NurseVerde

Just found an old email I sent to a friend after interviewing for St. Thomas West in 2014. At the time, we were the largest cohort of applicants they were accepting, they took about 90 people for various floors. It was super fast, like 10 minutes and no room for me to ask questions at the end - I literally talked about my healthcare job and then she asked 3 questions: 1) tell me about a difficult person you had to deal with in the hospital and how you handled it 2) tell me about a situation where you made a mistake /what did you do to fix it 3) where do you see yourself in 5 yrs - that's it! Good luck to anyone applying!

Sorry for the late reply. My interview process was very simple. They herded you into groups and then called in maybe 4 people at a time and you would sit down one on one with an interviewer (I never saw the lady who interviewed me again) and she asked maybe 3-5 questions depending on the time allotted. It was very quick (less than 10 min) and to me, a bit unprofessional. Run of the mill questions that you would prepare for with any interview - the questions escape me now. If you have a strong resume, aka any hospital experience while in nursing school or a second language, you will be a shoe-in most likely especially if you impress the person you speak to. Yes, I went through the program but left after 6 months.

I'm sorry to hear you have been a victim of bullying yourself. It's awful to think there are such miserable people in this world who focus on bringing others down. I was probably too emotional when I wrote my original post - because it was traumatizing to be fired due to sabotage - and left out more pertinent examples because I focused too much on how our differences made me a target. I've never been fired before from any job either so it was just a lot to handle. You are right about how it's not worth it to scare any new grads out of the profession - but they need to be informed and know how to go into scenarios when these types of people exist. I'm certain they don't just exist in our profession either. Knowledge is power. I think there can also be many misconceptions before one is a seasoned nurse about the hospital side of nursing and having the time to give your patients the emotional support they need. I think we'd all be nicer to each other if we weren't so stressed all the time and had California's 4:1 ratios instituted nationwide. But who knows if the hospitals will ever go for that elsewhere, knowing their biggest expense comes from staffing nurses. Best of luck to you all - this profession isn't for the meek.

FlyingScot - You read too much into this. She was a nurse who didn't respect that there are other pathways and career changes that eventually lead to the same job. I can't detail every instance of her sabotaging me, but another example was purposely withholding information with me to cause me to make a clerical error on the job and then conniving to report it to our superiors, but that's pretty much all she did. Looking for any way to make me look bad and report it. That's bullying.

I was hired by the residency in 2014. Needless to say, it was awful. They tried to be organized. But the truth is they do not have enough preceptors WHO ARE TRAINED at this point. In fact, none of their preceptors receive formal training and none of mine were overly concerned with teaching me nearly enough. Often times, the preceptor would try to be the helpful floater nurse for the floor while you took care of her patients. Sure, the preceptors checked your charting - but that's not teaching. I think some didn't want to overly hover, but still…new grads need as much help as they can get in the beginning. The residency itself I believe began in 2008 so they're still working through the kinks to this day. A lot of their preceptors when I rotated through were on night shift, which seemed OK at the time - this meant training on nights in the residency, plus they said 99.9% of the jobs to be offered at the end of the 12 week training would be nights anyway. But then I was hired for days. And days was a whole new ballgame I knew nothing about. Even the floor manager, who hired me, did not do her due diligence regarding my residency training - she did not know my training was purely on night shift. The impression it left was that they literally only needed a warm body. I was hired onto a floor that had high turnover (poor floor culture and less desirable patient population for a med-surg specialty) and thus had a greater need for dayshift people. I will admit to making some mistakes on the job, but I wasn't alone in culpability - one of them was due to their EMAR. I do not wish to discuss any details and I did not harm any of my patients, but new grads need support and that's what a residency is for. The twelve week residency was supposed to include three week rotations on three separate floors based on which track you applied for. My third rotation was shortened to one week; they implied that we would re-interview for our jobs based on our floor preferences post rotating. Nope - they just said "you've been hired here on this shift." I thought when I showed up for my first day on day shift that it was a mistake, seeing that they basically intimidate with great attitude you when you first interview with the residency by saying "You can either continue with this interview process or not, but 99.9% of the jobs available at the end of the residency will be on night shift. So if that isn't for you, then there's the door. There are hundreds of others who would love to be in your spot right now." What's more is that once we were on the floor for maybe 3 months in our jobs, they told us "so the next residency we just interviewed - you get to be their preceptors!" REALLY? I don't think anyone with less than 6 months of experience or more should be precepting a new grad. On top of that, less than one month into the job, they fired the floor secretaries and every shift was bare bones with techs and nurses. Day shift nurses were expected to take 5 patients, night shift 6. All I can say is get a good feel for the floors if you go through this process. I genuinely wanted to be on the floor I was hired on, but on the night shift. Usually the night crews are a little bit more relaxed and jovial with a greater element of teamwork than during the day. Day shift is every nurse for themselves, at least from my experience. I have since left that position and don't plan on going back to the hospital setting ever again. It was THAT BAD. I won't risk my license over their unsafe work environment. Sorry this post basically bashes the residency, but my experience was flat out awful. I'm grateful though in the end for getting enough experience to be hired elsewhere in an outpatient setting. Best of luck with getting hired :) - follow your heart and your bliss!

By stating that, I was giving you the side of why she didn't like me as I had stated that she wouldn't respect or like me prior in the long post. I definitely think women in general can become jealous or just not willing to look for similarities when they work with or know other women who live entirely different lifestyles or just dare to be different. I'm not that type. I will give compliments for style or deserved praise when worthy of doing great work - even to her. I try to stay positive, that is just my personality. I remained professional and friendly with the snide nurse up until the end to the best of my ability because I never knew if she truly could get me fired and just to maintain the sanity of the clinic. There were some nice moments between us, but in general, she had a vendetta.

I can give you a case of bullying, fresh off the presses of my life. I am in my second job as a second career RN - switched from the hospital setting to outpatient clinic to actually get away from the bullying of the med-surg world. I don't believe every floor has such a toxic culture however a clique was abound on my former floor and they liked to undermine you behind their back with gossip, give you horrible assignments, and sit back while you drown. It was never something I envisioned to be possible in a career that should be patient and compassionate care focused. Unfortunately, I was not welcomed by yet another snide nurse at the clinic where I was hoping to find someone of my mindset. I knew from not long after knowing her that I was never going to be respected nor liked, as she thought it was imperative for all nurses to get a whole year of experience in the hospital before leaving, whereas I only stuck around for 6 months. My intuition was right. Any time I made a mistake while learning, she would run and tell upper management. We were coworkers but she was the lead nurse, so it became a "her word against mine" battle where her seniority took precedence. She buddied up with one of the two providers in our clinic, the MD, and they both schemed to complain on a weekly basis about me. Although the clinic setting was new to me, I never made any gross errors on the job and simply had a few growing pains. I am not a believer in disparaging every move a person makes on the job - it's a sign of insecurity when you care more about what others are doing than by simply caring about doing your own job well. Essentially she wanted me fired, even told me to my face once how one of her Hospice friends would JUST LOVE to work in the clinic. Her attitude broke down our communication at times, not to the point where I wouldn't talk to her at all, but if I had a question, I never felt comfortable going to her for help because 1) she would probably report me for not remembering what to do and 2) I just couldn't stand any extra interaction with her than already necessary. She couldn't possibly respect me because of who I am: a second career RN, bilingual, with a BSN, and living a very active, healthy lifestyle - meanwhile, she has an ADN, just had a baby along with being overweight before the baby, and would critique my eating habits as "healthy hipster" lol. I live in an at-will employment state where they can fire you for any reason basically - and that's exactly what happened. And I was nit-picked along the way, to death. The NP in our clinic stood up for me to management after I packed up my things and left. It's sad how drama is only magnified when it's in a smaller environment and the politics that came into play gave her the upper hand. But that's my story. I had been looking for another job over the last two months since the drama really came to head (and never ended) and thankfully I've got a job with the ministry of Jesus as the basis of their existence so if this isn't the place for me I don't know what is! haha I don't want anyone to think I don't take any responsibility for any of the errors I did make along the way - but nobody deserves to be bullied under any circumstance! If I could go back in time, I would have reported anyone who treated me unfairly ASAP instead of trying to ignore them. I definitely felt defeated in my second job and only was able to email my grievances post-firing.

Hey ladies, Can anyone provide further information on how much paper writing in APA format is required for the program? Gracias for the information thus far!

Does anybody know if USF let's second degree students apply to their upper division program? It doesn't specify on the website - thanks :)!

I have a 4.0 on science pre-reqs :) 3.7 gpa from my other bachelor (I'm a second degree student).

CrossfitSRNA2b - I am in your same position right now. Ever since I was little, I wanted to become an Obstetrician because I viewed delivering babies as the bee's knees of jobs haha. Then, my parents talked me out of it as well as primary physicians in the late 90s/early 2000s as I was entering college. I felt completely lost, and ended up getting a Bachelor's of Business in International Business (the one good thing that came out of that was studying abroad for a year and attaining Spanish fluency). 2.5 yrs of real world working experience later, I'm back in school for Nursing for now (quickest career change into the med field) and now that I'm in A&P2 and we're rarely dissecting animals, I realize "heyy, I want to dissect humans...I want MED SCHOOL!!!" I have a 4.0 in all my sciences, I apply myself and love learning - just NEVER knew how apt I was to sciences until actually having a go at them, toward Nursing. A male nurse friend of mine recently was accepted to a CRNA program and I figured at least with CRNA I could SEE the surgeries and be somewhat involved - and that would be fulfilling enough. I am having doubts because maybe I'm meant to continue on my path to MD. But I am JUST like you...on the route to nursing. And CRNA is likely the final result if I pursue Nursing. It's just such a hard call when weighing all the options...if America didn't suck so much right now and our government could get it's act together with regard to healthcare, I think I'd have a clearer picture of my future. My parents are still extremely biased by the negativity surrounding the profitability of a career as an MD due to rising malpractice insurance costs and lowering reimbursement cuts from Medicare. I just want to learn and make a difference - but the costs are everywhere in different forms - and making this decision is not easy. How have you enjoyed working as an ICU nurse? Any pros/cons that you can relate would be fantastic and I wish you the best as you continue your nursing career :). Thanks in advance for any input!

Hey! I have applied to Belmont for their Fast Track (the same as accelerated basically) and have been accepted on the condition that someone drops out for grades or financial reasons. Knowing that I have a chance really has me wondering if the program is worth it? I just visited the campus (GORGEOUS) and though I didn't meet with anyone from the nursing school, I'm just curious as to how rigorous the program really is? The fast track appealed more to me so I can work in a hospital during the summer and have a "break" from the accelerated curriculum. I hope you are doing well, surely have graduated or are about to! Thanks in advance for any input you can provide :).

Hello Driven10, I'm currently applying to Belmont for their nursing program and was curious - is it better to have PC for the program and how helpful is it to have a smart phone? Can you get by without a smart phone or would you find it recommended? Also, have you gone on to take the NCLEX yet? Do you feel that you had time along the way to study or needed to take some extra time post graduation for the NCLEX? I wish you all the best in your career :). This will be my second degree/age 26.

Thank You SOO much for replying. I am ready for the challenge - mostly interested in the "Fast Track" program so that I can have summers off for externships to help me land a job later on. Belmont really seems like the best fit and your input has no doubt helped me in my decision

Hello Belmont_Murse, if you can still receive updates on this message! I am a prospective Belmont nursing student, definitely interested in their fast-track program because this will be my 2nd degree. Did you enjoy their nursing program? Any major pros or cons? The tuition is not a con in my book, I hear their program is pretty good and worth the price. Any advice you can offer would be superb! Also, how were you able to land an ICU job straight out of school? Congrats on all your success and hope you are doing well in VA =).