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Anyone work (or worked in the past) at Queen's Punchbowl Campus in the ER? What did you like/dislike about the department? Thanks

has anyone had an interview for Sharp Grossmont 5W yet?

Hi, I applied for the med surge PCU residency at Grossmont because I did my preceptorship on 5 East PCU. I didnt get the email that everyone talking about that they cancelled that new grad program, and I also havent gotten a call. Did you talk to the manager of the PCU (neuro/tele floor) 5 East?

They do where I live. Some of them have masters degrees.

I am all for making BSN the requirement for entry to practice, but I think hospitals need to look at the education system. I am a second degree student. My first degree is a Bachelor's degree in Biology. By the time I decided I wanted to go back to school for nursing, the California State budget was a mess, and the California State University System was rejecting second bachelor applicants. (After two years of this policy, they decided to start accepting second degree applicants in Fall of 2012, but it is too late for me since I already graduated and have my RN license).Anyways, I was told that I could either go to a junior college and get an ADN, go to a private school for a BSN (anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 for tuition alone), or try to get into a Master's entry program. I got into two private schools, but decided to be financially responsible and went to the junior college. It is true that schools and their curriculum vary drastically. I took my pharmacology class over the summer at a community college with several other students taking the same class who were in a BSN program at California State University Long Beach. Anyways, now I can't get a job. I would be fine with doing a one year RN-BSN. But the director of my nursing school said that the school district can't afford to do that, since they are still struggling with budget cuts. The State schools offer a year and a half RN-BSN that is full time, and it would be very hard to work full time. I really just need public health, critical care and research (I took leadership, pathophysiology, nutrition, health assessment 2 years of chemistry, statistics, etc, etc for my ADN and Biology degrees). But there is no school that will let me take just those courses and get a BSN. If the BSN is to be the entry level requirement, I dont think that the middle class should be punished because they can't afford to go to a private school when the state schools are cutting their budgets.

How long did it take from the time you had an interview to when they got back to you? I am a new grad ADN (with a previous BS, but as you know that does you no good in nursing) and have been looking for work since June. I had an initial interview with the recruiter. Harbor UCLA is the only hospital that has responded to any of my applications even though I am currently enrolled in a MSN bridge program.

I've applied to all of those places you mentioned, and have been looking at indeed and Craig's List every day. I just finished an application on USA jobs for the naval medical centers. So if I want to apply to a hospital in Ohio I have to have an Ohio license, and if I want to apply in Wisconsin I have to apply for another license? It sounds very expensive!

Thank you for the encouragement. I have an interview tomorrow with a clinical research company. Its not nursing, but it is in the science/healthcare field and i need to work after being out of school for 4 months.I am going to apply for my RN license in one of the compact states, and then I think I can apply to jobs in any of the states that are in that agreement? But I am not going to move out of state until I know I have a job!

I do want to do the NP route, I have a degree from UCSD in Biology. I actually became interested in nursing while at UCSD but they dont have a nursing school, and I was already a junior. A career counselor said I should just finish my degree and later try NP or PA school. My first choice was to apply to vet school. With my 3.2 GPA I wasnt competitive in CA. But I got in in Scotland and Australia. Unfortunately the year I was waiting to get in, the dollar dropped tremendously in value. My loan was going to be 250K gaining interest from year 1 of a 4 yr program. So I decided to try nursing, because I had an interest in it anyway, I thought I could raise my GPA (and maybe apply to a state veterinary school in the future), and get a decent paying job helping people. But by then CA budget was terrible and I couldnt even apply to second bachelor programs at public schools. So now I have an ADN and have been applying everywhere (SNFs, doctors offices, as well as hospitals) all over California for 4 months. It is super depressing. I feel like I made the wrong choice. I am looking into RN-BSN programs, but they are like 2 yrs long. Some of the shorter ones want me to have nursing experience. Can I ask where you moved to? I grew up in southern california and have never lived elsewhere, but this job situation is awful.

What schools are you looking at? I had the same situation, I have a previous BS and wanted to get a BSN but couldnt get into any public california schools because they were blocking second bachelor applicants. Now I cant find any schools that will let me start an MSN bridge without at least one year of experience, and no one will hire me because I have an ADN!

Emilyn, WHERE are ADNs getting hired in Southern California? I have a BS from UCSD and graduated in May from San Diego City College with an ADN. I have applied to hospitals all over California, and San Diego is the worst. Only 4 out of my class of 55 are working in acute care, and they already worked as techs or CNAs at these hospitals. SOme of my classmates who worked as techs or CNA's have not been hired by their hospitals.

foreverLaur, I asked you a question about the RN-MSN for RN's with a non nursing bachelors degree. Where are you living that you can even get looked at for a job without a BSN? My problem with the MSN programs is that although I have a BS and an ADN, NO ONE will hire me because I dont have a BSN. And the MSN programs that will take me with a bridge want me to have at least one year of full time nursing experience.

ForeverLaur, can you tell me what school you are going to that will let you apply with an ADN and a BA? I have a BS in Biology and an ADN. I WANTED to get the BSN, but because of budget cuts in California, the state schools were blocking second bachelor applicants. Now I cant get a job. I have been looking at RN-BSN programs, but they seem so long! Like 2 or 3 years! I really just need 5 or 6 upper division nursing classes. I have found a bridge at one state school, but it requires 28 units just to apply to the MSN, and I still wont be given a BSN. I have looked at Western Governors University, which will let me transfer in my plethora of units, but they only give pass no pass for grades. I am trying to find a school that I can finish within a year that will also give me a public health clinical and a health assesment class with a lab. One of the Cal States offers this but due to budget is only accepting one cohort a year, and the next one starts Fall of 2013.

Hi, I have a BS in Biology from UCSD (University of California at San Diego). I decided to go back to school for nursing in 2009. Unfortunately, Fall of 2010 was the first year that the Cal States and the few UC's that had a nursing program started to block second bachelor applicants from applying. This was due to budget cuts. In short, I could not even apply to a public BSN program in California because I had a previous bachelor's degree. I applied to several ADN programs, a few private BSN programs (ranging in cost from $50-$60K for tuition only), and one public master's entry program. I did not get into the public masters entry program and did get into all of the private schools I applied to, but decided to go to one of the ADN programs because it was almost tuition free. Now I can't get a job. And my school did not do a good job of informing us that we should apply a year before we graduated to an RN-BSN program. All of the RN-BSN programs are varying in length, at least 1.5 yrs. Since I have a science degree, I already have the upper division sciences, I am lacking public health, nursing research, pathophysiology, nursing research and a health asessment lab class. no university will let me take just those classes. I am all for requiring a BSN. But the hospitals need to understand the economic constraints of the state schools. My ADN program did not have the representative from San Diego State come until our last week of school. The rep from SDSU said that the RN-BSN program was a "complicated process", and the next application date wouldn't be until Fall 2012 for Fall of 2013. Because of budget cuts they only accept one group a year. This year, the Cal states announced that NOW they are taking second bachelor applicants, but only for BSN programs. That does me no good, as now I am in a weird category (along with hundreds of other California students who were in my situation), where I have my BS, and ADN. I have looked at programs that will take me 2 more years to finish my BSN, and that is once I apply in the fall 2012 to start Fall of 2013. Our DON at the ADN school said that some schools were looking into adding a third year to the program so that we could get our BSN. I would be fine with going to school for one more year. But then she said that our school would not be doing that, because they dont have the budget. Budgets are being cut in public universities every year, while students who went to private BSN programs are getting jobs, and people who went to public ADN programs cant get a job.

My school has a terrible retention rate, but from reading these posts, it seems like it is not uncommon. We have an NCLEX pass rate that varies from high 80s to 90%, depending on the year. When I was looking at this school, I asked the director what the recidivism rate was, and she replied 20%. Little did I know that the 20% was not who started and who finished. We started with 60 students last year. Now we have 40 of the original students, but my school is one of the few schools that takes transfers and LVN-RN step up students, so they replaced those 20. The director of our program is very blatant about the fact that she doesn't care who finishes, just that she has a decent total number and a decent NCLEX pass rate. We have to take 10 ATI tests throughout the 2 years, and if we do not pass each one, we are out of the program. We also have a weird grading scale that is moved up.