xonursej

You do not really get to pick which time you major nursing class is. I am in my first year, took some nur classes over summer and this is my schedule: Monday Lecture 8AM-12 NOON Wednesday LAB 9-4 PM Clinical does not start until October so i do not know how that is going to be. This is NUR 111, the first major course. it is about 16 weeks long I believe and so far I have only read 2 chap. for the first week and 2 chap for the second week. We have a quiz every other week and you should also account for time that you will need to go to open lab to practice with the equipment they have. There was only one lecture section that everyone is and only one time. For lab, you either went wednesday or thursday and could not pick unless someone happened to switch with you. I dont know how your program will be, but if I had not taken 2 classes during the summer my schedule would have looked like this: Monday Lecture from 8-12 and 1-4 Tues. Lab 9-4 Wednesday Lab 9-4 Usually the other non major nursing courses are split into 8 week sections so your major course would be 16 weeks and then the first 8 weeks of the semester you have one class and the second 8 weeks of the semester you have another class. Hope that helped!

I would keep the EMT class. It can be valuable for getting a job, experience. I got mine in high school while taking 3 other courses so I know how it feels and the EMT was a 4 month course in case you are wondering. It will be ok as long as the info sticks. For me it did b/c I was so interested in it. I have been working in a hospital for almost 2 years as well as an ER tech and my EMT training got me that job. I have learned so much and I am comfortable helping pt and it helps you to not be as nervous in nursing school for clinical. Also, say you want to become a flight nurse one day. Guess what you need? EMT-Basic certification! It is very useful and helpful to you as a nurse as well. And the certification lasts 4 years so you wont have to renew it. If you cant take the EMT course now, I would take it later after your pre-reqs are completed. But do what you feel is right and do not overwhelm yourself.

Dont be discouraged! Your scores should get better as you go through the program and become more accustomed to the design of the exam. As you develop critical thinking skills it will become easier for you. To study, one thing that I do for each chapter is make an outline of the chapter. I make sure to write down important terms and any important info I need to know so that I can easily study. I also highlight in the book to. What I would do is read the chapter once and highlight. Then go back through the chapter again and make an outline with page references. To study, I look over my outlines, run through the book a couple of times, study flash cards for terms, study ppt's, and I also use the study guide that comes with my book as a pre-quiz. A good way to remember and understand things is to teach other, whether it be your child, spouse or even your dog! I also use either studyblue.com or Mnemosyne mac app to make flashcards, it takes much less time than writing out notecards. I just copy the terms from my outline onto the virtual flashcards. You can get studyblue on your ipod touch or smart phone as an app and study anywhere. Another good app to use to study is dropbox so you can save pdf files to your phone or ipod. A lot of times they will have lecture and tests the same day at my school and sometimes I am able to pre-read, but not all the time. I would focus on studying.

EMS and nursing have a lot of differences. I am in nursing school right now, but I received my EMT-B in high school. I loved it! EMS is more life saving interventions and more fast paced and YOU make all the decisions. Nursing, you pretty much follow orders from the MD and things go a lot slower since you care for the pt over an extended period of time. As a medic, you can intubate a patient, where as in the ER only a MD can do that! Nurses do not even learn how to do that. EMT's learn how to look at a patient and tell what is going on quickly and fix it, nurses may need more time to learn this b/c usually pt look a little better by the time they reach the hospital. Something I have noticed in the ER is that nurses do things a bit differently. For instance. If someone is unconscious or AMS, I would put oxygen on them ASAP. Some of the nurses I work with wait a little bit and assess and I am not sure why...The nurses who were EMT's before do the same thing I would. Its like the others are afraid to use oxygen or something and that scares me... In EMS, we also tend to use higher o2 L to. We use a lot of 4L NC or NRB at 15 L but in the ER they tend to use 2L on NC and consistantly use lower o2 L for some reason. You have to block out your EMT learning and learn the nursing process which is pretty different. My boyfriend is studying EMT-B and he asks me questions and I want to help but I am learning a new process and I feel like I would mess him up and tell him the nursing way. You have to do what you feel is right for you. If you like EMS better, advance in that field, because nursing is a little different. One thing that I would consider for you is becoming a paramedic or flight medic or maybe become a nurse in a trauma center. I like the EMS employment benefits because it is much less stress involved. I work in the ER as a tech and boy is it CRAZY! In EMS, you can bond more easily with your coworkers and it is a little more laid back, depending where you work of course.

One thing that I do for each chapter is make an outline of the chapter. I make sure to write down important terms and any important info I need to know so that I can easily study. I also highlight in the book to. What I would do is read the chapter once and highlight. Then go back through the chapter again and make an outline with page references. To study, I look over my outlines, run through the book a couple of times, study flash cards for terms, study ppt's, and I also use the study guide that comes with my book as a pre-quiz. A good way to remember and understand things is to teach other, whether it be your child, spouse or even your dog! I also use either studyblue.com or Mnemosyne mac app to make flashcards, it takes much less time than writing out notecards. I just copy the terms from my outline onto the virtual flashcards. You can get studyblue on your ipod touch or smart phone as an app and study anywhere. Another good app to use to study is dropbox so you can save pdf files to your phone or ipod. A lot of times they will have lecture and tests the same day at my school and sometimes I am able to pre-read, but not all the time. I would focus on studying.

I would say its physically possible to go back a week after birth, but you are not going to want to. You will want to spend time with your new child and bond. You could even get postpartum depression from not spending much time with your child. Another thing, if you are breastfeeding you will have to worry about breast pumping every 4 or more hours as needed. Also worry about bleeding/d/c. You may be worn out. It depends on your tolerance for things really. I would at least plan to have a child that is due sometime during a break. You should AT THE VERY LEAST take 2 weeks off.

I start this summer and for ASN we have 4 semesters. I chose to start early in the summer, we did not have to start until the fall. I am taking 3 classes this summer, one this fall and spring 2012. Then I have to take 2 classes the last two semesters. The classes this summer are 3 credits total.

I wish urgent care centers were affiliated with hospitals so that the ER could deal with real emergencies. Any toothaches, colds, etc could go there while the ER can do its job. When there is a real emergency everyone is going to have to wait and it clogs the system because you have so many people now a days going to the ER for low urgency things. Some people even come well baby check ups. Maybe it is just me, but it would make things a whole lot easier if people knew how to tell from an emergency and something a fam physician can treat. FYI never ever go to urgent care for abd pain, 9/10 you will be coming to the ER for another bill.

We usually have a triage nurse asses and assign an acuity before they are assigned a bed so we can determine how serious the matter is. If there is a chest pain, we have to do an EKG within 15 minutes and sometimes it is so busy and chaotic that it becomes a mess. When its really busy, the docs will order things and want us to do them in triage. Its crazy trying to do labs and what not while quick reg. patients. They expect things to be done within so many minutes and it gets to be stressful when its busy because you have to repeat vital signs every hour and so basically you never get a break to even sit down for a second and breathe. Then people get angry with you because people go before them and this and that, but they do not realize that their are people who are sometimes sicker than them and need to get back asap. Frankly, if you are waiting in an ER you should be thankful because the people going back immediately are really sick.

Also, in cases where there are NO rooms available for EMS/ambulance patients, we triage them and put them in the waiting room as well if they are low acuity. If they need to be moved immediatly to the bed, we can take a pt out of the room and make a hall bed and put the ems patient in the room.

I work in a hospital where the first contact is a tech and they get the pt info, why they are here, and then they get vitals. They then call the triage nurse and they come out and triage them near the waiting room in a private area. This is just basic info, nothing too detailed. The charge nurse or triage nurse assigns pt's to rooms as they come available. All patients are triaged and given a priority level which tells us who will be the next to come back. For instance, if there is a level 2 (high acuity/urgency) that just got here and there are other lower urgency patients, the level 2 goes back FIRST. This may make people upset, but its how the ER works.

Yea we had the lab thing to. We used cats for ours and she put tooth picks in them and we had to identify what it was. I remember that but I think you will do fine this time. I am just waiting to hear back from other places now...I hate the waiting game ugh

And taking once will help you I think. You will have most of it down any way. Just make sure you remember it because you use it a lot in nursing. I know for where I work I have to use it, just not to an advanced extent.

Yea thats true. When are you applying to reynolds, for spring? I think I might apply for fall for Reynolds but IDK, I am tired of applying ugh I thought I would be done with this in high school!

I had to take anatomy like three times in high school lol. the first time was the regular course just for fun, then I had some of it for my emt class, then i took it as dual enrollment for college credit. My cum. GPA was a 3.8 but my pre req GPA was a 4.0. I hope I get in somewhere ugh