elavalley3

-Usually come in around 15-30 minutes early depending if I'm mentoring a new LPN. -Get at assignments and ADL sheets ready for the incoming CNA's notation any FYI's such as behaviors or family concerns as well as any samples I need along with contact precautions if any. - Count narcotics - Bye 1500 We would do walking rounds checking for cleanliness of rooms, shower, and to make sure all patients were accounted for and alive. Check status of pumps for feedings and IV's -1510 Making VS, TX, specimen lists printing shift reports for intake, hydration, and behaviors all of which help fill in the blanks if you follow a horrible lpn. -1515 Do VS for my focus charting and abx patients, followed by specimen collection. -1530 Preparing for 1600 medpass, such as juice, water, pudding, applesauce etc. -1540 Prime feeding bags and prepare IV medications to be hung that medpass -1600 Get Blood Glucose levels -1615 Start need pass, taking VS prior to administering certain meds that have parameters such as your cardiac and diuretic meds finishing around 1730-1745 depending on how many interruptions you get. -1800 Assist with meal pass, and then start on charting, taking orders off, calling families with changes in status, medications, and lab results. -1900 Doing another walking round with the CNA and verifying showers, creams, catheter care, and HS care was planned out and began. -1945 Obtain HS blood glucose levels. -2000 Start HS medication pass and hand out HS snacks. Finishing around 2045-2100 -2100 Finish charting and then assist in finishing up putting residents to bed. From time to time I would have to watch 2-3 residents which were up all night walking about the unit. I worked on a 29 bed alzheimers / dementia unit. I was lucky to have a solid team on my shift as well as the one that preceded me. So me and my partner LPN in the morning as well as the CNA's on both shifts knew the residents and thier idiosyncrasies very well so most nights the evenings flowed very well. Full moons and new behaviors kept it interesting. The RN's were useless most of the time.

I found the ati books to be completely overreaching. When I sat for boards, pretty much none of the information was even closely formatted like ati study guides. I used more of the information I self studied from guides I found on this wonderful site as well as my notes from school. Personally I centered on drug classes/actions and their respective prefixes / suffixes, infection control, patient safety such as standard precautions including required PPE. major lab values calcium, potassium, sodium,BUN, creatinine, hgb, rbc, wbc, hgba1c. And basic floor management such as conflict resolution and proper delegation. That along with just a good solid review of body systems was all that I found helpful in preparing for nclex. Passed my first time with no problem. I know everyone is different but just try and not let the anxiety of the test take over. Remember its a test of aptitude and critical thinking vs pure knowledge. Quite a few questions had a good/better/best answer they are just looking for you to get as close to the best answer as possible. Good luck!

We started with 36, graduated with 12. Lost quite a few in first term during a&p, a few due to clinical errors such as leaving beds in raised positions, or stalking staff nurses lol. And a few more during labor and delivery rotation due to just not keeping up with curriculum and expectations on the floor. All in all I think that my school did a fair job in weeding out those that just chose the wrong career path or were just not ready.

I personally work as an hyperbaric technician /wound nurse. Have done ltc as well.

Urgent care clinics, wound clinics, outpatient clinics all hire LPN in this area of pa.

Study groups in the morning before class and especially before an exam are what got my class through a&p and pharmacology especially . Each person in the group is going to have a system they get better than others do. So it helps to talk out confusing mechanisms or concepts as a group. The endocrine system to this day is not my friend lol. We also would try to find questions in the material and ask them in the group, there were plenty of times where they showed up almost verbatim in our exam. And just make sure you're not over studying. I saw far too many people fail and say " I studied for 10 hours!" break it up in chunks with some distraction in between, I personally would study for 60-90 minutes and then give myself a 30 minute break and go for a walk or watch some tv or listen to some music.

I'll add to this conversation a little. I worked on a 30 bed Alzheimer's /dementia /psychosis unit for a year. I on average had to care for 29 residents with the help of my 2 cna's. I worked for what had to be the worst ran LTC facility in Harrisburg. All that being said, I would not trade the experience for anything. Yeah I had a few days where I was so stressed out that I had to go in my med room and just cry it out for a few minutes and then I was good lol. But that for me was just me learning how to cope with the responsibility of managing my patient load. The job itself taught me impeccable time management and delegation skills. I learned how to monitor my residents for changes in condition, affect, and such. I learned how to tune out distractions and concentrate on alarms, disruptions, and such. As well as how to utilize my staff so that I had eyes and ears everywhere. I came into nursing with no preconceptions, I knew what kind of nurse I wanted to be. I take the responsibility of caring for our elderly very seriously. And this came across in my leadership style as a charge nurse on my unit. You have to be in the trenches so to speak working as a team with your ancillary staff. You'd be amazed at the progress you get when your staff knows that you will shower someone, change them if they had a bit of incontinence, etc. You are in control of that floor for your 8 12 or sometimes 16 hr shift . You have to set your expectations early and be consistence and most importantly you have to show your staff you care and will accept nothing less from them than to provide the patients with dignified care they deserve. I guess to summarize, it is all what you make of it. Nursing isn't any easier after you get your RN. Your still going to have to deal with stress and heavy patient loads no matter where you are in the spectrum of ltc/medsurg. Master those skills that are going to allow you to become an amazing nurse. I've seen far to many new grads come into the profession with rose colored glasses and rice paper for skin and just walk away. You have to take the good with the bad and roll with it. Also... There are other options out there for us lpns. I have a good bit of my class start in LTC and transition into pediatric home health (trach/vent/medically fragile) cases and they absolutely love the one on one pt care they get to give. I myself work as a hyperbaric technician /wound nurse in a outpatient clinic setting where I get to see people heal improve vs decline. There are plenty of clinic and doctor office positions or there as well. Just have to be diligent in searching for the opportunities. Good luck with your studies, the first semester and a half I think are the worst cause your still getting your foundation and thought process in place. But you'll have that moment when everything starts clicking.. Care plans will be a breeze, you'll start learning s/S you need to be looking for with confidence and diligence. Just take it all in and try not to be self critical :-D

studystack.com is a good site if you wana flash card style review.

Your instructors are going to pre-screen your mothers to make sure they are ok with a male student so you need not feel awkward. Remember you are there to learn some very interesting and important skills. Your interaction with the mother is a very superficial and casual one at best when you are the nursing student. In my own experience the mother I was assigned to questioned me relentlessly about why I chose nursing , if I liked the L&D aspect of it etc. She was perfectly fine with me straight cathing her ( with all 8 ofer family members watching me lol ) and she was 100% ok with me and my classmate witnessing her lady partsl birth. I too was very nervous about L&D but you just got to put your nurse hat on so to speak and get the job done. On a funny note I remember doing Nursery with 14 babies , I have never seen so many angry little humans in my life rofl. So CHIN UP and DO IT cause it is all worth it in the end.

I broke it down to 11 more mondays I have to get up and then 9 more and then single digits as wel go...... I just finished my program this afternoon and I can for one tell you the end is closer than you know. Just keep your head up high , keep that focus and fend off senioritis as long as possible!

I myself just finished my LPN program and in my experiences on clinical I have never seen any discrimination based on my sex. Sure, I had patients every now and again that would request a female to provide their cares. But being respectful , introducing yourself and talking with them most of them had changed their minds and let me take care of them. For some of the older generation its just not what they are used to. Now I cannot say what LPN's make in LA , salary.com is a good resource for that. I do know , however, here in PA LPN's make anywhere from 19-32/hr depending on what setting you choose to go into. In most areas Long Term Care and Agency PerDiem work tends to bring in the most dollars if you're lucky enough to get in with a good reputable Home Health agency you can make some good dollars as well.Hospitals and Clinics in my area either dont pay well enoough or do not let you practice within your scope. I for one did not go to school to be a glorified CNA, no offencse meant to the hardworking CNA's out there.

The online practive tests have all the same info in the full proctored test. Just asked in a different way as to not give you the answers outright. They are there to let you learn the information no matter how the question is phrased.

Honestly the dots will not start connecting till end of second beginning of third term. jusr concentrate on abslrbing the infkrmation now. the info will start making sense before you know it.

Well I can tell you one thing for sure, I am about to finish my program here in 9 days. I have had nothing but positive reactions to me being a male in this profession.... The field needs caring people be they male or female. If you get gruff along the way meh whatever its thier ignorance int he long run. Keep your head up!

I too was wondering the same thing, I am due to start classes in March of 11 and wanted to try and transition into CNA as easily as possible to both get some patient care practice as well as get my foot in the door somewhere. I am in the state of PA. If anyone has any info please let me know!!