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.

first of all, if you really want to be a nurse you HAVE TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF ESTEEM! as a nurse, you will have to advocate for your patient. this means that at times you will have to follow your instinct and stand up to people who won't listen to you or will dismiss your concerns. and you have to be SMART enough to know patho and physiology well enough to back up your concerns with solid knowledge. as a nurse you will have to have the confidence to assert what your think is right. and if you don't know something, be confident and secure enough to seeking out that knowledge. in nursing, like any other field there will be cruel mean people who can sniff out low self esteem and pounce on it like a shark you will have this stress in addition to the other inherent stress of being a nurse. this IMHO will make it very hard to thrive as a nurse. to survive nursing school you must first have to DESIRE to succeed. then you have to be committed and with that commitment will come the discipline to learn the theory and learn how to apply it in critical thinking scenarios. your desire to learn must be greater than your fear of appearing clueless during clinicals. we are expected to be fearful due to lack of experience but don't let that stop you from asking questions. fear from lack of knowledge is easily remedied if you are willing to read and study. fear from lack of experience wil be cured with time. no a stupid person cannot make it thru nursing school, but a person with the desire to learn, become an independent thinker and who wants to but a part of upholding this profession and the welfare of all the patients in your care CAN!!

white scrubs that are designed to be completely unflattering and impracticle. they basically make us stand out like a sore thumb and squelch any sense of pride or confidence when you are wearing them (all thats missing IMHO is a dunce hat and the words "i'm clueless" on the back). my class is planning a bondfire party after graduation to get rid of the dreaded monkey suits once and for all.

i'm in my 4th semester of a five semester ADN program. i find that the most difficult and stressful issues for me with nursing school has been arranging child care. i have to pay alot of money to motivate someone to be at on time at the weird hours and all over the place schedule of my nursing clinicals. it's cost me a king's random but so far i've been able to manage it. (i'm unemployed fulltime student single parent). now i've found out that in addition to a 90hr preceptor ship and 9 additional 6hr clinicals two lecture courses. we are required to go to a army base 45 mins from my home and STAY THERE FOR 72hrs so we can be trained in disaster scenario nursing. i have three kids one who is a 8y/o low-functioning non-verbal autistic child who's never been away from me for more than 12hrs at a time. he's not potty trained and when he gets upset he has screaming fits and sometime head banging. he's totally not aware for his own safely and at is also a "runner" he will bolt away and start running in one direction and won't stop til you run up and catch him. he requires constant vagilant supervision. i'm so worried that something will happen while i'm away. (when i get out of school i plan to work 7pm-7am.) what bothers me most is having to stay there and no being allows to drive home in the evenings. i feel like i'm being kid-knapped away from my children. does the school have the right to OWN me for 72hrs straight? while the state BON lists the obectives of disaster preparedness it doesn't say anywhere that we are requires to live away from our families for this training. in addition i wil have to pay around $300 for someone to stay with my kids for those three days alone -this will be a huge hit to my finances. during this time (we live on well below $10k a year). i have no family support system to help me with this. this wil be during the summer so he and his sister will be home. during the school year he attends our local public school where people know and understand the kind of care and supervision he requires. this isn't the first time that i've come up against the attitude that "nursing school must be your first priority everything else must take a back seat even your family or how dare you have any life outside of nursing school". i've even had a clinical instructor smurk at me during orientation because i dared to ask when the clinical day would end. i guess i was suppose to accept the they would own me body and soul as long as they wished. "i can't tell you how much i wanted to yell "i have CHILDREN!! ever heard of those?!! my children ARE MY MOTIVATION for going to nursing school and all the hard work i've put into it. i fail to see how neglecting my responsibilities as a parent will make me a better nurse. thanks for reading and sorry for the rant. i will manage somehow. i always do.

lol!! i'll be 46 and starting my second career when i graduate in august. i thought that the post surely had to do with being an older new nurse.

i wanted to say that i'm glad to see that you are putting some real thought into the choice to go into this branch of nursing. as a nursing student and a mother who had 3 babies who all spent time in the NICU there are ALOT of my classmates who want to work in the NICU to the point it is almost cliche'. they all say as their motivation is that they LOVE CHILDREN. (our maternity clinical was done at a hospital with a level 1 nicu. so we didn't see any really sick babies. they were stable "growers".) but i don't think that they really understand the difficulties that come with that type of nursing. it's not playing with babies it's watching them die sometimes. dealing with parents who are out of their minds with worry and grief. it's handing a baby you have nursed through prematurity or illness to an person so incompetent and clueless you wouldn't trust them watch your cat because they are the parents and alot of other tough situations. the wonderful nurses in the NICU made a nightmare situation bearable for me. to say it's not easy is an understatement and not everyone is cut out for it. i know that i'm not.

i have one piece of advise: don't mention this to your clinical instructor. they may think that you are asking for an easy assignment and will find someone who is a veritable geiser of vomit to be your clinical assignment. the reality is that in nursing we are forced to get upclose and personal with all kinds of yuckiness and clinical instructors make it their mission to make sure we get our gloved hands dirty with poop and new expensive nursing shoes wet with puke. i had a few really yucky situations in clinicals but i was so intrigued by what i was learning it really didn't really bother me as much as i thought it would. best of luck to you.

thanks so much for the input. 7pm-7am sounds like it would be best. i might look into 6pm-6am too.

if all goes according to plan i'll be gradualting in august and hope to be immediatly working after that (fingers crossed!). i'll love to work in ICU or cardiac care unit but the reality is i will gratefully accept whatever position is offered to me. one thing that i'm not at all clear on, is what schedule would be best. my #1 priority is something that makes me more available to my kids. working nights doesn't bother me. i'd like to hear what has worked the best for other single moms/dads and why (also what i should avoid). basically i'd like to benefit from the insight and experiences of other mom rns. thanks in advance for any response.

i'm in my 4th semester and 210 days till graduation. yes i'm counting the days! not that i hate NS. i hate being broke and can't wait to start working. one year ago i was like you: scared that i was about to embark on a task doomed to failure. this is the truth about nursing school i've learned: -those that tell the worse stories about nursing school are the ones who failed out. -every nursing instructor is different. some make the material understandable some will confuse you and not be able to coherently answer your questions. in the end it doesn't matter because must read your book!! regardless of what or how the teacher lectures anything and everything in the chapters covered is fair game. so you must know it all. 1) read your book!!!! 2) re-read the material in an outline review book 3) do all the nclex style questions on the material you can find. (the teachers teach you theory but your exams will be on critical thinking application of the theory) -some people recomend study groups this never was an option for me because i'm a single mom with 3 kids. i study when and where i can. 4) get an calculations book and learn how to do calculations. if math isn't your strong suit work on it everyday till you get comfortable with it. 5) either ask an instructor or search you state board of nursing for the module obectives covered in your up coming classes. this will enable you to figure out what chapters will be covered in those classes. you can get a head start on your reading. i always get all my reading done on the breaks between semesters. so during lecture i can ask for clarifications and lecture is like a second review of the material and i'm well on my way to learning the material. because of this i honestly never felt rushed or pressured to learn material. once classes started i only had to take notes during lecture and study. other students were buried under a mountain of reading and freaking out. 6) grab a student in a semester a head of you and get the skinny on the classes for the up coming semester. get their opinion on what you need to do to get prepared for that semester. 7) you must read and/or study every day. set a daily reading or study goal for yourself and sit and do it till it's done. 8) you can succeed in nursing school or have a spotless clean house. it's almost impossible to have both. 9) go to local thift stores and look for nursing textbooks. my class mates have spent a few K on books at this point. i've spent less than $200. alot of people don't make it thru NS and end up throwing out books...go look. i promise you you will be surprised at what you find. 10) for clinicals: leave an hour before u are suppose to be there. better early than an F in professionalism for being late. 11) learn how to write a narrative physical assessment and always include it in your nursing notes. 12) write neatly--sloppy-hard to read handwriting will make the instructor hate your work even if it's brilliant correct and complete. 13) leave the attitude at home. smile!! be pleasant and humble when other nurses are being mean and/or when the instructor is critisizing you. a nasty or defensive attitude will get you no where. it's a temporary learning situation. learn what you can from it. 14) for documentation: write a complete picture of how you found your pt. for every abnormal finding you document you must document what you did about it and follow up and document if your intervention was effective. good luck!! you CAN do it!!

i'm a student and last month during a clinical i ran into a similar situation. the clinical day was almost over and it was time to do blood sugars. our instructor had gone to get the glucometer (there was only one for the unit) the nursing assistant had it and said that she would do the blood sugars. when my instructor told charge nurse she SNEERED at my instructor and made it clear that that was not acceptable. so we went and got the meter and began to get the blood sugars. everyone of them was >200 and when compared to the pt's usually numbers way above normal. we told our instructor and the charge nurse that we were concerned that the meter was malfunctioning and didn't think the numbers were correct. the charge nurse didn't seem to care and made it clear that she and the nurses wanted nothing to do with those blood sugars and if they needed to be treated we were suppose to do it. so were gave the pt insulin as per sliding scale charted it and then left the unit. none of us felt good about it but felt like as student we had no choice. the semester before i had clinicals on the floor above. the nurses there were very supportive and took the time to show us all the interesting thing that were going on with the patients on the floor: wound care: picc line dressing changes; tpn ect. who knew that there could be such a difference just one floor down. that day the pt assigned to me was the pt of one of the "meanies" at the nurses station. the whole time i was there she never checked on the pt. i was with the pt. almost continously for 6hrs. the nurse was so gruff and nasty i dreaded talking to her. she treated me like i was a PIA when i asked for the PT's mar so i could administer the scheduled meds and if she could print out the pt's new lab results. when i went to see my pt at preclinical she was coughing and said she was having trouble breathing. she had a permanent trach because 20 years before she had damage to her trachea r/t trauma from domestic violence. she was normally never on O2 but they had a collar on the trach and the O2 was at > 15L. (the highest level on the gauge was 15 and the little ball was above that) there was no humidification and it was obvious that the O2 was too high and drying and causing secretions to be thick. twice i asked the nursing to come suction the pt (i didn't think i was allowd to do it because my instructor wasn't present). i asked if it was possible for her have the O2 humidified and was told she didn't need it. the secretions that were suction out were dark red. i asked if that was normal (i had never had a pt that required suctioning) and was told the suctioning sometimes caused the bleeding the nurse seemed unconcerned. i couldn't find any orders in her chart for O2 let alone 15L. i was very worried about the pt when i left and told to hit her call button as soon as she has any problems breathing. in the morning she was on 2L of humidified O2. surprise surprise. she said she was feeling much better. i never could understand why they continued to give her O2 when their were no orders for it. also i was the only person (perhaps beside her doctor) who asked her why she had the trach in the first place. luckily this was first time this happened. that unit just seemed like a miserable place to work filled with miserable nurses.