IndyElmer

It's my relatively inexperienced opinion that really stellar reference letters and work experience can help make up for a GPA that is closer to the minimum requirement GPA for a school (and not all schools have the same minimum so check out programs all over the country to broaden your options). Of course you want to strive for the best grades possible, but try to focus on becoming an excellent nurse and gaining experiences that can help you stand out when the time comes for graduate school.

Some of my classmates have already declared that they will NOT be working nights (which suprised me as I thought it was a lucky new grad who managed to get a day shift job while many new grads "pay their dues" working nights until they have enough seniority to have a shot at day jobs). Are you a "nights-no-way" new grad? One that only wants to work in one or two specific departments? (I realize that a lot of new nurses don't restrict themselves in their job search, but since some of my classmates have already stated their intention to do so, I thought it would be helpful to know just how wide your search has been.)

Whether or not it's "mess of boxes & circles" depends on how your instructor requires you to do the concept map. The ones required by my instructors are not as crazy looking as some that I've seen. Ours have the reason for visit/care in the center, then nursing diagnosis in surrounding boxes. As part of the nursing diagnosis box, we have to include all that stuff that other instructors have you put in even more boxes/circles within the SAME diagnosis box (and in a particular order). The concept maps as we're required to do them, don't seem at all like the visual "big picture" aid that they were intended (and often fail) to be for other students/programs.

My instructor REQUIRES Carpenito for some portions of a care plan / concept map but allows us to use other nursing diagnosis books for other parts. Most people ahead of me seem to really like Ackley/Ladwig (considerably better than Carpenito) but I'm just getting started on this whole care plan / concept map thing, so I've only used my Carpenito (that those ahead of me say is harder to use).

However you keep track of important things that you'd never miss --- doctor appointments, shifts at work, a kid's music recital, dinner with friends --- whether that's a paper calendar/planner, a web-based calendar or something in your smartphone, you need to start scheduling in study session -- and KEEP those appointments. Look at how much material is going to be covered over each exam in your 6 classes and look at how much study time you have, then break down the material into proportional chunks and assign it to a specific study slot. Cramming isn't very helpful in pre-reqs and it definitely a bad idea for learning skills and material that you're going to need every day on the job. No patient wants a nurse who knew the material for 24-48 hours then forgot it.

I've actually seen up to 10 rights, but as others have said, the "official" 5 are the five listed plus documentation as the most common additional right. There's a list of the "10" rights in this article (which is admittedly not the most scientific, but I don't have time to search for the various references where I've seen each of the additional, less common rights mentioned).

Are you 100% sure of the spelling of the term?

One way that I think nurses have to be (or at least feel) vulnerable is when you have to admit a mistake or near miss. While it is absolutely the right thing to do, admitting a mistake or near miss brings negative attention to yourself. Depending on the nature of the mistake, your past performance, or even just interpersonal relationships between you and management, you may be opening yourself up to formal reprimands or even being fired from your job, but you must be willing to risk (be vulnerable to) these negative repercussions because it is in the best interest of your patient.

I had access to both Netter and Kaplan anatomy flashcards. I thought the Kaplan cards were adequate for the job at hand, though I didn't really think they were necessary. I liked the cards for bones and even for anatomical reference terms, but I didn't like the muscle cards in the Kaplan or Netter (so I used the disc that came with my text to copy pictures from the text into PowerPoint then used white boxes to cover the labels then added numbering for the muscles I needed to know and wrote up a key for them). Once we got past muscles, the cards were OK for the other systems, but I could have just as easily just taken pictures of the models and made my own cards (and I often did with my study group). We would either do the labels in PowerPoint (so we could easily share the load) or we would all use the same pictures and have each person hand-label one picture with numbers & a key then we could quickly copy down the numbering & lines from the completed picture and e-mail the answer key(s) to each other. If you do get cards, you can minimize learning stuff you don't need to know by pulling out the relevant cards for a particular lecture(s)/test then use a pen to put dots next to all of the numbered indicators that you DO need to know so that when you look at a card with 20 questions/indicators and you only need to know 8 of them, you don't waste your time on the 12 that you don't need to know. (Of course if you have loads of time, anatomy and physiology are pretty interesting so go ahead and learn them all.)

What do you want to format? A hard drive? A paper?

I just got a 2011 IV drug guide for $1! If I end up refering to it a lot, I'll get the 2012. In case they might be useful to you, these are some of the sites that my pharm instructor suggested (some of which I've continued to use): www.drugs.com www.rxlist.com www.emedexpert.com www.mayoclinic.com - choosing "Health Information" gives you the option of looking up diseases/disorders, drugs & supplements, tests & procedures, and even a symptom checker emedicine.medscape.com http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ http://www.pdrhealth.com/

Try to talk to people ahead of you in the program before you buy the 8th edition. People in the cohorts ahead of me keep telling me that they SELDOM looked at their textbooks, except for occasional clarification of something that they didn't understand in lecture. (I check in with them ever semester to see if they still feel that way.) I know several people who have successfully completed nursing courses (and even entire programs) using almost entirely one-edition-older than the current edition. But to answer your question more directly, I don't think there will be changes significant enough that you would feel you wasted your time reading the 7th edition. If other textbooks are any indication in the content change from one edition to the next, only 10-20% of the material will be significantly different. Would you feel badly having read 80-90% of the required/correct info (and 10-20% different or even wrong info) when the fall terms gets here? If yes, then hold off on reading. If not, go for it!

I'm also able to find that information in Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses (though some drugs appear to not have antidotes listed).

You can even form opinions based on speculation! You have the right to think that Obamacare is going to be a wildly expensive, poorly managed disaster, but you must state that as an opinion, not fact. If you're so inclined you can even back up your opinion by giving examples of other government programs that you think demonstrate a history of poorly run programs or those that resulted in wasteful spending, then speculate about how Obamacare programs will be like these existing programs. However, this will still be just your opinion/speculations. For things like requirements mandated in the legislation, those are facts that it would be helpful to verify before debating the pro's and con's of them, offering up opinions on them or before getting worried that one of them might be the sign of the end times. (If it's not actually a requirement and there will be no "chipping" of Americans, then there's not much point in discussing whether or not it might be a the "mark of the beast" or any other end-of-times sign because it's not actually happening!)

Tarotale, to say that we are going to be required to have chips implanted in us is not an OPINION, that is a FACT. Facts should be verifiable by documentation or observation. Before getting up-in-arms about this supposed chip requirement, people wanted to know was it a REAL provision or something misunderstood/imagined. You are welcome to your opinion that one day there will be a "mark of the beast". You are welcome to your opinion that one day there will be a rapture. You are welcome to your opinion that IF there was a chip requirement that it is creepy and Orwellian, just as others would be welcome to the opinion that such a chip would be a wonderful and incredibly convenient new technology. None of these personal opinions require documentation. (Though if you are trying to persuade people to agree with your opinion, you might want to offer real world examples/evidence that demonstrates other similar programs having negative/unintended consquences, as that type of evidence might be more persuasive to the portion of your audience that is science/data-driven when forming their opinions.) The problem is that you stated rumors as fact. The way that you prove or disprove rumors/theories/hypotheses is with evidence. Yes, some people were sarcastic and borderline rude in the way that they asked for the evidence that we were going to be required to have tracking chips implanted in us, but the basic idea of asking for evidence to prove or disprove this rumor/theory was not at all unreasonable.