bernikitty

hey, if you do your preceptorship there you will have a good shot at getting a job offer, but they make you sign a contract promising to work for them for 2 years. they also want you to begin working towards a BSN if you don't already hold one. i don't know the specific regarding pay, but can tell you that i was told that pay was a reason that alot of nurses left brookwood. it's very tough getting a job right now in the birmingham area, that is why it's really important to try an hussle for a job offer during your preceptorship. brookwood has a reputation for hiring new grads and making students who precept with them job offers. i wish i had done my preceptorship with them in hindsight. i'd have a job right now, instead of struggling to stay affloat. my advice is that if you don't have a job offer by graduation, plan to go ahead and enroll in a BSN or MSN program. at least you'll have some fin. aid funds to help you stay afloat till you get hired. best wishes and good luck.

it's at a big hospital approx 25min from my home. it's a medical unit, so i'm not sure if that means like MICU or med-surg and i don't even care! it's a shot at a real salaried job! i haven't had one of those since may of 02 when my first daughter was born. after seven years of worry and struggle, 3 years of school doing pre reqs and then the madness of my core nursing classes there is a light at the end of the tunnel! i know that i may not get the job, but i still feel good about it, there is no candidate that wants it more than me. i'm chompping at the bit to get that first year of experience under my belt. it's the 7p-7a shift which is fine with me so i can work while my kids are mostly sleeping. there are lots of details to work out: childcare ect, but i know that will get ironed out eventually. i'm feeling so hopeful!

hi i'm a brand new grad here (graduated aug 3!). i was also the first in my class to take the nclex. so now i'm a licensed RN, who is desperate for a job (i'm a single mom of 3). i really LOVE critical care nursing. i did my preceptorship at a small local hospital ICU and did quite a few clincals in MICU and CCU. i found i love how challenging the nursing care was. i loved using my knowledge of the body system and how they work together and affect one another. i loved how i was always learning something new. working in critical care would be my dream job at this point. the hospital i did preceptorship only hires new grad for the med surg floors. they are frequently assigned up to 8pt and because the icu is small only 4 beds, many times there are pt on the med/surg floor who should really by in the ICU. for this reason i've not applied to this hospital but i have applied for numerus CC positions at other hospitals but it's been two weeks and i've have recieved any calls, so i have also applied for some med/surg postions. there seems to be alot of openings in med surg, so i thought i'd go ahead and apply though it's not really where i want to be. will it be hard for me to go from med/surg to a CC unit? should i just wait for a CC position? if i do accept a med/surg position what should i do to hopefully give me an edge to transition to a CC position. is it harder to land a CC position? are CC positions more in demand than med/surg? i'm a newbie on the outside looking in and trying to make sense of things, so any insight 'insiders' can offer me is much appreciated. thanks for reading

I've posted on this site a few times, but mostly spend my time lurking. It's a great site and I've really enjoyed the insights I've gained from reading the stories and comments you have all posted. I posted one time, when I was about to start nursing school. I'm a single mom of three with a very limited support system. I really had no idea how I was going to do it, but I got so much support and encouragement from you all and I want to say thanks. It helped to to beleive that I could really do it. I'm also deeply grateful to the nurses I met during clinicals who took the time to show a scared, clueless nursing student how to do a skill. I realize what a gift it is for a busy nurse, to take a few minutes away from her work to share her expertise and advice with a novice nurse. For all of you who have done this, please know it is appreciated and inspires us novices. thanks, now on to the nclex.....!

i did a twelve hour shift last night as a part of my final semester preceptorship. there were two young girls who were also there from a private college. while i was charting, i overheard them quizzing each other on nclex questions. i was amazed at what they didn't know, but i guess i shouldn't be surprised since their school has a dismal nclex pass rate of less than 25%. the school currently has a notice of deficiency because our state requires a passing rate of 80% to maintain accredation. this school also cost more than four times as much as my community college. there were things i'd love to change about my school, but i can't deny that they didn't teach us and train us well, and we have no limits when i comes to advancing our education. potential nursing students really need to remember: BUYER BEWARE.

what is a "shift count"? is this refering to the narc count? a new clinical instructor mentioned this term in this context: Shift counts should be obtained upon receiving the morning report. N/G suction, foleys, IV's, chest tubes, etc. is calculated separately. In using a triple lumen catheter each lumen needs to be considered a separate IV and therefore calculated separately. does this mean counting all the separate pieces of equipment attached to my patient? (i'll be in the CCU)

don't let a crappy program, keep you from pursuing nursing if that is what you really want. this advice is for me as much as for you, LOL!! i'm starting my final semster. it's a summer semester so at this point 9 more weeks, i have to complete 90hr preceptorship, as well as all my class work and the additional required clinicals. my professor has not given me my assignment, i'm one of the few who hasn't recieved my assignment, and my professor hasn't returned my e-mails. i'm not loving nursing school very much but right now, but i'm determined to finish what i started , i know i can do it, and you can too!

once you start working, a little bad breath will be the least of your concerns.

learn to do drug calculations, learn the cranial nerves, find out the modules you'll be covering in fundamentals and start on your reading. start to familiarize yourself with drug catatgories.

get a calculations with confidence book and learn how to do medication calculations and learn the cranial nerves.

seems either everyone claims to be a nurse, or people are trying to make nurses invisible. i read that in the ninties, some hospitals were trying to stop RNs from wear tags that said RN. they wanted everyone to have the same generic title like 'care techncian' from RNs to housekeeping. i think it was the nurses union that put a stop to it.

so, i've almost done it. i'll be starting my 5th and final semester in a few weeks and i'm terrified about everything. so much is hanging on this, i've worked so hard, and my kids have sacrificed so much for 2 yrs and i'm so scared i will fail. i'm scared my preceptor will hate me, and think i'm a clueless idiot ( i know i'm not an idiot, i've have a b average in my nursing course, but i've had some experiences with mean nurses on clinicals and afraid that i'll get a mean nurse for a preceptor). we will have to live on an even tighter budget so i can afford the childcare i'll need since my kids are out of school. it's a summer semester so it will be 16 wks of work crammed into 10 wks. the last summer semester we had, we alot of people freaking out from the frantic pace and lost alot of classmates. i'm going to be doing 7p-7a shifts and i'm afraid i'll fall asleep behind the wheel trying to get home and my kids will be orpahned with only a deadbet dad for a parent! should i ask my doctor to give me a prescription for provigil? will i be able to keep up with all the clinicals, preceptor and lecture classes? i know i have to but i'm so worried. and then there is my mother. she is truly driving me crazy. sometimes i feel like she is trying to sabotage me. it's like she's competing with me over whose life is more difficult. i dread talking to her because she always wants to get something out of me when i'm doing all i can with my kids and nursing school. my mother has no idea what i'm going thru and how difficult nursing school is. i finally blew up to my mother a few weeks ago when i was studying for an exam, and she called me to complain about how she doesn't feel well and she's sure she will be dying soon (she been telling me this at least once a week for the last 5 years-- since i moved back to my home state). she smokes at least a pack of cigarettes a day, and refuses to momitor her blood sugar and manage her diet properly, so i have very little patience with her complaining about not feeling well. oh, and she wants to sign her house over to my name and put her morgage in my name when i have zero income and i'm just starting to get on my feet. when i tell her i don't want to do this, she threatens to sign to over to one of my cousins. she doesn't understand how anyone wouldn't be delighted to move into her house, pay her morgage and allow a loud, demanding ,controling, complaining, smoking 60y/r woman live there rent free. i know they will kick her out and she will be homeless. my kids hate when she baby sits. she treats my 9 y/o like she's her skrink and complains about how her grandchildren don't like her and want to spend time with her. she wants my 9y/o to explain to her why this is. so i try not to use her for childcare unless it's absolutely neccessary. i'm so stressed about how i will be able to get thru those 10 weeks with no support system, except the paid babysitter. sorry for the rambling rant, vent i'm just so stress out. you guys have been thru the preceptorship experience, and i want hoping you might have some advice to make things easier. thanks!

i'm a single mom of 3 currently in my 4th semester at the jefferson campus, i have a few bits of advice: do all of your prerecs before starting the nursing program. the nursing program is very tough when you are only doing nursing courses, i really don't know how people to that and prerec courses. we've actually lost people in our class, because they did poorly on a prerec courses. find out the modules you will be studying for the up coming semester, and try to do all the reading during the break. it's almost impossible to pass the exams without doing the reading, and during the semester it's almost impossible to find time to do the reading. it's much better to spend your time studying and learning the material. the lipp. book you got is great. i have that one myself. after you have done your reading, and studying doing the questions for that module help you to start getting in that critical thinking mode. nursing school is different in that your reading and lectures are on theory, the exams are on the critical thinking application of that theory. alot of people have a real problem with that. best of luck to you email me if you have any other questions. almost forgot, get your hands on a "calculating with confidence" book and start working your way thru it at such a pace that you will have the book completed before starting your 1st semester. passing the calculation test is the first hoop you have to jump thru each semester. i did the whole book and was the only person out of over 50 who got a 100 on a practice test given at orientation. trust me, it's one less thing for you to worry about, and you will be happy for that!

hey, i'm 4th semester at the jefferson campus. my semester was the first that had to take the teas, before that is was just points. that was a bummer. i was taking micro at the time and some of the material was covered the week after the test. i guess all i can say is do the best you can. i think that they know that they will be taking around 50 students, so the top fifty scores will be offered a spot. everyone struggles with the teas. no one walks out saying it was a piece of cake, so the majority of people taking is are probably recieving an average score. and as long as your gpa and prerec grades are good you should be fine. also the jefferson campus seems to be easier to get in too. alot more students seem to apply to shelby, so it seems they do a lot of drastic weeding out in the first semester. alot of traumatized students end up over at the jefferson campus, after doing remediation, after flunking a semester at shelby. they seem to prefer the jefferson campus. that's not to say it's a cakewalk, it's still very tough. but the instructors a good and you do get the sense that they care and want us to succeed. i will give you one valuable piece of advice. i HIGHLY recommend you have all prerecs completed before starting the nursing program. we've lost alot of great people out of our class, because though they passed the nursing courses, they did poorly on a prerec (micro is notoriously tough) and couldn't progress in the program as a result. i have stood in awe of those students who are passing the nursing courses, and also doing prerecs. i honestly don't know how they do it. best wishes!

thanks for all the comments. its such an emotional issue and it's been so hard to make sure my kids are well cared for in the short-run while i'm in school so i can provide for them in the long run. the thought of my son being distraught or getting hurt due to my absence is a torture to me. i will be going to speak to the dean to see if i will be allowed to leave the base at night. if i can't work something out that way. i will look into asking someone at my son's school. perhaps one of the aids would like to make the extra money. thanks again. i know everything will work out somehow.