Guest463066

I worked as a care partner for 2 years in the same OR I ended up accepting an internship position in. The manager actually told me that he preferred it when applicants had fewer questions. His opinion was that more questions mean you didn't do your homework about the facility or program. I'm not 100% sure I agree with that, but make sure you dont ask anything that you can get from their website. - Ask about call and self-scheduling. - Ask if you will be required to join a "specialty team" or if you will be floating to all specialties - Ask about committees within the unit, if that is something you would be interested in joining - Ask about who will actually be orienting you during the internship. Do they put new people with experienced orienters or a warm body. OR are there travelers in the environment that could be teaching you? Some people are horrible teachers. - My hospital requires ALL new nurses to participate in a year-long simultaneous Nurse Residency Program. This coupled with a 6 month OR internship and 3 additional months of team orientation was annoying to say the least.. Maybe you could ask if a hospital NRP is in place and if it is required. This post might be coming late, but thats my 2 cents.

Central Virginia....we get $5 per hour of call. Once we get called in it is regular pay, unless we are in overtime or night/weekend pay. If we do get called in and they don't end up needing us or are there less than 2 hours, we get paid automatically for 2 hours.

I am currently enrolled in Perio 101 in my OR internship. Current pricing is over $700. Although the class itself is comprised of online modules and readings in 2 textbooks, the clinical portion is strongly reccomended by AORN. If you do get accepted into an internship most likely the periop 101 course will be integrated into it. My internship is 6-7 months long. The first month is straight didactic with online Periop 101 modules, skills labs, observations, and guest speakers. The next 6 months will be all clinical, including scrub and circulating rotations in all service specialties. After the clinical portion, the Periop 101 final is taken. Without the clinical portion, the modules dont come together as well. Personally, I don't think having taken Periop 101 prior to application will help you much. However joining AORN and attending conferences may show interest to future employers. My hospital has 2 internships a year.

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. I was referring to the MCI in Richmond, VA. My friend has a friend that just graduated from MCI (before they lost accreditation) and was worried about finding a job since she was coming from a now unaccredited school. As far as their clinical placement, I was told by MCI students that were visiting my floor that they usually only have placement in nursing homes. This was for the RN students! They said how excited they were that they got to go to a hospital for placement that semester. However, based on their below-par performance, the Nursing Director of Medicine (who was my prof last semester) no longer allows them placement at our hospital.

My mom works for Sentara and has told me that their HR department is not the best in terms of communication turnover. You should probably shoot the nurse recruiter an e-mail to get your name fresh in their minds.

Do not go to MCI. As of 2-3 months ago they are no longer accredited. Even though you can still sit for the NCLEX after graduation, you will NOT be able to continue your education any further. So if you eventually want your bachelors, your credits will not transfer and you will have to start from scratch. The nurses they put out are not as high quality as other institutions as well 9I'm saying this as a generalization). My hospital will not allow them to do clinicals here, and many others wont either. This is a very important factor to consider.

I have my interview on Wednesday. I am getting so nervous, but so excited at the same time. Crazy to think that in a little over a month we all will know if we are in or not! ....hopefully we are in :)

I got my email at 5:07 EST UPS'ed my packet a week before deadline applied (and got an interview) to the critical care track Last name starts with an M anyway, i'm super stoked. Vandy is my #1 choice. Now I have to start interview prep!

I got an interview!!! :)

You will get a confirmation e-mail when they have received your packet. The e-mail said that they would be contacting us about the next steps the second week in February.

That is really soon, and those numbers are actually a lot more encouraging then I thought they would be.

Oh my, I'm gonna have to do some serious interview prep if it takes that long! Wow. I just put my application in the mail yesterday, and it should be there by Friday :) My friend that also applied said that she got an email with a confirmation of receipt, which is pretty comforting to know. I'm so nervous, but there is nothing else I can do. I hope I get an interview!

lovelymo: She wrote in the last paragraph that she highly recommended her...but the entire letter highlighted a bunch of negative points... she said she had a bad attendance record (when she is constantly working overtime as an hourly employee and comes in at the drop of a hat), avoids conflict, and has bad interpersonal skills. She thought that person would be a good reference letter, but some nurses on her unit told her some horror stories so she opened it to see. Apparently that unit has a high turnover rate and the NM goes to great lengths to keep all staff on the unit (i.e. writes bad reference letters and places interdepartmental transfer blocks). Needless to say, she isn't using the reference and asked someone else. I'm from Virginia. :)

I have my rec letters already, so that's one thing off my plate. OH...I know this is kind of a "duh" thing, but make sure you ask people that you are 100% sure will write you a good letter. One of my friends, who is also applying asked her Nurse Manager (who was also one of her clinical instructors once upon a time). She had good evals at work and what not, so she figured the rec would be good. Luckily she opened it because although the NM said she highly recommended her, the letter was absolutely HORRIBLE! Where is everyone from?

I'm applying for the critical care track, but I've heard that it is the most competitive....it makes me nervous because I feel like my resume is unremarkable. How important do y'all think volunteer work is? Do you think if we have a lot of work hours it will make up for no volunteer work? I haven't even started my letter of intent, I am hoping to get it done next week, just in time for my transcript to be ready for pick up. I've been writing down little things that I want to include in it and I think it will end up being around 2 pages? Is that too long. I don't want to write too much to where it is boring, but I don't want to leave anything out either!