Jo Dirt

I'm the sole wage earner in my family of 6 (4 children and a husband) and I am about to start a FNP program that's total cost will be 15-17k. The first year I can probably work at least 3 days a week. When clinicals start I may have to stop working for a year. That will add maybe another 20k to the student debt. Maybe 35K total, I figure. I think you could find a cheaper way. That's medical school type debt...I'd say a lot of MD's don't even end up owing that much. It's not sounding like a good plan.

this is hard to sift through. let me run this through my little orphan annie secret decoder pin and i'll get back to you.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I have never understood why people whine about the loads they are expected to carry at the nursing homes. Nursing homes are NOT acute care hospitals! They focus on MAINTENANCE. What do people expect? Really? There is a routine in a nursing home. You learn your routine and go with it. Not to say a lot of nursing homes don't have staffing issues, but I've never complained because I was responsible for a big med pass and blood sugars and charting--I've even managed to help with a shower or two in between. It's a hard day's work, but I used to care for more than 40 patients and was never so overwhelmed the patients were in unsafe situations.

They don't put up with crap like that where I work. The DON tells them with a quickness that if we can't meet their needs Mom or Pop can be hauled out of there in a heartbeat. This doesn't mean we nurses have the easy road, we're expected to stay hopping, but not on account of some unreasonable family member.

For one thing, what kind of stone-aged place is this that doesn't have provisions in place to allow weekend admissions? For another thing, the facility needs to blame itself if it didn't go over this policy, what else have they not told you? Handing you an employee handbook and telling you to read it doesn't get them off the hook. We have a woman who handles all the employee orientation and she goes through the whole handbook with new employees to make sure there are no questions. You made an honest mistake, it wasn't a mistake because of incompetence on your part. If I could be there I'd take up for you. There are enough things to get down about without letting this one add to it. I don't think it was your fault.

I didn't legally marry my childrens' father until the oldest was 9 years old and I still called him my "husband." It was nobody's business, but it saved a lot of explaining. I was an LPN/LVN, I was proud to be an LPN/LVN and I'll never let anyone take it away from me. I made a better RN because of it. As for thinking God is only on your side, this is not exactly a rational way to make decisions, when you consider the millions who think God is on their side who meet their doom anyway. Be careful, it looks like a straight up road ahead.You'll miss a lot of time with your baby in the process, but I know what it's like to be he(( bent on doing something.

I'll be Frank (and I'll be Earnest, too) but I can only make assumptions, forgive me if I'm wrong. When you say "boyfriend" I am just assuming this is not the father of your infant. If you have not known this man long, please do not leave him with your child. For that matter, jails are full of innocent people (if you know what I mean.) I recently saw on the news about a woman grieving over her year old daughter she left with her boyfriend while she went to class at the local college. He shook her baby to death. She says she couldn't understand how he could do this because he treated her like gold the whole time she knew him. Bad people don't have the decency to wear a sign or show overt indicators they are not nice people. I used to be trusting of people, way too trusting. It sounds like this may not be the best time to move, especially with a young child and no family around. If you move, please contact the CPs to find daycare centers and get all the financial help you can through grants and public assistance. If you think I'm being paranoid, just think of how you would feel if something happened to that sweet baby. You can't be too careful. P.S. I know what it is like to feel like you've got an opportunity you have to hold on to, but it sounds like you may have a lot of things going against you with this. I recently turned down my dream job after a lot of grieving over it but finally decided it wasn't what was best for my four children. I've had many regrets over not taking this job (which would have required me to move out of state) but there came a point I had to realize the cards were stacked against me. Surely, you have another option. Why can't you go to the vo-tech and become an LPN first? Don't you have a local vocational school? It's only a year! You could then work and do an online LPN to BSN program...it isn't that out of reach! I'm not going to think I'm going to change your mind, but in case there is any chance of getting you to consider an alternative I want to put it out there.

This makes me sick.

I would challenge you to come work where I work. Other than that, this kind of statement will only perpetuate the myth that all nursing homes are horrible. Nursing homes are a fact of life. People go there and that is usually their "last" address. They are at their worst in life, they need more than anyone can truly do for them and it's often not a pretty, romantic end. When nature fails to take its course, what else should should be done with these people? A NH is a NH, a person can make what they want of it. I have the same patients and I've grown attached to them. I actually look forward to coming in every morning and seeing them. We laugh and talk and make the best out of a sad situation. We have one stroke patient in his 40's who is such a clown they made a name tag for him in the front office that says "(_) Nursing Center, John Doe, Handyman." He gets a lot of attention with that and he loves it. There are times that are sad. His wife will come see him and he knows she has a boyfriend and he cries everytime he sees her, and we want to kick her to the curb but can't. Yes, it's sad, but he knows we love him and in a way we are his family. The patients stay clean and well-fed. They get a lot of stimulation and attention they wouldn't get anywhere else. We only have one in-house decubitus and it's very minor. We have a low turnover. I love where I work. Not all Nhs are "bad."

I told my mother I didn't understand how I got pregnant, all we did was swim in the same swimming pool.

This is the nature of nursing home work, unfortunately. It works kind of like the sale barn. With the people very needy, there is ALWAYS something to do, you will always leave thinking of things you needed to do. I've seen NHs so hard up the nurses would just do what they had to do...they, WE, weren't bad nurses, we were in bad situations and put in positions of defeat before we would even hit the floor. It takes a certain kind of nurse to accept when it is "good enough." Some nurses can't deal with that, but that's okay. We had an ICU nurse quit after a few weeks because she couldn't deal with it. She was used to having two patients and things being much more organized and precise. You hit the floor in a nursing home and have a pill passing marathon, with all kinds of distractions, if you get a new admission or have to fill out an incident report that can set you back a good hour. One thing they have never told me to do though, is leave before I feel like I've done all I can do. The nursing home where I work now is like heaven. We have 1 nurse to 23 patients (used to be 1 to 42). You actually have time to care about what you're doing. You get to spend more time crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

I posted to another thread that reminded me of something I saw a couple of years ago while accompanying my father-in-law to the doctor. It was at this medical clinic and there was this woman (maybe up in her 50's, she had a rough life apparently and probably looked older than she was) and she was wandering around in circles (this was a large clinic). She found the doctor she was looking for and I heard her ask him, "Can I get some Lortabs?" and he quickly told her, "No, I just can't do that, I'm sorry." Another time, I was in nursing school (LPN) and me and another student got to spend a day with a specialist in internal medicine. This one woman came in so messed up she couldn't stand straight. He was so patient with her but I wanted to give her a foot in the rear. She was laying across the exam table laughing and rolling around and her eyes were glazed...I was so disgusted with that woman. My experience with clinics is limited and such, but do you see a lot of drug seekers? Is this something you must deal with a lot? Do you have the liberty to refuse to see a patient you suspect of being a junkie looking for a fix?

I doubt they are joking, that is where the hard part will come in-getting them to understand that just because I have access to a MD's prescription pad doesn't mean it's party time.

I'll just say that even with my fluff classes it will be a heck of a lot cheaper (BSN and MSN together) than cutting to the chase with an overpriced "accelerated" degree, and in the long run the time I would have saved in an accelerated program won't amount to a lot.

Some people will try to tell you there is no price tag on education but I say there is. Why would you spend 40k on something you can do a lot cheaper? 3.3 is just fine for a GPA. Mine is between 3.1 and 3.2 and I'm about to graduate from a BSN program.

TRY to remember, please TRY!!! I shouldn't be so hard on the teacher, she did email us telling us we had the right to challenge the grade we received (apparently, it was MOST of the class who bombed this paper!) and she would correct the grade. I don't think I will argue. I admit I didn't spend the kind of time on it I should have (it seems the hardest part comes at the end, so hard to focus!) And I forgot to add in the pop quiz, which was just enough to still give me an A for the class. All is well in paradise.

$26/hr in a 108-bed facility. Not a salaried position (though the DON is a salaried position at this place.) I'm actually kind of like an assistant to the assistant DON at this point. She wanted to cut her hours so I stand in for her several days a week. I don't know if the idea is that she will teach me to do her job because she wants to move to another position in the facility or what (they are talking about specializing in wounds and then will need a wound care specialist, which is what she is), but I'm grateful for the hours. I would be ineterested to know what the ADON is actually making, but I won't be nosey. I know she is paid by the hour like I am.

At the nursing home where I work the other nurses just say, I can't wait until you become a NP, then, you can write us prescriptions!

Middle Tennessee State University

I'm about to graduate from a local university with a BSN (I did the online RN to BSN...wasn't totally online, I had to go to clinicals and such). You know those silly elective classes they make you take at the very end, like "Health Care and the Future" or some other tripe? Well, I had to type a paper (APA format, which is stupid in itself) and talk about some "issue" nurses will have in the future. So, I did it, and I got slapped in the face with a 60%. That was enough to bring my grade down to an 89.4...not even enough to bump it up to a 90%. Over garbage like not having the comma spaced just right, and having too many resources. Funny thing, I got my teacher evaluation packet in the mail today. Good thing I didn't fill it out before I got my grade for this paper... Of course I was the one responsible for my grade, of course, of course. Of course I had the grading rubric available to me...of course...I won't be unfair, I will tell them how half of the time the assignments did not show up properly (it had to be something this teaching assistant did or didn't do, because none of my other instructors had a problem with this) and we were left taking pot shots at the assignments because they were not completely visible or had info. missing. I will also give my teacher good marks for being available, answering emails in a reasonable amount of time, and acting enthusiastic about what she was doing. But this was just a blow class, and I will no doubt get a higher grade in pharmacology and health assessment (two valuable classes) but this ding-a-ling class is the one that will bring my GPA down...heck, I'm not going to worry anymore, semester is about over. Just one of the drawbacks of online learning, for those who think it is perfect and flawless.

There is an MA graduate who is now trying to get into LPN school and told us it cost 22k to go through the MA program. I think that should be illegal.

This has to be a hypothetical situation...

I think this will be me if I ever go to the NH. I see what you mean about the decorations and the A/D patients.

if you will notice i acknowledged these people were very hard working. this is why i don't want to hurt their feelings. they try very hard. i don't want to let them know if i write them a letter with suggestions, because #1 i don't want any attention drawn to myself, #2 if it's a dumb idea i don't want to have attention drawn to myself and #3 if it *is* a good idea i still don't want attention drawn to myself #4) if it acts as an insult to them i wouldn't want them to know who did it. i think highly of these women and i don't want to insult them, but we need some ideas. i've seen some good ideas here. i know money is limited, what they can do is limited, and time is limited, so it is no small feat to come up with different ways to entertain these people (not that they have to be entertained every day) but i think some fresh ideas would be great. i know the a/d patients color with crayons and there is an old farmer with severe a/d and they give him toy tractors to play with, and i understand this is about all those people have that they can relate to at this point. but we have some really sharp ones who would definitely benefit from more stimulating and sophisticated activities. i'll admit i'm not a very sophisticated person so i'm looking for ideas to give them.

I've basically just worked in a nursing home since I've been a nurse (the lowest of the low as far as prestige goes) and it was good enough to get me accepted into a FNP program. You won't have any trouble.