kdst

micugirl, the school you are in picked you for a reason. although you feel stupid and in the way, you are neither of those. you are there for a reason-to learn. try to hold yourself together and be like a sponge. just do the best that you can and you will catch on. i'm sorry people are mean. it's true, some people are but you can't take it personally or it will destroy you. don't let it. this advice comes from a new grad CRNA. if i did you can too. my pledge to you is that i will never treat a student the way that some mean people treated me. we can only change that trend one CRNA at a time. i was told by a motivational leadership speaker that you are given 2 things in life: gifts and lessons. you are there because you have gifts now go learn your lessons, even the painful ones. good luck. p.s. i agree that if there is a downside to this profession it is the stress. you have to be able to function well under serious stress.

I thought the SEE was really hard, was sure that I had bombed it but was surprised to find that I did pretty well. I'm not too comforted by that score because it is a comparison to everyone that took it the previous year (both juniors and seniors). I thnk they should break the scores out by year and that would give you a better idea of how you compare with others in your same year. My school used it for grading so it wasn't totally stress free. It was good prep for boards only in that I had been to the testing center before boards and knew what the drill was there. I wouldn't have paid the fee to take it if the school didn't make me. I talked to my program director last week and he said he thinks the SEE is harder than boards. Having just taken the boards, I'm not sure....I thought they were both really hard!

Did you take a GRE prep class? Mine was a big help. Expensive but worth it. My CRNA program didn't require the GRE but I applied to 4 and 3 did. Try to improve the score or else apply to some that don't require it. You can't allow yourself to get discouraged this early in the game. Just pursue your goal with tenacity.

Great job! What a relief it must be to have that result in hand. I took it yesterday. I too was scared to click the 90th answer but thankfully that was the end of it. I'm hoping that is a good sign. I thought the sweatbook was a very good review. Memory master I found to be very painful (it seemed like so much trivia) but I did pick up some info there that i think helped me on my exam. Can't say for sure til I'm in your shoes! :monkeydance:

Craig, congratulations on finishing. I can't wait til I'm in your shoes.

Kaiser School of Anesthesia/Cal State Fullerton does accept students without ICU experience. My class has several ER nurses.

Regarding the GRE: You do not report your score to schools that don't require it, so the low score scenario will not affect your admission at those schools. It is part of your permanent record but you control who can access those scores.

never on an unintubated pt. you are right on.

we did titrate paralytics in our trauma/sicu, usually norcuron or nimbex to a 1:4 twitch on train of four. these were the sickest of sick ARDS patients that could not even tolerate any respiratory effort without desaturation. of course they were also well sedated and the paralytic drips were used as a last resort when sedation alone and vent manipulation was not enough. and of course intubated.

especially since you know which schools you are going to be applying to, why not just phone them and ask the directors directly. that way you aren't guessing about what it is they want and don't waste any time or energy doing the wrong thing.

DR. ROBERT KOTLER, PLASTIC SURGEON: Well, Deborah, in cosmetic surgery, the risk is not in the cutting and the sewing, it is in the anesthetic. And unfortunately, that's what happened to Olivia. There were problems with the anesthetic which shouldn't have occurred. Of course there is risk in cutting and sewing. What about bleeding and infection? What about when they accidentally perforate the abdominal wall with that liposuction wand? What ever happened to the informed part of consent? I wonder if that is what he tells his patients, that the only risk is from the anesthetic! Scary.

[ If you read through the article, it makes reference to the surgeon noting that Olivia's blood was crimson. Does this sound like methemoglobinemia to anyone else? It would explain the appearance of the "normal numbers." I've seen methemoglobinemia twice and in both cases the blood was brown, like cocoa, not crimson.

you are so right there are always 2 sides maturner. but we are done with it and the bs and are moving on. i just bet you are laughing. Am i right charcoal king?

you are so right there are always 2 sides maturner. but we are done with it and the bs and are moving on. i just bet you are laughing. Am i right charcoal king?

I have lived on oahu since 1981, went to nursing schools (2) here, (rotated in most hospitals during school) and have worked at Queen's for 11 years. (Kaiser too, as a call-in). I've also raised 2 kids here and agree that most public schools are in disrepair and lack proper funding. There are fabulous private schools here, but be prepared to shell out the dough to the tune of 10-12,000/year. It was worth every last cent. I can't compare Nursing here to the mainland because I haven't made it there yet. That will change soon as I am headed to LA to CRNA school next month. However, I disagree that medicine is "like a third world country" here and am proud to say I have the utmost respect for my nursing and physician colleagues. I count many of them among my best friends and have seen incredible selfless dedication in these people. The outer islands do lack many medical services and people do have to fly to oahu for specialized treatment. We also serve the entire pacific rim. There is a thriving community of CRNA's here. I think the pay is slightly less here than the mainland but not horribly so. I didn't love it from the day I moved here, it happened over time but I feel the exposure to many different cultures is enriching and fun. Hope this helps!

told by whom, someone at USC? just curious. others reading this board may care, even if it isn't important to you. see you in class....

are you sure about usc shutting down this year? i had an interview scheduled there but cancelled when i got into my first choice school. my understanding is that the program is now in the keck school of medicine but no one said anything about the program shutting down. keck : department of anesthesiology : education & training : applications

just finished my last day of work! yahoo! kaiser/ cal state fullerton in august. way happy and scared too. plan to play all summer.

I had my mom as a patient in our SICU s/p A/P resection. One night I was in charge and poked her for an ABG. I broke out in a cold sweat and just got someone else to do it. Everytime I walked past the room and saw her sleeping with her mouth open it freaked me out, seeing her on my unit as a patient. I just shouldn't have been working. I know it was hard on my coworkers who took care of her. The worst was when she took a turn for the worse after transferring to the med-surg floor and developed nosocomial pneumonia. They just kept turning up the oxygen as her sats slipped into the high 80's. Thank God the surgeon had given me her home # and I called her at midnight to tell her and she gave me orders over the phone and had the resident come assess and transfer back to the ICU. None of the nurses thought anything was wrong, had not called the dr. and thought I was nuts! Of course I thought they were completely incompetent (didn't hang her 6pm antibiotic til 11pm after a bowel surgery! don't even get me started) and they thought i was one of those "snobby know-it-all ICU nurses that can only take care of 2 patients at a time." My point is if he can get worked up in a bigger facility where neither of you have to care for him i think it would better for all of you and then i recommend posting someone at his bedside at all times just in case.

hey, guys thanks for clearing up my erroneous assumption that fasciculations occurred when the drug wears off. i guess that is what i have noticed. does it not occur when it wears off too?(repolarization? is there such a thing?) please tell me you didn't know all that mechanism before you started your programs. all i know is that succs is depolarizing as opposed to non-depolarizing. i hope they didn't make a mistake accepting me! reading your posts makes me feel like a dummy but i don't want to start studying until school starts. i really want to follow the advice of most people on the board and enjoy whatever time i have left of normalcy. that is the plan. think that is not a good idea? p.s. i'm not in the OR. i see it used for RSI, usually emergent.

yikes! i did originally spell it wrong. it is fasciculation. then i edited the post to spell it right. hope you get this before you write the report.

Do you mean fasciculation as in muscle fasciculations when succs wears off?

joyang, i think the best way to find out if crna is for you is to spend as much time as you can shadowing several different crnas. seeing as how you will need icu experience, i also suggest shadowing in a few different icus so you can get an idea of what you will be expected to do. trust me it is very different than med assisting or ER tech-ing. (those jobs are great for getting a little exposure to the hospital but not specific enough for what you need to know.) then you can ask these people the questions you want answered on the board and get a direct answer. i am in the middle ground: 11 years intensive care nursing and just accepted to crna but don't start til august. the reasons i got hooked were: i love to learn and there is so much science, the autonomy (gets old being a peon), i love to focus on one patient at a time and give them everything i've got, i like being part of a team, etc etc not in any order. i guess what i'm getting at is that you have to find out if the job and you are a good fit. if it is and you can get there in an accelerated program then more power to you. don't be surprised if after that 1 year in the icu you don't feel ready. i know i wouldn't have, but then everyone is different and there is more than one way to do it.

does anyone know if there are any breaks between semesters or is it truly 24 continuous months?

that is a nightmare! how'd you do it?:imbar