studentbecominganurs

Agreed. I know someone who works at SickKids and I'm pretty sure Sickkids does not hire RPNs. When I had my placement at Bloorview last year, the RPN told me that she wanted to do the bridging program so she could work at SickKids.

Oh i see. thanks for explaining. please excuse my ignorance :) I had no idea but good to know.

id say start working for a bit until you have some debt paid off and then start. You're only 24. I'm 27 and I just graduated as an RN. I've heard stories from friends about wanting to pay off their OSAP loan (from their undergrad and second degree) and all I can say that it is not looking good for them. Yes, it's important to get your RN degree but it can wait. Plus you have no kids so there's no rush. I do understand that ideally you'd like to do it now since you have no kids. But would you want to accumulate that debt? Honestly I am so lucky that after I graduated from my undergrad BSc degree (paid for by my parents), I worked for 2 years saving enough money before I went back for a 2nd degree in Nursing BscN. Yes, I delayed a few years but I have NO STUDENT LOANS. I am proud to say that I am DEBT free but I am also very thankful that my parents paid for my first degree. I paid for my second degree with all the money that I saved up!!!

Im just curious, how are you allowed to write the CPNRE and CRNE in the same year? If you're an RPN, dont you have to do at least 2 years bridging before you can write the CRNE??? I'm confused.

I wrote the exam in Feb and I would say that there are lots of patho questions. You really need to know your patho. For those who said lots of psychosocial, I would say more patho but again im better at psychosocial then patho. You get a bunch of case studies and then the rest independent. There's always patho in those case studies and patho in independent questions. I only focused on patho when i studied and I passed but again if youre the kind thats having trouble with psychosocial then focus on psychosocial.

"The CNO is not on your side when you want a 4th attempt, they will give you %0 advice on how to go forward after you failed. They just don't care. My friend had to go through all this and even with medical proof, it was a long struggle for her because the CNO will do everything in their power not to give you that 4th attempt." Well, not to be rude or anything and no way do i mean to offend anyone but just like what someone said, if you fail three times, maybe you should really think about your study strategies/method and whether you are ready or not. Even with a fourth attempt, who knows if it'll work to your advantage. If you look at the website, i think it says you are only allowed three attempts so I wouldn't be surprised if they denied you a fourth attempt. Its only fair. For those who failed it, I really think it's your study method or how you looked at the questions. If you are allowed a fourth attempt, take it to a prep course instructor or even your nursing instructor and see what you can do about it. Good luck

From what I heard, if you have a legitimate reason, they will let you write the exam the fourth time. I'm not too sure but this is what I heard from a girl that took a prep course with me. It was her third time writing it.

Hi all for those who are studying for the June CRNE. My advice is to think about how you study best. How do you study that guarantees you good marks? Think of a course that you did well on and how did you prepare for that? Then that is the way to go. Dont overthink questions, don't go above and beyond and waste money taking those $1000 courses. TOTALLY NOT WORTH it. If you study best with friends, do that. If you're fine alone, do that. MAKE SURE you stay focus and set goals. i.e get this done by this date. Good luck

Congrats!

hi fairy_c hows your studying coming along? do you feel like you know more than the first time you studied? hope its going well. good luck and dont forget to take break when needed

i started in a clinic too. honestly at this point i dont care much about skills or bedside. i dont want to kill myself or my back for doing nightshifts.. no offense to anyone but my body is a lot weaker so i wouldnt be able to take it if i did bedside. i guess the down side for me is my bedside skills arent the greatest like iv but im also not in my early 20s so im not thinking about learning all the time. im at the age where im ready to get married settle down and start a family so bedside is not really an option for me. if youre worried about your iv skills then working in a clinic youre not gonna do much but i agree with others its more relaxed and routine. you get to know the docs better than on a unit doing bedside.

Sorry to hear about that. Dont give up! Take a few days to reflect and stand back on your feet! We forumers (no such word) support you!

Hi fairy_C Sorry for the late reply. I was never good at patho or med surg. In nursing school, I almost failed the med surg course. What I did for the CRNE was, I read the med surg book over and over and over again until i started to remember things without intentionally memorizing it. I hate memorizing too and trust me, you can pass without memorizing everything. BUT OF COURSE the lab values you should know (Potassium, Sodium, USG). and dont worry, i did not read the whole book. I read pages on the diseases. It worked for me. I just kept reading the same few pages on Acute/Chronic Renal Failure, COPD, Asthma, Heart Failure, MI, Diabetes and I passed! I didn't really study/read Stroke but I would suggest understanding the basics about stroke. I would also suggest reading Cystic Fibrosis, Liver Cirrhosis and Fluid & Electrolyte Balance because there were questions. Know your ABGs! and study Maternity! If you don't have a good foundation, i would suggest going back to your maternity textbook because thats what i did. What you want to do now is focus on reading the med surg and patho textbook until you understand the disease. Focus on one topic at a time for instance, start with diabetes, read 5 pages of diabetes in one day and then read a smaller topic like hip fracture and then the next day read diabetes again and Sodium (less pages) until you understand diabetes. Third Day, back to diabetes. Try to spend 3-5 days on one disease until you FULLY understand the disease, thats when you know to move on to the next disease. BUT don't forget to go back to diabetes (a brief review) so you don't forget what you studied! I would suggest reviewing it once a week to refresh your memory. And try doing some questions to see if you understand the disease. Try to do questions on the weekends. But for now, start studying 3-5 hours a day and then add more hours. By May you should be spending 6-8 hours a day studying/reviewing. Don't forget to do practice questions. I remember seeing a few exam questions from the practice questions that i did somewhere. I don't remember where. When I had time, I did the Mosby Practice Questions from the Comprehensive Review and the Practice Book. I also used Lippincott but I did Lippincott in the beginning and stopped because I couldn't borrow it anymore from the library. If you ever get sick of reading the med surg textbook, read Potter and Perry. Don't read the whole book. I picked and chose topics like ABGs, Braden Scale, Chest Tubes etc. When you get bored of reading, you can also youtube videos on heart disease to understand the patho. That helped me too but make sure you don't spend time youtubing other non relevant videos! I find watching youtube videos helped QUITE A LOT too and it's more enjoyable than sitting down for hours studying because it gave me the basic understanding so when I read the patho book, it made sense to me! Good luck!

I'm from ontario and I got it yesterday. Another girl got it yesterday too.

I also used the CRNE Prep Guide from CNA and Potter and Perry, though I did not read the whole textbook. Always go back to Potter and Perry!