txhorns10

Congrats! Get ready for a roller coaster ride!

You will have a two week class that will start the Monday after TCC finishes...or at least that's what we did this past year :) After that, you'll be following TCU's Academic Calendar. This will of course all be discussed in your admission packet and at orientation. Sorry, just realized you posted this a long time ago. The program's kept me a little busy! Good luck!

I really love the program, but it is a roller coaster ride that never stops! It's extremely fast paced, but I wouldn't do it any other way at this point because the pay off is worth it. However, just be prepared to be flexible! If you're a person that needs a specific schedule and can't adapt to things being thrown at you at the last minute, this program probably isn't a great fit.

Congrats! I just got my award package last Friday...it's on the my.tcu.edu site. If yours is anything like mine, the loans they give you should definitely cover it...It sucks that because we're second degree students we don't qualify for grants, though.

In the mail...It's a small letter so don't think the size means anything :)

I got in!!!!

The full vial should be 500 mg. As a pharmacy tech, we always just withdrew the whole bottle...However, if you are doing as said before and diluting with 2, withdrawing 1 mL, you're not accounting for the extra amount. Depending on the drug, there can be a lot or very little difference in the final volume, therefore a significant difference in the dose you're giving. It's difficult to determine partial doses and they're carefully calculated by drug companies, so it's best to go as directed. For example, one time a doctor ordered a partial zosyn dose for a kid. There were no directions for partial doses and final dilution concentration, so the pharmacist called the manufacturer. They told us they had no information on what the final concentration would be and therefore we couldn't accurately give a partial dose. The doctor then had to switch antibiotics. Also, if you dilute with less, you're risking not fully diluting the drug...just because there aren't visible chunks doesn't mean there aren't small undissolved particles. Drugs vary, so it's always best to check with the pharmacist... In my experience making IVs, I never had an issue with the final amount. Like your pharmacists told you, perhaps it's not being fully dissolved? Also, make sure you're getting all of the liquid out of the syringe you dilute with. Also, larger syringes are less accurate, so if you're using a bigger one, that might have some bearing on your final amount. If there's any foam or droplets in the bottle, you'd be surprised how much volume that can account for as well. If you have it tipped upside down when you're withdrawing some of the liquid sometimes sits around the plug, try turning it over and getting the rest with the needle. One vial (of things that need to be reconstituted, not premixed drugs as those always contain overfill) should contain the amount stated and the only reason I can think of getting a second is it's hard to get everything out sometimes. If all else fails, go make one of the pharmacists or techs show you how they're doing it, maybe it can help? I absolutely don't think you're doing anything wrong, I just never had the problem you're having and I made a ton of IVs and we made all of the IM injections for peds and sent them up in syringes... Our nurses were never supposed to be mixing anything (unless it was stat and we were gone, new orders that absolutely had to be started before we got there, or drugs that lose their stability too quickly for us to premake for the overnight shift) and I honestly hope that's the case when I go to work. I just want to say, a lot of drugs are different, so just make sure you check with the directions and/or pharmacist. In sum, a full bottle should be a full dose but the final concentration and therefore the calculations given are also correct. Both parties are basically right, it's just a matter of getting everything out of the bottle and mixing it well enough...

Combine them (sorta kinda) and become a CRNA like I plan to :)

Often when you reconstitute you end up with a larger volume...so basically, no that's not correct. You need to dilute and withdraw based on the guidelines on the bottle if you're giving a partial dose...

I have really good scores/grades, too, but I'm also still nervous. I just hope I have what they're looking for! I think it's just that there's not a lot of info out there on the program, so it's kind of an unknown. It sounds like you're extremely competitive! I'm sorry to hear about your niece, I hope she gets well... I'm well aware of the work required, but it's well worth it for me to graduate that quickly and get started... Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Maybe we'll get them before Valentine's Day and my husband won't have to keep consoling me...or maybe if I don't get in it'll be better to find out after!

Oh well, I guess you brought it back. :) My hands hurt and then were dry for a few months after I stopped wearing latex gloves, it just takes a while to heal. I had to wear them all the time when I made IVs in the pharmacy. The people I worked with told me to use lotion, my hands were just getting dry and red because I had to wash them so often (they were beet red as well). I kept telling them I thought it was the latex, but they wouldn't order new gloves. Silly me I listened, but my hands just kept getting worse and worse. After another week they were cracking open and finally started to bleed. When that happened, I obviously couldn't make IVs, so they finally got me new gloves (a 5 min task to get them from central supply).

I'm not sure what my allergy is to, but the employee health nurse said there had to be induration (it had to be hard). Mine never is, so that's how they determined I'm not actually positive.

I'm allergic to it, but mine doesn't clear up for a week. It gets red and raised, but not hard. It's done this since my second or third shot.

You'd be horrified at how common med errors are. I was a pharmacy tech in two different hospitals. In one we did manual charges/credits. So, the nurses had access to anything in the PYXIS. We'd get a report the next day with everything nurses pulled for what pt. and then had to charge (it basically ended up that we audited everything the nurses gave or at least pulled). Well, obviously when we didn't have orders we couldn't charge and had to e-mail out and find out what was going on. Sometimes orders hadn't been sent, but sometimes it was a mistake. Most of the time it was something like oxycodone instead of hydrocodone. But we also had lots of other sound alike/look alike mix-ups (hydoxyzine v hydralazine, hydroxyzine hcl vs hydroxyzine pamoate, novolog v novolin, etc, etc). It got to the point where we had to put bright orange stickers on the cubies for these drugs in the pyxis that said sound alike/look alike as a reminder. Actually, according to our director, it's a JCAHO requirement to mark said drugs. At least that hospital was on generic name only. The second hospital I worked at used Omnicell and only allowed nurses to pull meds on the MAR. I kind of hope when I eventually become a nurse, our hospital is like that. Anyway, it's not hard to make a mistake like that. One thing I'd suggest (since you're new to psych and a lot of the sound alikes/look alikes are used there) is to google sound alike/look alikes. Having seen a list of them, it caused me to automatically double check in my mind before I pulled any of them to load/fill. Don't be hard on yourself, you made that mistake once and you'll never make it again.

I'm taking A&P II and speech. I found out after I registered that I just needed A&P II lab but I'm not sure that's possible so I'm taking the lecture anyway. What's your degree in? Mine's in Biology...