Izzy11

It's hard enough to find an on-campus program that gets your clinical placements. Forget about an online program helping. I think it's absurd that programs can do this but that's how they work.

I went out of my way on some other things to help him out that I didn't get into on this post, so it really rubbed me the wrong way that he wanted to skip out on what would've been about an hour of clinical time. But I get what you're saying. Right. I thought this went without saying.

Does your program provide any assistance with finding preceptors? If not, then I don't know how they expect you to find any without cold calling. I would just go ahead and cold call. One suggestion I have is to ask your own providers if they know of anyone who can help. I got one of my preceptors that way.

I'm an FNP and I want to share some advice that I assumed was obvious, but apparently is not. I started precepting students this fall and I had four over the semester. Two were rock stars - one is just graduating and I recommended her for a job with my practice and she was hired, the other is graduating in May and I told her that I would love to recommend her for a job as well. Student 3 was very good, and I would have been happy to recommend him as well, until his last day. I see patients in nursing homes and assisted livings and go to several facilities each day. On his last day, we made the morning rounds, and then I told him to meet me at the last place after lunch. About a half hour later, he texted me and asked if he could skip the afternoon since it was going to be a light load, and he had a lot of studying he wanted to get done. You do not ask a preceptor if you can leave early or skip a day etc. unless it is for something urgent (a sick child or such). Right there my opinion of him changed and I wouldn't recommend him for a job now. Then there was student 4. She's been a psych NP for five years and is getting her FNP certificate, so you'd think she'd understand the basics of professionalism. First, she was late every day except one, often over 30 minutes. She had a long commute, so I even told her to meet me at my second stop instead of my first (about 45 minutes later) to make it easier for her. She was still always late, and usually never notified me at all. Then on her last day, she went to the skilled unit at the facility, even though we always started on the assisted living side, and saw a patient without me even knowing she was on-site. It was a new admission who I had never seen, which makes it even worse. She finally came over to find me an hour and 15 minutes after her scheduled start time. She did not contact me at all to tell me she would be late or that she was at the skilled unit. This was so far out of line. I was tempted to fail her for the rotation, but I'm probably too nice and passed her with a poor evaluation. 5 STEPS ON BEING A GOOD PRECEPTEE STEP 1 Your preceptors are doing you a favor. They usually do not get paid for this. You need to respect their time. STEP 2 Show up on time. And that means early. Allow time for traffic. Think about how you feel sitting in the waiting room when your provider is running late. It sucks. So be on time. STEP 3 Do not go off on your own unless your preceptor tells you to. It is completely unprofessional to see patients without permission from your preceptor. STEP 4 Treat every rotation as an extended job interview. At a minimum, you want your preceptors to be willing to provide references for you, and you might find it's a place that you would like to work. If you leave a bad impression, you will definitely lose your chance of working there, and will likely lose your reference as well. STEP 5 When a preceptor has a bad experience with a student, they are less likely to take students in the future. I know how hard it is to find preceptors, and if providers stop offering because they have bad experiences, it makes it harder for everyone. I'm not going to stop precepting (although now I definitely understand why providers do stop), because I had some great preceptors who really went out of their way to help me, so I'm going to keep paying it forward. But I'm really frustrated right now. Please, I ask everyone to be professional on their rotations - show up on time, follow professional standards and norms, work hard, and generally act like you want to be there.

I have the opposite issue. I work in a SNF/LTC and we get way too many admits who would've still been in the hospital even five years ago.

This is my point. If I had known I had to learn this all on my own, I would've saved some money and taken it on-line. But since I have no experience with any of this stuff (I work in a nursing home/SNF, I've never seen a rhythm strip on the job), I wanted to get classroom instruction on it, but apparently I'm not going to get it.

I'm taking ACLS next week and after going through the pretest, I don't know much of the material. I'm wondering what they actually teach in the class if you're supposed to learn it all on your own beforehand. I've been reading the book, but if I have to learn it all on my own, what's the point of spending two days in class?

Mike, The program had its ups and downs. The faculty was extremely supportive and really wanted us to succeed. They really prepared us well for the NCLEX - my class had a 100% pass rate on the first try. My primary gripe is they didn't give us any support at all with finding jobs. They did a huge disservice by telling us not to work while we were in the program. Most of us found out when it was too late that the hospitals hire their employees first for the new grad spots, so if you are working as a CNA (you can get your license after the first semester), you have a huge advantage in getting a job. Also, we had no input at all into our clinicals unlike at other schools. This was especially annoying for the senior practicum when they kept telling us that everyone would be doing med/surg so it didn't matter, but then quite a few people ended up in peds, ICU, or other specialty units and no effort was made to give those spots to the people who were really interested in them. I had a classmate who did peds and he wasn't interested in it at all while others who really wanted to do peds didn't get the chance. And everyone who was working at a hospital did their practicum at that hospital. Our schedule the first semester was lectures on Monday/Wed/Thurs and labs on Tues/Fri. I don't know what's going on with the accreditation. They went through the reaccreditation process with the site visits and such while I was there and they told us that they passed everything. The only books I have left are assessment, med/surg, and OB. If they are still using the same ones, I'd be happy to sell them to you cheap. PM me.

I graduated from the program in May 2012 and I thought I'd share a couple of things that annoyed me with the requirements, although it might be a little late. When I started the program, the school health center had some extra immunization requirements that weren't on the list that the nursing program sent us and we didn't find out about them until orientation. So we had to go back to our doctors to get the extra shots and/or documentation. They also didn't tell us until orientation that we need scrubs for lab, which meant a lot of us had to run out and get some because we didn't have any. The ones you order during orientation for clinicals won't come in until several weeks into the semester. The nursing kit or whatever it's called is just lab supplies. They have you order it on your own because it would be too much work for them to get it approved as a program fee. Of course for what the tuition costs, you'd think the stuff would be included.

You work for company A and receive a job offer from company B. You accept the offer and give notice at company A. Company B then rescinds the offer the day before you are supposed to start. Company A won't rehire you for obvious reasons. How would that make you feel? You've just graduated nursing school and receive an offer from hospital A for their new grad program and you accept. You then get an offer from hospital B for their new grad program and turn it down because you've accepted the offer from hospital A. A week later, hospital A informs you they are cancelling their new grad program so you have no job now. How would that make you feel? These scenarios have actually happened to people I know. Employers have no loyalty anymore. There's no reason for the OP to stay with the first job if she really wants the second one. She needs to accept that she is probably buring a bridge, but if she really wants the second job, then she should go for it without any guilt.

I am a second-year nurse and I've been working in LTC but I want to find another job. I just started an FNP program with an expected graduation of 2015. Should I put this on my resume? Whould it look good to show that I am in school, or would it hurt me because employers would think that I just see them as a temporary stop? I would like to find a position in an outpatient setting like a clinic or office, if that makes a difference.

At my school, we learned in lab on the fake arm, which is just like a real one (yes, that's sarcasm). We were told we'd get to do them in clinicals. I only got to try two of them. Now I'm working in a SNF/LTC and we don't do IVs there, so I've never had a chance to learn. I would be happy to take a class at my own expense to be able to learn, but the only ones I've found are the full IV certification classes for LPNs, which are 10 weeks of classroom stuff which I learned in school. I just need to be able to practice doing the sticks. I agree with previous comments that it's a huge issue with nursing education that we don't learn the skills in school. That's a big part of why the hospitals hire so few new grads.

Thanks for the reply. My question is how do you find the jobs? They don't seem to be advertised anywhere. And there are a zillion clinics and you don't know which ones hire RNs, so it's hard to do cold-calling like I did with nursing homes.

I've been working in LTC and skilled nursing since I graduated about a year ago. I would really like to work in a clinic, office, or outpatient setting. How do I get into one? I'm an RN and it seems all the jobs posted are forv LPNs. How do you find the ones that hire RNs? And what is the best way to approach them?

Do you live in Kansas? Even though the program in online, you have to do the clinicals in Kansas.