JSB

My program is front-loaded, meaning we do a year of full time didactic and then have clinical along with an online class every semester and a once a month testing to prepare for boards at our school. During our clinical portion, we go to the OR 4-5 days a week. I get there around 6 am, earlier when I am at a new site, and stay until the cases are done. This could be around 4 or 5, but I have been there until 9 pm at times, and frequently until 7-8 pm. During our clinical phase, we write care plans (no, they never go away!), study for the next day's cases, study for our monthly exams, study for boards on top of our monthly exams, and do our work for our online classes. Oh, and we have a capstone project to complete too. Focker is right, the clinical hours alone really don't matter. Just be prepared for school own a large part of your life for the duration of your program. Getting in is the easy part.

Kaplan was good preparation for me. Do the tests and read the rationale for what you missed or were not sure about. Concentrate on the quantitative section. I felt that there was little I could do to improve my verbal scores quickly, but there were several math concepts/formulas that I had forgotten, and I could quickly refresh my memory on those things versus trying to learn a bazillion vocabulary words. Good luck on your GRE!

ASN 2004, GPA 3.3 BSN 2008, GPA 4.0 GRE 1420 CCRN - did well enough to send in my actual scores, not just a copy of the card ACLS, PALS 5 years MICU, SICU, NSICU experience shadowed 80 hours good references

Before I was a nurse, I worked as a patient care tech in the ER. I did get lots of practice with different procedures, and had lots of patient interaction. However, now that I am a nurse, I think that the unit secretaries actually learn a lot of things that may help in nursing school than a patient care tech/nurse extender would, such as when pts have to be NPO before procedures, or what the protocols for treating certain problems are, and ust the general way things are run in the hospital. I think that when it comes time, everyone can learn how to do a certain skill, but patient care techs do not always have to use any critical thinking skills - they just do what the nurse asks them, or follow pre-established patterns for care. You may actually be better off in the unit secretary position IMHO. Both patient care techs and unit secretaries are invaluable staff members - the good ones are like gold.

We do report skin alterations daily. I work in ICU, and we do grand rounds daily with the intensivist, respiratory, charge nurse, wound care, dietician, social work, infection control, etc. We report to them the Braden score for each patient, and if there are any pressure ulcers, what stage it is, and any other alterations in skin integrity. The physician and wound care nurse then can make any recommendations they have for the care of that patient. We also use a turn audit tool twice daily, filled out by the charge nurse. We have a turn clock in the unit, and every two hours the patient must be turned either to their left side, right side, or back, usually corresponding to the correct position on the turn clock. The charge nurse writes the time of day she conducts her turn audit, what position the patients are in, and if not in the correct position according to the turn clock, the reason for that. If a patient turns themselves, s/he writes that on the tool, and also whether their skin is intact. This has to be checked by every nurse for every patient every day, and even better, with every turn. We also make sure to remove TEDs/SCDs to look at skin, and check behind ears if wearing a nasal cannula, monotherm cable contact areas, etc. The turn audit is done twice a day, and is turned in to our unit director. Each week, she places a compliance chart that graphically shows how well we turned our patients. If there was a good reason for not turning detailed in the tool, that still counts as compliance. We are just now instituting the practice of having patients sit up in chair position during their turns to their backs during the day if tolerated. This helps to redistribute the pressure off of their sacrum onto the ischium instead. Hope that helps. Our unit acquired decubitus rates have dropped significantly after doing these things. We also make sure to assess and document on admission for decubiti so that if the patient comes in with one, we will know that we did not "give" it to him/her. It sounds as though it would be time intensive, but it is really not too bad. The Grand Rounds take the longest, but the goal is to only give a quick rundown, and take about 5 minutes per patient. Of course, that doesn't always happen, and then everyone, including you, the staff nurse are stuck for a while longer. The turn audit tool takes hardly any time at all to do.

That's wonderful - congratulations! I can't wait until I can say the same. I'm doing my RN-BSN coursework online, and I agree, it's not all it's cracked up to be, but it is a great opportunity. I'll have my BSN in May 2008.

We do have a lift team in our hospital. They are designated people from the SDS dept., so they are good for things like turns, but they don't know how to do things like help to change the sheets with the patient in the bed, for example, so some things are easier to just recruit a few nurses from our unit to do. They are in house from 9-5 or so, 7 days a week. We really do appreciate them when we have a very heavy patient, but it would be nice if they had a little training in how to properly position a patient, and things like that. If we don't ask them specifically, they'll leave your patient slumped over or caddy-corner in the bed. I guess they just don't realize that they won't be comfortable like that.

I am not a UGA or an MCG grad, but I have lived, worked, and gone to nursing school in Athens and know a little about those schools. UGA's nursing program is actually a pre-nursing program. It is not affiliated with MCG, but many students do apply tp MCG after their 2 years of "pre-nursing" classes at UGA. There is also an MCG satellite campus in Athens where students can get their BSN. It is called SONAT - School of Nursing, AThens. If your daughter was to go to a community college and get her RN (Associates), MCG (and SONAT) have an RN-to_BSN program and an RN-to-MSN program. Hope this helps. Jen

Elidel did not work well for me, and I don't usually have too much trouble with my eczema, but recently it has been worse. No one ever mentions Curel lotion, but that works better for me than even Eucerin. I also like Neutrogena hand cream. Hope you find something that works for you.

Take it ASAP after graduation. Statistics show that graduates have a better chance of passing the NCLEX the sooner after graduation they take it. You probably know a lot more than you may think, and you've heard the saying, "If you don't use it, you lose it." I guess that applies to taking the NCLEX. Good luck!

I copied and pasted this from an email I got from the Pearson-Vue people when I got my Authorization to test. Have you tried this?: NCLEX QUICK RESULTS SERVICE Candidates in the following jurisdictions may access your 'Unofficial' results via the NCLEX Candidate Website or through the NCLEX Quick Results Line. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia-PN, Georgia-RN, Illinois, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina , South Dakota, Texas RN, Texas VN, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia PN, Wisconsin, Wyoming Effective February 20, 2004, this service has a charge of $7.95 via the web and $9.95 via the phone Your "unofficial" results will be available two business days after taking your examination. Via the web ( $7.95) - Go to http://www.pearsonvue.com/nclex, sign in with your user name and password. After logging in, you will see your Examination Information. Under Past Examination Information, find the top row with your current test, go to "Actions" and double click on "details". Under the screen labeled Registration Details, go to the box at the bottom of the screen and click on "View results". If your results are available, a credit card payment page will display. Fill in the payment date, click ONLY ONCE on the submit button, and your Exam Results will appear. In order to receive your results, you must provide a credit card number to which the $7.95 charge can be billed. (Please note: Your credit card will only be charged if your results are available.) Via the phone ($9.95) - Call the NCLEX Quick Results line at 1-900-776-2539 (1-900-77-NCLEX). Please note that this is a 900 number and NOT an 800 number. This service will be available 24 hours a day. The $9.95 fee will appear on your local telephone bill under "NCLEX Test". (Please be aware: When you use the NCLEX Quick Results line, you will not be charged if your results are not yet available. However, once your results are available, if you call more than once, you will be charged for each call.) Only the board of nursing to which you applied can release your official results. The NCLEX examination results in the Quick Results Service are unofficial, and do not authorize you to practice as a licensed nurse. Please wait 2 business days after your test before you request your results!

I lived in Hawaii for 4 yrs, and really loved it. The lifestyle is definitely slower paced than what we are used to on the "mainland", and is sometimes inconvenient, but I got used to it. You have to kind of lower your expectations for efficiency. So many people see Waikiki and Honolulu and think they've experienced Oahu. I lived on the North Shore - it's very different from town. Of course, this was about 10 years ago, and things are probably different now. We could hop a puddle-jumper to the other islands for $39 then, so you could "get away" for cheap. There's even skiing and snowboarding on the Big Island. I got 3rd place in a snowboarding competition the very first time I was on a snowboard! :) There is a type of reverse racism towards white people (haoles), but I believe this was felt less in the professional world. I am half Indian, and with my darker skin I was often mistaken for a local, so I did not experience any of this racism. Probably a lot of that could be diverted by just simple respect for the locals and their culture and way of life. The aloha spirit you hear about is very real. True, you are thousands of miles away from your family when you are a non-native living in Hawaii, but I had several "adoptive" families there who treated me like their own. Cost is somewhat prohibitive - you won't be able to live at the same standards as you do here with the same amount of money, but then you may not need to. Wh spend a ton of money for a fancy house when you'l spend so much time outside anyway? I rarely spent a lot of money on entertainment - the ocean is free, and a surfboard is entertainment enough. There were many bonfires on the beach, and we would just go out at night and play guitars together for fun. To me, this seems like a much healthier way of life than sitting at home watching TV. Everything is just more natural. We left Hawaii when I was pregnant with my first child. We wanted our children to know their family, and get a good education. The school system in Hawaii was pretty terrible as far as mainland standards go, and even if we could have afforded private school, they weren't that good either. (Maybe homeschooling would work for some of you?) The locals often speak a dialect called "pigeon", which they can "turn off" when speaking professionally, but there are some who cannot really speak in proper English. All in all, I would love to go back, but the children are still young, and I am really enjoying being near my family again. I still have good friends there that I keep in touch with, and I can listen to a "Bruddah Iz" CD and be transported back instantly. I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. If you are thinking of visiting, there is a special on roundtrip airfare through American Airlines. Round trip to Honolulu is $350, and to Maui is $450. Let me tell you, this is dirt cheap. The only problem I had was finding available dates to travel - many are already sold out, but the prices are good until April 2005. If yo can, GO! You'll never forget the beauty and wonder that is Hawaii.

Congratulations, EmeraldNYL! You should be so proud of yourself! I can't wait to hear about your experiences in school. Good luck!

For those of you in school - what do you all do to help focus your studying and use good time management while you are studying, writing care plans, etc.? I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I sometimes find myself spending way too much time "perfecting" a paper (or whatever) when what I already have done would be fine to use as is. Maybe it's just a matter of being efficient because there's simply not enough time in the day to agonize over these things - I don't know.

Athens Technical College in Athens, GA has an LPN to RN bridge program that is excellent. It starts with an intensive summer bridge in June, and then the LPNs go to regular classes with the graduating class of RN students from September to June. It's a 12 month program. PM me if you need contact information.