lovesroses

I talked with the IC dept at the large teaching hospital I work at and was told "absolute min. of BSN plus 2+ years in ICU, OR, or ED experience" before they would think of hiring me there. Good luck in your career goal!

Hi! I am finishing up my last semester of nursing school and have been lucky enough to be offered a job on a busy M/S Intermediate Care/Step Down floor at a large teaching hospital. The ratio is 1:3 for step down patients and 1:4(5 if they are having to double up in some of the rooms or if they are short a RN). I will share a CNA with two other RNs if they are not short that will get VS/blood sugars for me. I am not sure what I want to do with my nursing career except I'm kind of interested in ICU someday and the CNS or Infection Control positions look appealing for way down the road if I wanted to get away from bedside. The patient population can be from total care long term trachs/vents to monitored/non-monitored ambulatory patients (pulmonary problems seem to be common) or psych patients. Right now, my biggest fear is time management and catching someone going downhill/having available resources around when they do. The vast majority of my clinical time in nursing school was spent on cardiac/CV intermediate care floors. What do you suggest I do (after finishing school and passing NCLEX) to prepare myself for this patient population? And do you have any tips/advice for a new grad working with this population? Thanks!

In my first semseter I have lecture 4 hours a day for 3 days, lab for 4 hours 1 day and clinical for 3 hours 1 day. After fall break if will be lecture for 4 hours 1 day, lab for 4 hours 1 day, clinical for 6 hours 2 days, and 3 hours for hospita/clinical prep weekly.

I highly second the teaching part. First off, I make sure I am the only one home (or at least that others can't hear me). Then I pull out my text and class notes and read some corresponding sections. When I'm ready, I look around and see if my dogs are nearby (if not, just baby talk and they come running). I then proceed to summarize the information and teach them the key points (they love learning)! I'm sure you could even do it to the air, it just helps me to internalize the information better when I organize it into my own words and say them. I did that and re wrote/organized/summarized my class notes/powerpoints/key points stressed in class and have done well on the first test. Another thing that I have never done before is to join a study group. We mainly just quizzed eachother. The easiest group to do this with (for schedule meshing) would be your clinical or lab group. The main thing I think is to figure out how you learn best and expose yourself to the information as much as possible to give yourself the best chance.

I feel your stress! We just had our first test and I actually did well on it. I couldn't get through all the readings either, just read over my notes and skimmed until something in the reading related to my notes/lecture then I read that. I've never been one to be in a study group but have inadvertently fallen into one. We are still working out the kinks but we quizzed eachother from our notes/ppts and it seemed to do okay in finding our weaknesses and what we needed to focus on for our solo studying before the exam. I record lectures but haven't listened yet (bad)! Another student told me she grabs some headphones and listens to her lectures while making dinner for her family (they knew not to bother her in the kitchen). Most importantly though, don't beat yourself up about school/grades/etc! Even if it's just a nice long shower, give yourself some "you" time and then go back to what you're doing if you are overwhelmed. I know I can't study effectively at all in panic mode.

Do you have a tech job anywhere? I've seen those students go on to get hired after graduation (either on their floor/unit or at another hospital). Others I've seen have to search and search and settle for something outside the hospital that they don't really want to do but its a job. I am worried as well but I just started school so that's a bit of a ways off for me.

My program has it set up where the final semester students are paired with volunteer mentees from the first semester students. I have only met with my mentor once since it just started yesterday (they drew for us since there are more of us than them) but it was a little "mixer" boxed lunch. They do it for a grade (used to be optional but not enough seniors signed up) and I do it to have someone who has "been there" and can answer my questions and give me advice. For their graded portion we had to come up with 4 or 5 goals that I wanted to accomplish (learn how to study for nursing tests, get better at time management, etc) and we exchanged contact information. Graded wise, aside from the 3 mandatory mass meetings we have to make contact 4 other times throughout the semester. And I think I have to do an eval on my mentor at the end.

13/hr with one year experience plus shift diffs. I can do everything a CNA can do plus blood sugars and there are additional classes offered for foleys, blood draws, swapping O2 equipment (not changing it), peripheral IVs, and wound dressing changes >24 or 48 hours. After one semester of nursing school I can do most of the things the classes above taught me except the blood draw.

If there are any stores near you that let you try them out before buying that would be the place to go to. I did that for CNA class but when I went again a couple weeks ago they wouldn't let me try them out again. Otherwise I second what anonymousstudent said. I borrowed others and found that I heard out of someone's adscope better than the littman my aunt gave me that she loves (RT)!

Mine is a royal blue landau scrub top where the small for too short for my long torso and the medium looks like a potato sack and it is barely an okay length. I got royal blue cargo pants to match but could have gotten white (no way). We had to get a white scrub jacket and I'm still looking for some white all leather, no holes or canvas fully enclosed shoes (danskos/sanitas don't work for me, too high of an arch). If you have to wear white scrubs, remember to wear NUDE undergarments, not WHITE. Otherwise, they are totally visible.

If it were my first degree and I was able to, I'd just go straight for the BSN. With the pre-reqs it could take 3-4 years to get your ADN. I'm going for my second degree at the ADN level now and even though money-wise it works for me, I still wish I could go into a BSN program (already getting waaaaaaay too much stress from the inlaws about popping out babies) but I don't want to drive that far/spend that money right now.

Congrats to all! I am starting in exactly 5 weeks at WTCC. Some of my classes were transferred from other schools but I earned mostly As. I'm finishing up patho and micro (last two pre-reqs) this summer in online and hybrid classes. I expect an A and B (that could creep to an A depending on next test and final). I scored a 92 on the TEAS IV and an 87 on TEAS V (I applied to 3 different programs).

LOL yeah I was tired of pre-reqs and not being in a program. My husband said he knew I would get in but I still worried. Wake Tech uses a different one....http://www.studentscreener.com. It was 28 for the background check and 78 for the drug screen. All I have left is the physical and any titers/vaccines. I liked how Wake Tech let us know about it and we had a little over a month to do one, then a month and a half for the other stuff. I looked at their book list for fall and that price is scary! But I've heard you use the same books all 2 years and add on just a couple more here and there. JCC might be the same with that.

Congratulations to you as well! I'm not sure...I've already paid for the drug screen/background check at Wake Tech though and the mandatory orientation at JCC comes at a time when I will be out of the state. I also got into the sonography program I applied to at JCC as a back up lol. I've got lots of thinking to do over the next two days.

I've been told both are good. I know someone about to graduate Watts and I myself was accepted into Wake Tech. I ultimately chose to go the ADN route for the money (that much debt scares me at Watts) and Wake Tech admits 2x year (spring and fall). I got admitted and still needed 2 pre reqs (that's what summer and online classes are for! lol).