimes it helped me to tape the lectures. I am auditorial/linguistic and I would write notes out into my own words. That helped me. In anatomy, sometimes it was necessary to slowly draw diagrams. Try your best to attend every class and clinical. As well you will have to review content several times in order to learn it.. Not just once. Just a few tips you may or may not be aware of. One more thing you may want to consider is taking advantage of your college's learning resources. It helps more students than you know. You are here on this website demonstrating that you are drawn to this practice.. Good for you. I look forward to hearing from you guys succeeding down the line =]

1. Stop being a !@#$% for no reason. 2. How dare you give a student 100 % on participation when he showed up for 3 classes and myself 65% when I only missed 3 classes. Thanks for giving these same students 93 percent for spending 1 hour on their assignment the night before, and us 73 for spending a week on it. Learn to write a rubric, your marking is entirely subjective and unmeasurable. As well, I am sick of you playing favourites with your clinical students. I work my butt off for your class (shows on my 90% exam) and you keep lowballing me with these unfair marks. 3. Stop playing favourites with the boys. 4. Hand my project back that was given to you 2-3 months ago PLEASE 5. You really need to work on your lecture slides and organisational skills.

1) I am with the noisy kids in the back. (embarassed) But I have to say, do not give us dirty looks and 'shhh' when we whisper. Then turn around and chat your friends up and giggle as loudly as possible. At least we sit in the back of the class and talk quietly while you guys are chatting it up in the middle. Hypocrites. 2) unrelated stories and questions. Especially when you occupy my lab teacher's time when I have valid questions. If you have questions about your hyperthyroidism, refer them to your own GP. 3) Really, when I bring my equipment that I paid for to lab, that does not mean you can borrow it and share it with your friends.. Without asking.. Or pick it up when I set it down for literally one second without asking! To the one girl in particular I told you three times in one day to give my stuff back. Next week when I brought that cuff to practice extra in lab before our redemo you did this AGAIN. Do you not learn? 4) I don't like some of you. This is because I know you're two-faced. Mind your own business and stop trying to dig for gossip from me regarding my friends. I will ignore you or blow you off. 5) To the honest hard workers in my class, I am sorry for the times that I forget to whisper or talk excessively. Myself and my one friend are looking to turn a leaf over next semester. 6) Good luck on your exams this week and see you next semester.

I can't really comment on if that is related to her ADD but I wouldn't pay much mind to it and treat it like a personal quirk.

Hello, I am also a practical nursing student in my first semester. I wanted to say that I am sorry and I have nearly been in your shoes before. I cried and cried for days and it was an awful experience. There is a girl in my program who has also been failed out. She failed her clinical portion, from what I gather handing in an assignment late. I feel that the teacher was making an example out of her. On one hand you need to be accountable but I also know that myself and others are not always the perfect students we ought to be. I know in our first semester that we have done clinical in a long term care facility. If you have done the same have you enjoyed it? Is nursing for you? I -know- that nursing is for me. When you answered that, and if you know that nursing is for you.. There's only one thing you can do. Try again. I wish you the best of luck. If you'd like to give us details I would be more than willing to see if there are any suggestions I can give you. If you need to vent feel free, I understand how much this sucks.

Hello Phil. Our situations vary a bit but I just wanted to say that I too had some challenges that prevented me from succeeding in school. However after having a similar revelation I turned my life around. I have never completed highschool, but I did a college preparatory program and completed that with over 4.0 GPA. I went to college and completed a pre-health science certificate with a 3.0 gpa (not very good but..) I am now in a college diploma program to become a registered practical nurse (rpn or lpn, depending on where you are from) and I intend to upgrade my diploma to a degree when I am finished in two years. If I keep up with what I am doing I should pull a 4.0 gpa in THIS program. I wanted to give you advice and say that for me, my motivation comes in spurts. This may happen to you down the road as you struggle to change your relationship in school and all I can say is that if this happens to you it is not the end of the road.( This happened when getting my equivalency and in prehealth) It is okay if you are not perfect all the way through school ( as you were taught to be growing up) as you are only human. After going through several hard times through school I can now say that I am now pulling very good grades in my program and I am doing extremely well. My past is now behind me and I have a wonderful relationship with school. It has taken me years to change my attitude to school and it is no easy road but you can do it. You are an intelligent individual and I know you will succeed. Good luck :)

Interesting how you answered about the OR. I spoke to a nursing student last year and she told me that also was her favourite rotation when she got to scrub in on an open heart surgery. It was so fascinating when she told me, she was so clearly enamoured. That is so much cooler that they took extra effort to teach you! I spoke to another student about papers/essays too! I am not terrible at them but they just take so much time haha! I suppose i'll have to prepare myself mentally. Thanks for taking the time to answer me, it was an interesting read.

I am almost certain that fanshawe/western bscn collaborative program only accepts prehealth from fanshawe. It does make sense that i can hold on to my course outlines and will now certainly do thanks to your advice :). Just keep in mind that there is probably more colleges like mine.. As wellllllll, I wanted to say that in order to get prereq credits for bscn, they have to be university for highschool and I don't know too many adult education programs(non college program) that offer that. Maybe you and I are thinking of different programs. :) I was speaking to a girl this weekend and she said she got in with a 4.0 average(out of 4.2) I have heard that some registered nursing programs take averages that are low 80's to mid 80's:lol2: That seems high but she said she had an early acceptance! I would still aim for that.

If you don't want to it's entirely to your discretion. To clarify for others I am not asking for ID numbers (not that I know what that is, and would not ask even in person!) I am in the middle of establishing contact with another nurse, and will probably use her answers if she agrees.. But even though you aren't from canada I more than welcome you to answer those few questions. Truth be told I'm kind of curious about what you have to say lol! If anyone else for that matter wishes to answer only a few please don't hesitate. Thanks so much for the support SilverDragon. Edit: I see you're in Canada now, welcome ! :)

Hey, I am a pre health sciences student at fanshawe college. I know you have some answers already but I just wanted to contribute that I have spoken to nursing students who say that the sciences greatly helped them in first year nursing.. Pre health sciences is -not- easy but I do want to say that I find the older students seem to do well. As well having the prehealth cert gives you additional consideration when applying for your program but keep in mind they tend to limit what schools you apply to ( I can only apply to western and fanshawe collab program for rn with this cert.) It's 1 year. If you can't get direct entry into nursing and really want it badly I urge you to consider it.

In the Beginning 1. When did you initially consider becoming a nurse? Can you tell me a little about the reason(s) why you have become a nurse today? Nursing School 2. Now that we have briefly discussed a little about the beginning of your nursing career, I’d like to ask about the journey. Can you tell me about your favourite experiences in nursing school? I know that it was filled with many new experiences and ‘first times’. 3. One of the gems of nursing is versatility. There are many environments and specialties that nurses can choose to work in. In nursing school there are rotations that allow the students to explore different specialties. What was your favourite clinical rotation and what did you find so fascinating about it? Are you working in this part of nursing today? 4. What is something you were challenged with in nursing school? 5. Did you feel that nursing school prepared you well for the Canada Registered Nurse Exam (CRNE) and nursing on the job? Compatibility 6. When considering entering nursing, I realise that there are some aversions that we must prepare ourselves to overcome. (For some blood, bodily fluids, etc.) Is this something you observed people, or yourself, have difficulty overcoming? 7. What do you honestly feel are necessary characteristics for character compatibility with nursing? On the Job 8. Can you tell me about the responsibilities and tasks that you have to partake in on a daily basis as a nurse? 9. How satisfied are you with your choice in profession? 10. Money isn’t everything, but do you feel that you are well compensated for your labour? 11. What is something that was unexpected, surprised you or that you were unaware of before entering the nursing profession? 12. Being a nurse inevitably on the job you will experience patients who pass away. How do you cope with this? Would you have advice to nurses entering the profession on how to cope in these situations? 13. As a nurse, you have lives in your hands every day, is there a real fear of making a critical error in the back of your mind? If this is the case is there any sort of comfort you would offer anyone entering nursing? 14. Patients are possibly the most integral part of the nursing. What is your favourite part of working with patients? Close 15. Thank you for taking part of my interview. I would like to draw this to a close by giving you the opportunity to express yourself by telling myself and other prospective students anything you would like to tell. Is there something you would like to tell us?

Greetings! To briefly introduce myself I am a student in the Pre-Health Sciences program at Fanshawe College in London Ontario. I am applying soon to the Western and Fanshawe Collaborative program in Registered Nursing and am optimistically hoping to get in. For an assignment worth 20% of a course at school I need to interview a Nurse currently in the field. I kindly ask if a Canadian registered nurse has time to please partake in my 15 question interview/questionaire. The information that is provided will be cited, and submitted as two appendixes ( one with the questions, and another the transcript of answers.) It may also be referred to in my paper but will be cited in APA format. I considered communicating through email but have decided to post the questions on allnurses.com so it is open to anyone else who may share my curiousities. :) If you are interested in answering the questionaire please indicate with a post so that others are aware it is being answered as it may take some time. THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!

Hi, I've been accepted to the Pre-Health Sciences program at Fanshawe College at the London campus. I just finished up my adult biology and chemistry credits and have a lot of time on my hands so I've decided to study ahead for my program. The reason I am doing this is because I wish to apply for a collaborative university program between Fanshawe and the University of Western Ontario for Registered Nursing. To get into the program, every course must be finished with the least a B (70%) or you will be unable to apply for the program. I am hoping to get A's in all my programs to become a competitive applicant. I've come to allnurses.com today to ask for help from anyone who has taken prehealth sciences before, has any additional subjects that I may need to know, resources, study guides, advice, recommendation on books or ANYTHING that will help me be happy that I studied come Fall. Any pointers on how to thrive during the program are also welcome. If you have a moment, please take a look over my program courses overviews on this website. http://www.fanshawec.ca/EN/phs1/program/next/courses.asp Note: I will be looking at the stickie study guides, and will probably try to buy my books as soon as I get a book list, but that may be in June. Thanks EVERYONE!! Quick Edit: I am focussing on my Term 1 courses, the WRIT I won't have to take.. My Term 1 will be the grades I am applying to RN with.

I am younger, and do not have the same family issues that you do.. But i wanted to make an observation that there is a suprising stigma that the nursing profession is easy to get into. It's university and very competitive in my province! Not even the rpn is easy to get into. I have a 4.09/4.2 gpa and i was waitlisted. It's VERY oversubscribed. If you talk to students, they will tell you that it's hard, but worth it. The misconception that it's a lesser or easier path is WRONG. People who are passionate about it deserve to be in the profession, I know your mom has an influence over your life.. But as a 26 something year old with children, she does not have any right to dictate what profession you choose to go into, and in fact, she is certainly overstepping her boundaries. This shouldn't be treated like a crisis where you're about to make the mistake of your life and it's terrible that she can't find it in her heart to support you. She is out of line, you can ask her to accept your decision but if she will not be supportive you will always have your wonderful fiance who unconditionally will be supportive. I hope you go for it, and best of luck as a nursing student :)

I am really excited right now and just wanted to talk about this... I applied in February to Pre-health sciences and rpn programs and was waitlisted for rpn and accepted into Pre-health sciences with a 4.09/4.2 average in my academic upgrading / adult education courses. Just this weekend I went to my college's Open House to find out if I wanted to hold out and try and get my RN degree or my RPN and without a doubt I found out that I wanted to become an RN. I've spent the last couple of months waiting and not sure on what decision to make so it's wonderful to know absolutely what I want to be.. At the openhouse, I found out that 1600 applicants applied to 300 seats in my program (phew, glad I got in) It was a fairly basic presentation outlining the courses, course hours, work etc.. But at the end there were a couple of students that would take us to the program labs we were interested in going into.. (paramedic, respiratory therapy, Registered nursing collaborative program, rpn. etc) I went to the registered nursing and practical nursing sim labs, they are the coolest thing. There are these mannequin people and beds lined up like a ward... a nursing station.. the vital sign machines hooked up.. The mannequins actually breathe, you can watch their chest go up and down! You can feel their hearts beat in the chest, or pulse in their wrists. They have one that can give birth(noelle), a baby mannequin, toddler mannequin.. men and girl mannequins. As far as I know, you can give them needles, iv's, care for their wounds, chest tubes etc. They have trays set up with a zillion little things, (iv bags, masks, needles, gauze and a million other things that I don't know what they are) The sim labs are really interesting... They eased my concerns about whether or not four years would drag on after my prehealth program. As well in the sim labs, they had nursing teachers and nursing students.. I talked to a 2nd year nursing student who came in the program from prehealth sciences for probably 20 minutes just asking her questions. She told me about her clinicals, the coursework etc and how much she loved her program. I asked her about her favourite times.. She told me she loved the "first times she got to do..." things like give needles etc.. They get to see a surgery at one point during clinicals and she told me that was by far her favourite part. During the surgery she got to stand on a stool and look over a open heart surgery and that it was amazing. As far as specialties, she didn't like her mental health clinicals, wasn't too interested in palliative/longterm care, but she was leaning towards being a scrub nurse or cardiac nursing. I asked her the difference between rpns and rns, she said she wasn't really aware of the technical differences, they get to do much of the same things but rpns she was told work with stable patients while rns are able to care for the more complex, unstable ones. For me, this consolidated any doubts about becoming a nurse. The sciences, medicine and interventions are SO interesting, I love the fact that it is hands on and I have always loved helping people. The openhouse has pushed me towards the path of becoming a registered nurse and has instilled me with excitement about the program. (Labs and clinicals ahhh !!! :heartbeat) It was informative and has made me passionate about my road to becoming a nurse. It will serve to motivate me in my next year of pre health sciences which I have decided to take. Before this I wasn't sure if the 3 extra years were worth it, and not motivated to try my hardest in the program. If your college has an openhouse, go to it. If you are not a hundred percent sure, GO ON A TOUR, ask students of the program and research! Call them up and ask for a tour. Don't be afraid to ask questions. I wanted to tell about my experience to people in hopes that they will be just as excited as I am about the -school process- as well as the professional nurse part. Good luck to all my fellow pre nursing and pre health sciences students and see you (figuratively) in the fall!

Good for you, and thanks i'll look into seeing if there are any colleges around that offer it.

No, if I decide I want to take rpn I would be entering straight into that program.. I can either take RPN ---- > Bridge to RN Prehealth ---> Rn collab program with uow and fanshawe. I had questions about where in ontario there are universities that offer the bridging program as it seems that not all of them do.. I am curious how do you like your job? What do you do as an rpn vs an RN? Would you like to upgrade? Thanks again :)

I'm applying to Fanshawe college and I'm deciding whether or not to choose the RPN route or the Prehealth.. I'm accepted into prehealth right now, waitlisted for woodstock RPN and still being decided for London RPN. As far as I know there are 3 Universities that accept RPN / Fanshawe students; these are Ryerson, UOIT and McMaster. Are there any others? Are these difficult to get into? Is it better to go the Prehealth route ? Thanks so much in advance!

Thank you so much :) You got my foot in the door and I think I can write/research the rest of my essay from here. That's so weird that the doctor doesn't take more part, that is absolutely not how they are represented in media.. That's another essay topic for another time though! Again thanks :)

Thank you for moving me Janfrn and for the article, I like that it's 15 pages and it gives me great information on a MI. So that's chest pain protocol, is all the medication administered after they determine someone might be having a heart attack? Also I have a couple of other questions :) 1. Is there a standard triage evaluation that er nurses do, and what are the typical combined stats / symptoms that the patient would have to exhibit before being suspected a heart attack... If there is a standard triage, what's it called so I may find it on google. 2. If complications occur that may require nursing intervention where the patients life maybe be imminently at risk, or at risk. Do nurses intervene to save a life or is that all up to the doctors? I know from personal experience that when I went to emergency for chest pains and shortness of breath, I did not see a doctor too much except to read my ecg and do some sort of an exam, but a nurse did not leave me alone and was quite kind :).. It would make sense if she were AT LEAST the first to intervene. 3. What do the Ccu do with heart attack patients? I'm not trying to get you guys to do my dirty work, but if you can briefly answer my questions or give me keywords that i'm unaware of so I can google and research myself, I would be forever indebted to you! The angle of my essay is to advocate that nurses are perhaps the most critical and largest component in treating a heart attack. :) Thanks guys!