akulahawkRN

This is probably what's holding you back. While I don't have a concrete answer for you, know that usually the actual test questions will be "easier" than the prep questions you take from all those resources. There aren't any trick questions in the actual exam. So you can basically take all the questions at face value. Don't overthink it. This isn't all you need to do, of course. You must bring all your knowledge and critical thinking and prioritizing to bear when answering the questions. Remember often you're given a wrong answer, a somewhat correct answer, a reasonably correct answer and a most correct answer. You should be able to pick out the first two easily. Then the difference between the last two often comes down to what both answers the question AND either what's safest or is the priority thing to do. What I also did was I would read the question, get an idea what the question is asking me, then I would read ALL the answers and then (this is crucial) I would go back and re-read the question keeping ALL the answers in mind. Then I would answer the question. This is because sometimes I would realize I misread the question and the answer I would have chosen perfectly answered the misread question in the way I had misread it. The repeat reading of the question AFTER reading all the answers sometimes both catches the misread AND makes the most appropriate correct answer blatantly obvious. This IS methodical. It helps you break down the question into something you can properly digest and answer because you have the time to do it. The last thing I would do is once I'd answered the question, and submitted it, I would let it go and move on to the next one because the last question no longer matters (I've answered it) and the one after this one also doesn't matter because it's not set yet. Only the question in front of me matters until I have answered it. You've seen this now 4 times. The exam isn't a surprise to you now. Don't forget that an exam of this type will often feel like you've just taken the hardest exam you've ever taken. Since you're done with school, you have all the knowledge you need to pass. Knowledge shouldn't be the problem.

I would think that the answer is blindingly simple. Continuous pulse oximetry monitoring means that pulse oximetry is being continuously monitored and changes/alarms can be immediately detected and responded to. Glancing every 30 minutes isn't continuous. Every every 5 or 15 minutes isn't continuous if that is only how often the monitor is actually checked. If the facility cannot actually do continuous pulse oximetry, then the providers need to be made aware of this. Their orders may need to be modified to match the reality of the situation but if continuous pulse ox monitoring is needed, a facility or floor that can actually do it is necessary for patient safety and such a patient needs to be there.

I would say that as long as the shadowing is an approved activity for you to do and you're doing the shadowing as your local program (whatever that may be) says you should be doing it, you're not going to get into trouble for the activity. The fact that you alerted your compliance people about the activity, even after the fact, is at least a means for you to explain you being logged into the network and accessing patient charts "off the clock." You're being shown where certain specific department/unit stuff "lives" in the system and the most accurate way for you to see how it is presented to your account is to see it in a live environment. The data/info doesn't matter... but how to get there does. Of course, you're still held to privacy rules just as if you were on shift and accessing charts. Now if the shadowing was informal and not an approved/accepted activity at your facility, then you might have a problem.

At ARC, just like SCC, and Sac State, there is an alternate list. They will notify you if you made it onto either list. Usually not all students admitted to the program will accept the offer so that's why they have that alternate list. Not all students on the alternate list will be admitted and they may or may not tell you exactly where you are on the alternate list. That being said, if you're on the alternate list and you're offered a seat, consider taking that seat if you haven't been accepted elsewhere. Rarely they may run out of alternates too so it is possible to not get an admission notice initially but then get one a couple weeks after the notices went out. That would be because they still have open seats... only after they've filled all the seats with students that have accepted the invite might they actually send out an email saying you weren't selected this time. Also know that unless your application indicates that you were not qualified, you ARE qualified for entry so don't beat yourself up if you don't get in.

Caveat for what is to follow: I wasn't a grad of ARC's program I'm an SCC grad. You probably won't get a confirmation email about you accepting the program invite. They will expect that you know you accepted the invite so they don't have to remind you that you accepted. Now then, keep an eye out for some instructional emails to go out as to when and were you must show up for orientation to the program. There's a LOT of stuff they need to go over, including uniform sizing, deadlines for submission of various records (like immunizations and/or BLS certs) and the like. This is all part of the admissions process and you're not likely formally a student in their program until you actually start class in January. You will need to attend this meeting. There is a possiblity you may need to pay for various stuff and they'll also tell you when you will need to pick up a nurse student bundle (for lack of a better way to describe it) that will have your books, lab supplies, and other stuff in it and it is required for all 1st semester students. I'll reiterate this: there will likely be fees you will need to pay before starting your 1st day of class... and pay close attention to deadlines. They matter and it IS part of the process. It's an attention to detail kind of thing. Good luck to all of you who are accepted!

The only thing that I'll add is a reiteration that you MUST MEET ALL REQUIREMENTS OF YOUR STATE'S BOARD OF NURISING. Yes, I know that was in all caps, but some states can have a very specific set of requirements that must be met before they'll allow a candidate to be licensed. California is known to have some very strict requirements such that it can be difficult for foreign and/or non-traditional program grads to get a license in that state unless those/until requirements are met. Many of my RN coworkers are from the Philippines. I have no issues with them at all. If they can do it, so can you!

Essentially, yes. The fact that we're all allowed to criticize and protest (as long as we do it all lawfully) is pf evidence that we're not actually living under some authoritarian ruler. However if you're saying that it's OK to shut down the government in protest of, well, the government, aren't you also saying that the J6 events were OK? After all, when Congress was filled with protesters didn't the events of the day get stopped for a bit? As to government shutdowns, both Republicans and Democrats have been responsible for doing it for political purposes. The only time one can solely blame a particular party would be during time of supermajority and I don't think we've ever seen that in Congress. In some states, yes, but not Congress. I do agree that it is often essential that we challenge each other and our elected officials to keep us all honest and forthright in how we collectively (and through our electeds) decide to keep the US running and how it should be run. That being said, "We The People" don't have any direct impeachment power except when it comes to the ballot box. When it comes to court challenges, one must be very, very careful about this. Once something gets to SCOTUS, it sets precedent for the entire US and SCOTUS doesn't like to overturn anything of precedence without a very good reason to do so. Whatever precedence is set is binding on the lower courts. If the lower courts thumb their nose at SCOTUS enough, the lower courts may not like the result, nor might any prospective litigants in that particular area of law. While some people may not like how SCOTUS leans, we have been at least blessed with a SCOTUS that has been actually quite restrained.

Actually, the US is NOT, strictly speaking, a democracy. That would eventually result in mob rule. It's also not some kind of authoritarian/autocratic form of government either. Every few years the pendulum swings as to which side of the coin is wielding the most power.

A single B grade will not be the cause of you being rejected. There are many excellent programs so in addition to the above advice, I would suggest also applying to other relatively local So Cal programs that generally have NCLEX pass rates that are also high. Being that you're going for a BSN program, your options will be a bit more limited so make sure you're looking at those admissions processes and finding out what they require, what they recommend, how they do their selections (lottery, merit, queue of qualified applicants, etc.) and how they arrive at determining a candidate's qualifications. My ADN program, for example, used prerequisite GPA for a certain points value, the TEAS exam score for some points value, prior healthcare experience/license/certs for some points value, veteran status for some points value, low income for some points value, and so on. Once you met the minimum points value to be considered a "qualified applicant" you were just as "qualified" as someone who "maxxed-out" the points. All qualified applicants were then selected randomly from a single pool. Another program locally here uses a similar system but I think they select the top 50 or so applicants by points and another few become "alternates" and so on. In their case, the lowest GPA of the accepted candidates floats a bit and isn't exactly easy to pin down because GPA isn't the only criteria they use. In my case as an ADN grad, I can "upgrade" to a BSN by attending an online, blended, or in-person program and take the coursework needed. Since I'm already a working RN, there should be minimal (if any) clinical work to be done as BSN is an upgrade and not something I'd need for attaining an RN license.

I would have to say that pursuing the ADN full time while working full-time was not exactly ideal. I think a large part of that is just simply due to the time commitment that is required for full time study and working full time. I have not yet begun to pursue the BSN at this point, mostly because I don't yet feel ready to take on a 2nd Bachelors. I already have a Bachelors and aside from some specific nursing components, I feel like I have already had most of the didactic material. My Bachelors is in an allied healthcare field and included lots of writing, research & statistics, leadership, and the like. All that being said, since I do already have a Bachelors, and an ADN, I would hope that "upgrading" to BSN would be relatively easy, or at least shorter than if I'd never pursued a Bachelors in the first place. ? Yes, it is my future but not at this particular time and if I did, I would probably decide to pursue a Masters degree, possibly to widen some career possibilities in the next few years. Most of my colleagues that have returned to the student life to obtain a Bachelors (most continued in nursing) while working found it to be somewhat time-consuming as they do have to blend their school and work schedules. As online options are fairly common, I do see them working on their personal laptops or ipads/tablets during their breaks just so it's not too overwhelming when they're not actually working. Remember that typically for every "unit" of "classroom" time you're expected to do roughly 3 hours of "homework." That's why 12 units are usually considered full-time... so a part-time semester or quarter schedule becomes the norm and while that can extend the amount of semesters/quarters needed to attain the degree, doing it that way is MUCH less stressful on work life, home life, and any other aspect of personal life you have.

On the whole, I do not see "AI" replacing the bedside nurse in the upcoming few decades. There's just too many tasks that rely on human intervention to accomplish in an appropriate manner. I see AI becoming a virtual assistant to the nurse, RT, and medical provider though. With various medical equipment eventually gaining an AI interface and becoming able to make/recommend certain adjustments based on newly acquired data, the role/duties of the RN, RT, and Provider will end up changing. However, until we have something more akin to a "Bio Bed" from Star Trek available, I don't see an "AutoDoc" being even practical let alone actually possible. Even then, human hands will still be needed to do certain tasks. However, once anti-gravity beds are developed, humans won't be needed much as we'll (literally) float pressure wound prone patients and bed baths will become something more like a car wash today... ? That all being said, having a pump auto-titrate vasoactive meds on a moment-to-moment basis would be a nice thing. Set it up, tell it the rules and let it run... and then you verify that it's doing what it is supposed to do.

I see this at my own hospital. The floor managers or charge nurses sometimes drag their feet in getting admissions. Sometimes it really is them looking for appropriate inpatient orders and looking for appropriateness of a patient to be on that floor/unit. Sometimes it's staffing. Sometimes it's that EVS/Housekeeping can't keep up with cleaning rooms/beds. If they have to move patients around, rooms have to be cleaned because they were occupied. That all takes time. If you've got 3 med-surg patients and a med-surg floor that should have 5 rooms available, being nosy-but-nice can get things moving. It's pretty much a, "hey, I'm sending you 3, what's the hold-up?" I would suggest you should assign patients to beds and let the floors take the responsibility of rejecting the assignment. If the assignment is rejected, the floor charge can explain to the House Sup why the patient assignment was rejected. What's happening is that the floors are steamrolling you, because they can. Any assignment to them that they can delay or avoid means less work/busywork for them right now.

I know of an internal candidate (not me) who was offered a position, last week, in a Sacramento area RN residency program. I will not say who this is nor the position offered to protect anonymity, but be assured that the candidate was an internal. Given what I've read thus far in this thread, it appears Dignity Health did a mass offering of both internal and external applicants. While this can be discouraging, if you haven't found a nursing job, don't stop looking... once you stop, your chances of getting a nursing job become zero. If you've been offered a position, congratulations!

Yes, it IS a different (and litigious) world out there than it used to be (or at least than we remember). I wouldn't say a health professional shouldn't stop and render aid, more that a health professional should recognize the LIMITS of their education and training and render aid if it can be done safely. Yes, I would even counsel physicians NOT to stop and render aid if they cannot do so safely. Remember that EMS personnel are specialists at what they do and work in an arena most other healthcare professionals aren't trained for. FiremedicMike is 100% correct in that in the prehospital world, early bystander CPR and defibrillation makes a HUGE difference in outcomes. He and I probably could go on and on about this topic for a long time...

The vast majority of Registered Nurses that are either fresh out of school OR have just completed a new hire preceptorship do NOT know much more about First Aid measures than the lay person. Yes, they might have BLS/ACLS. Great. Without a monitor, airway equipment, and drugs, ACLS is not going to be very helpful. In the instance of an MVA, outside a specific group of nurses, the RN doesn't have any training in what to do, nothing about scene size up or scene safety, nothing about vehicle stabilization, nothing about patient extrication. Doing the wrong thing can have bad outcomes and if you don't know you did wrong, you can be blindsided by the outcome. I'm not saying one shouldn't get involved. Biggest thing even a new grad can do is call professional rescuers to respond. After that, if you can safely provide care, stick to BLS and First Aid measures. Your first duty is to your own safety. You can't help anyone else if you get hurt too. In terms of prehospital care, most nurses aren't even trained to do the full scope of what a basic EMT can do. In my case, I'm also a Paramedic. I have an extensive education and experience in prehospital care. I know my limitations. I can advise what resources are needed. When I'm off duty, I don't have access to any of the equipment I would have on hand... but I also I have the training to be able to provide an appropriate level of care with the things I might have on hand. I'm also a Registered Nurse. In particular I work in an Emergency Department and I've done that for 10 years. None of the education and experience as an RN has adequately prepared me to function in the field. From that end of things, BLS and Basic First Aid is as good as I've gotten. Flight Nurses that do scene calls and Prehospital Registered Nurses know what to do, but their orientation to those roles give them the requisite education to safely function in the prehospital environment. So, to sum up: If you choose to get involved, do so SAFELY. Do stick to basic First Aid and BLS measures, call for professional rescuers to take over care from you and when they get on scene, tell them what you know, turn over care and leave unless you are specifically asked to stay.