earthflower

I am thinking about applying to Norton Audubon and Baptist East. To the nurse who has worked agency, what did you think of Baptist East? Are the nurse-patient ratios at these 2 hospitals ok? I am used to 5 med-surg patients. Thanks!!!

You need to check out the "distance learning" section in the student nursing forums. They have all kinds of dicussions about Excelsior.

Good luck on your test today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will do great! It's a hard test, but everyone always does better than they think they do. I just found out 2 hours ago I passed, and I was *seriously* convinced I had failed the whole thing. Keep us posted.:)

Yay!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations ****RN****XeniGirl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WooooHoooo! :):balloons::roll:beercuphe:smokin::yelclap::cheers::smiley_aa I took my PN boards the same day as you, and I just found out I passed too! I have been torturing myself and my poor husband for 48 hours. I'm getting ready to go drink a beer and I don't care if it's not even 3:00 yet!!!! I'm so happy I feel like dancin' all day...

I took the test yesterday and hated it! I thought is was alot different than questions from my Saunders book. I had about 15 priority questions where 4 people have horrible things wrong with them and you are supposed to pick the pt. you would check on first. It seemed I could narrow most of my questions down to 2 and then I would have to guess. I got a ton of TB questions for some reason, really weird herb/ food interactions and random drug questions. The calculations were easy, but mine were fill in the blank. I also got a ton of maternity and peds stuff, not my strong point! After taking the test I realized it is hard to prepare for. I did my Saunders book and the 3,000 practice questions, but some of the questions on the test were like out of left field. I got all A's in school and always felt confident about tests until this one... I find out how I did tomorrow.

I don't see why you couldn't become an LPN. I suggest you call your state nursing board and ask them, I'm sure they have dealt with situations like this before. Good luck!

I am a new graduate in KY and I just got offered a hospital position for $13. It's 3rd shift too, so the pay doesn't seem at all great. But I have no experience, so I'm guessing this is normal? I accepted the position anyway, it seems like a great unit and I will get tons of med-surg and oncology exp.

Hey there girl! Congratulations on graduating! I'm a new LPN myself and was wondering if I would ever get a job too. I don't have any nursing experience besides clinicals but I do have experience working with special needs, which I list on my cover letter and resume. What is in the first paragragh of your cover letter? I have found that beginning my cover letter with the words "In the last year I have gained nursing experience through various clinical rotations and preceptorships" is good, because right away the person skimming cover letter sees the words "year" and "experience" together. It is just a small word association, but those can go a long way. Make sure you are using strong words and strong sentences and really pointing out your good points in your cover letter. I had been hearing "year of experience" for the last two months, but I finally managed to get an interview at a local hospital who are just beginning to hire some LPN's. It turned out that the "required" year wasn't as important as the nursing manager getting to know me and finding out about other experiences I have besides nursing. I talked up my experience working with special needs people, and she really responded to that. I also made sure to say during the interview that I really wanted to work at that particular hospital and how much I appreciated being considered. I ended up getting the job and I never though I'd get a hosptal job as a new grad. You have to be persistant. Dont call places asking if they are hiring. Just show up with your resume and cover letter and ask if there is anyone you can speak to. Sometimes you can fax them to hospitals, but if you do that make sure you follow up a day later with a phone call. Good luck!! I know it's hard. I 've been finished with classes for 2 months and I just now found my job. I just really didn't want LTC. Keep us posted.

I live in Kentucky, and I'm actually noticing a trend of phasing "in" LPNs in hospitals. I just graduated and interviewed with a major hospital today, and not only do they have around 12 new openings just for LPNs, but they are also willing to hire some new graduates. I'm so excited and just am praying I get one of the positions, because it would be so awesome to get hospital experience right out of LPN school.

I don't know what kind of experiences Indiananurse had, but I do not recommend them either. I just graduated from the LPN program and there were a grand total of 3, yes 3, of us in the graduating class from our original class of over 50. The other 5 students were made up of repeaters and night students who failed the first time. Tons of drama with this place! I don't want to get into specifics online, but the school's got several issues. I heard from the board of nursing they are getting ready to be shut down... big shock. I too am at a loss for where to go for my RN.

Yes, that's true. I can really see both sides of this issue. This can also be very, very frustrating to students as well. I finished up my last clinical rotation at a hospital a couple of months ago, and our clinical instructor had each of us divided into "teams" which comprised of treatment team, med team, and patient care team. So instead of getting the benefits of providing total care to a select group of patients, we had tons of different students going into and out of the poor patients' rooms all day, along with the RN who had to do anything IV since we were only LPN students. What you get is a patient care provider who only gets to give baths, toilet, and answer call lights all day long, and other people giving meds and doing treatments on a whole hall of patients they don't know anything about. Of course the nurses were getting frustrated with us since there were so many different students assigned to each patient. It really was awful. Nurses were constantly coming up to us asking simple questions that we should have been able to give a quick answer to, like "how much urine output did so-n-so have?" or "what did the drainage look like on so-n-so's dressing?" and we would have to say, "Um, I'm just the med nurse for that patient today" or "I really don't know but I can go find out for you" when of course they don't have time for you to go hunting for all the other people taking care of this one patient. Being the med nurse, we had to get the vitals ourselves for any meds that we passed, which is fine, but the patient care team were expected to get their own vitals too. I got yelled at by 2 patients who complained that someone had just gotten their vitals moments ago, and I had to calmly try to explain "Yes, but we're students, and I'm supposed to take them again because I'm giving your meds, blah blah blah".:stone Nobody likes that many people going into and out of their rooms constantly. And we finally did complain after a couple weeks of this, but were told it's "part of the 4th quarter program" and that we needed to do it that way to learn "team nursing". I'm so glad to be done with that school and out of the program! I ended up learning a lot at my preceptorship, and that taught me more about team nursing than anything at clinical did, lol.

OMG that is completely outrageous! She will get a rude awakening when she gets out of school and treats co-workers like that. I wonder where that leaves me... I'm graduating with my LPN and plan on working in a hospital while I'm going to school for my RN. I wonder what the RN students will say about me?

Thanks everyone who replied! I finish this week, and luckily I have had a really great and understanding preceptor so I was able to get through it all okay. I'm glad for the experience now that it's over, but I definitely know I will not be working in LTC even if it does pay great. Well, now all that's left to do is study for boards!

I am also interested in Norton, specifically Norton Suburban. Anyone know what new grad pay is, for an LPN and an RN? thanks!

Hey everyone. I am in LPN school, and I began my preceptorship at a longterm care center this week. The patient load for each nurse is between 25 to 27 residents, depending on the wing. At first I thought that there is no way that I will be expected to take so many patients since other students who were placed in hospitals or rehab units have a patient load of maybe 5 to 7. But I've since learned that by next week I'm expected to take over my preceptors shift, which means doing med passes and treatments for at least 25 residents. And I am on the skilled unit as well, so all my patients have quite a bit going on. I am sorta panicky about this, because this week I got half of her patient load, and it seriously took me all day just with 13 patients, working my butt off to get everything done. And I still had to stay after doing paperwork. All these people take tons of meds and with the 3 med-checks I'm required to do, plus hunting patients down, it takes me from 8 to 11 just to do accuchecks, insulin, and all the morning meds, let alone any assessments, treatments, or charting. Thank goodness there are fewer afternoon meds. And there are always labs to check on and tons of stuff has to get faxed to the MDs on a regular basis. Half the time I'm running all over the place looking for these patients to give them their meds or treatments. It is a large facility with tons of activities going on all the time, which is great for the residents, but terrible for me when I'm struggling with time. I'm thinking there is no way I can handle a load double this size. I'm watching nurses run around, who don't have any time for their patients, and who barely do one med-check, which is unsafe. Treatments are done in a frenzied hurry and nothing is sterile, not even wet to dry dressing changes. This is all so different than what I'm used to in the hospital. Granted, I was always busy with my 5 patients, but I never felt like I had so much to do I was unsafe. I know that longterm care is different in that you get a larger patient load, but 20 more patients... my God! I don't want to fail my preceptorship because of not getting all my work done. Please send some words of encouragement or advice! thanks :)

Next semester we will be doing psychiatric clinicals and I am just wondering what to expect. If you've done psych clinicals could you share your experiences? I guess out of all the areas of nursing, I'm least confident about these clinicals... what kinds of things will I do?

I couldn't find an RN program in my city that didn't have a super long waiting list, so I'm attending a school that does the LPN-RN bridge. I'm really happy with my choice because I'll be able to work as a nurse after only a year of school, and then go for my RN part-time. It's also the most economical way for me to do it.