Anaphase

My friend recently had surgery on her hip, labrum and psoas and her doctor was at Childrens. She actually found the whole experience really great, but also kind of hilarious in that the nurses had a very different demeanor than she's seen before (she's a type 1 diabetic, and an Ironman triathlete, and also has celiac, so she's at the Joslin a lot). She was really surprised and had to laugh whenever anyone needed to take her blood or run a test, because they were just SO nice and SO gentle (from dealing with kids, obviously). As a type 1 diabetic, she chuckled when one of the nurses said, "okay now. We're just going to take some blood. It won't hurt and you can look away, and it'll be over before you know it." :)

I'm in a similar situation with my volunteer, or rather, pre-volunteer stuff. I have an interview at a big Boston hospital in a few weeks. It's a little less convenient than a hospice volunteer position for which I am also applying, although I am interested in Oncology & Palliative care nursing, so it might be a better fit. FWIW, when I interview candidates at my current job, my first question is "Oh, I see you worked at [blah]. What did you DO there?" Sometimes candidates who have worked at smaller agencies have the best experience because they have a lot more responsibility. I think you should definitely interview at Stanford, go through the whole application process, and see what kind of placement they will offer you compared to the smaller local hospital. You could be placed anywhere in either hospital, and I think it's the placement that will make the difference for you, not the hospital's standing. Finding the placement that gives you as much patient & nursing contacts as you can possibly have, or is related to the type of nursing you want to do will be most beneficial, IMHO. That way, at least your volunteer experience tells a story, AND it gives you insight into what kind of nurse you want to be. Hope that helps.

Thanks for your replies, everyone. I really appreciate them. I did sign up for a microbiology class at UML (because it starts next week and some spring sessions have already started at other schools). I'm booked in to all of the info sessions in Feb and have a phone interview at Simmons next week!

Hi all. New to the forum and just getting started with research & pre-requisites, hoping to apply next year to multiple programs. I am a full-time IT professional looking to make a career change into nursing. I have been out of school for 15 years, and have an art degree, although I originally started out as a medical illustration major. I'd like to know for those of you in the MGH and Simmons programs, specifically, where did you take your pre-requisites? If you took them outside of the program you got into, how easy was it to transfer credits in from, say, UMass Boston? Apart from cost, where do you think I should take my pre-reqs? Thank you!