luv_o_so_much

Help with taking med surg tests. First, I am positive someone (if not many) have asked, but I don't see the posts and need some SERIOUS help. I wasn't sure where to post it either so please bump this to the best place! I need help with taking my Med Surg tests. Here is the process for our learning the first semester of Med Surg: Read the book, read the power points (usually 3-6 of them), go to class (lecture is 3 hours), class starts with a student group presentation slightly related to the reading, we are then handed a paper with a case study (scenario) and list of questions (4-6) to answer, we work on it a few minutes then class is done. No dialogue, no follow up, no question-answer session, no lecture. Then our tests are NCLEX questions. I am a 4.0 student - yes even in my nursing courses - and I am FAILING. I earned a 68% on our first test. I have asked the professor for help several times (4 to be exact over the last 8 weeks). I asked her how to improve my studying, how to improve my test taking, how to improve my understanding. I have summarized that I need more interaction and dialogue. It is why I chose my school over other private schools. I wanted the traditional in the classroom structure. Now.... I have been in school for over a decade. This is not my only degree. I have also worked in healthcare for almost two decades. I believe that the knowledge I have that even allowed me to get a 68% comes from a combination of work experience, previous school experience, and my patho professor. I feel I have done everything I can to ask my professor to help. The other students feel the same but are unwilling to say anything. Most are getting mid 80's% on their tests and said they don't want to "**** off the professors". So I am asking for ANY help. I don't know if its just me and I don't have the skills to answer these questions, or what is going on. I know a lot of facts. I know application. I do feel I am not confident because I can't verify if my knowledge is on target, but do not know what steps to correct that since my professor says "I know more than I think I know"...... O.o what? PS... off the record. The one time someone besides me asked a question in class her response was "Just let it go... just let it be what it is". She was asked about placing hot verses cold on an infiltrated IV. She has told me that she appreciates me because I am the only one engaged in the class and I ask thoughtful and appropriate critical thinking questions.... but that doesn't help me pass the test. Thank you so very much! I hope you all can give me some insight!

Each school looks at it diff.... my school for example looks at the last 60 units for those with certain criteria (ex 2nd degree, and transfers) and overall GPA (total ever attempted) by those that are not transfers. That is given one value for the point system. A different value is given for pre-reqs. Lastly they look at overall GPA to ensure you meet min requirements. My very first semester in in college I obtained a 1.69 (had a car accident the night before finals). It HAUNTED me FOREVER. I had to take extra classes to bring up my GPA. I did get in by completing other criteria (volunteering, working in the field, etc)... but I did get a 4.0 in all pre-reqs and scored high on my TEAS. So you can do it... it just depends on the school. (I am in a BSN program that admits 40 students per year).

[COLOR=#003366]Jessatkinson86 great idea!!!

I just went to the store to check out options. The galaxy has a neat note function but it was way to busy for me. The said "its running slow because all the tablets and laptops are running on the same wifi" .... yhea that did it for me! What does he think is going to happen at school or in a different public wifi network???? The iPad and iPad mini moved fast in comparission and were very user friendly. I did not like the surface. The galaxy also "comes with office suite for students" but I'm sure (just like with the note app) there is a download to create a document or view all documents on the iPad mini. I also liked the demensions of the mini compared to the smalller galaxy ... more screen and a little less bulk. Post any apps you guys use! Im going to google the one's already mentioned. Thank you so very much for your input! I don't think I could part with my laptop for writing papers and such at home.

Hi everyone! I'm sure this has been asked (over and over) but I could not find a current thread. My laptop is about to go to die and I was thinking I should get a tablet since we will be using Nursing Constellation Plus for clinicals. Any advice? Anyone have an iPad, Surface, Samsung etc that they can give input about what they like or don't like? My android is too small for me to read the information so that is not the best option for me. Thank you in advance! :)

Another hint is to use ratemyprofessor.com to check out the profs. It has saved me from nightmare semesters.

I was going to suggest the same thing. If there is not a community college in your area perhaps you can look for a different cc and check to see if that cc offeres the course online. Good luck!

I found this post late but thought I'd post anyway.... Personally my favorite shoe for working 12hr shifts are the nurse mates dove. I have a wide foot so I get the 8.5 wide. If that is not available I order the 9 in the regular width. I have a heavy step and these are great. I do feel like they wear out fast and find I must replace them every 6 -9 months if I am working an average of 3-5 shifts a week. (Working my three 12hr shifts plus my volunteer hours, clinicals, and any extra shift I can squeeze in.) Many nurses I work with swear by Danskos which are way out of my price range. Get a pair of compression socks!

When I first started off my very first semester a million zillion years ago I went to USD and had a car accident the night before finals. I was a passenger in the car. I ended up with a 1.69 GPA I went back for another year and barely got my GPA to a 2.0. Fast forward 10 years.... went back to USD got my GPA to a 2.3 I didn't want to be in school anymore. I felt like I was wasting my time and money. I had previously worked in healthcare and decided I wasn't happy with my 125k/yr job that had me chained to a desk and electronic devices. I had previously worked in healthcare and decided I would go back to something similar... fast forward again... I fell back in love with healthcare and wanted to go back for nursing.... who knew EVERYONE had decided the same. 10 yrs before hospitals were PAYING people to go to school.... at this point the cruel struggle and race was one for everyone. My GPA was not even at the MIN for applying to community colleges so I went to National figuring it was my best bet. I made sure I got straight A's in my sciences! Even with that I STILL wasn't at a cumm of 2.75 ... freaking frack.... So I went to my closest community college and took transfer units for transfer to a state school. My plan was to get a Bach then do a 2nd degree program. To my surprise I had gotten A's in everything which brought up my cum GPA to a 2.97!! The BSN programs in my area just look at the last 60 which I had 3.7! I was juzt accepted into the :nurse:Cal State San Marcos Gen program! SO .... you can raise your GPA. I took community college online courses.... some 2 at a time to bring it up. Or you can just finish your current program and do an ABSN 2nd degree program. It is possible and there is hope! I know you wanted to hear if you should start over.... but if your sciences are good why would you? Those evil grades of mine (btw) were originally from 1994..... YUP almost 20 years ago !!!! So no they don't go away BUT your sciences have a shelf life at most schools. Good luck! You can do this ! Just do anything you can for points!

First I should say that I did not get into Palomar but I did get into Cal State San Marcos Generic BSN but I will share what I experienced. I work at Grossmont Hospital and many staff have attended Gross CC for their ADN and say its a great program. When I applied to Palomar they were still taking half of their students from a waitlist and the other half from apps ... so only 18 new students. Grossmont has TWO app dates - one for spring and one for fall so I believe Grossmont admits more students per year. I never took classes at Grossmont but I have heard nothing but good things about the community college. I did take some general ed at Palomar and LOVED it there. Look at the list or impaction criteria and do everything on the list that you can. Trust me it all helps. Apply to both places. Apply if you have all your pre reqs done and even if you don't get in keep working on those points and reapply. Good luck!

HAHAHAHAHA yesterday we had a poor soul finger paint and fling his poopoo all over the room. Not his fault completely he had psych and developmental issues. Not gonna lie! Glad it wasn't my patient! Sorry I forgot to hit the quote but this was in response to the war paint post

I will start nursing school this fall and work in an ICU as a tech. Varias medications, tube feeds, diet types, and diseases cause different types of body fluids to come out in different consistencies at different rates. So the TRUE answer is no one can give you more than their own experience .... BUT I will say this... In my unit every single time there is a "code brown", a patient without a foley that missed the urinal (male or female) or were not able to notify staff, copius secretions from the mouth or lungs, etc ... our staff has the nursing student be first hand in the game to prepare them. Some of the nurses I work with have said its to "weed" them out, others have said its so they can build that skill. BELIEVE me it is a SKILL to have to change an entire bed when you have a critical patient that can't be moved or lie them down flat. I will add that I have worked in many units (Tele, ICU, and ER) and by far the worst smells are cdiff and ER patients that have defecated, urinated, and puked on themselves. It happens. Its part of the process. Despite all that, if I am cleaning up someone with runny poopoo I ALWAYS wear a shield mask and most of the time a gown. I have seen way too many get sharted on (hope thats ok to say). Good luck! Maybe you will not have to deal with much. If you do it will be in clinicals and every acuity has its own type of body fluid demons :) PS I used caps to highlight not to sound mean or mad.

Sorry I know I already posted so much but I wanted to also mention my boss (I work in a local ICU) told me not to bother with Kaplan. That most managers have plenty of applicants that have attended one of the other approved schools. In the past they took new grads from there but not anymore. As far as waitlists.... I believe the majority of schools do not have waitlists (at least the ones I applied to). They all use a point system that you must reapply to each year. You don't need to be a current resident to get in but some point systems look at where you took the previous majority of units and assign a point value opportunity. Good luck!

The 2nd degree programs I know of are Cal State San Marcos ABSN, National Univ. BSN, and community colleges that give points for already having a degree. University of San Diego has an ELMSN and Azuza Pacific (I'm not sure if that is ELMSN or ABSN). My friend is trying to get into Azuza (spelling??) because she has some online courses but to my knowledge for the A&P classes they require labs. Every school has a different set of pre-reqs with SDSU, CSUSM, and the community colleges being the closest. National requires that you take a few of their specific classes to apply (such as their upper divison biomedical stats class that does not transfer or count towards other schools requirements in the area, and the other schools lower division stats do not count for NU). I can go on and on because I had to learn the hard way. I was going to go the "fast route" with NU so I took all of their pre-reqs. It was COSTLY. I did not like the environment. I had a few great professors and met many great people but I had one prof that could NOT teach. The class was so expensive and since their courses are so quick and only happen maybe once a year I had no other option with NU. I did get an A but the cost was not worth it. I ended up going to a community college to take another stats class and a real chemisty class for pre-reqs for the local community colleges and state schools. The bottom line is this: Look at all of the pre-reqs whereever you want to go then look at the points system. Do whatever is on there plus get as many A's as you can. National I believe will not evaluate your courses unless you pay the $60 app fee. CSUSM Extended learning I believe will. Check out Azuza P. If you will need to take in person science classes NU has them 1-2 times a year and although costly, CSUSM, SDSU, and Palomar Community College all accepted them for my app. Many of the community colleges have the classes but you may need to crash them all. CSUSM Extended Learning may have them available, and although they may cost more than a first degree or community college, it is less than National. I attended a Nat Univ. "nursing forum" and asked for a break down of costs. It is about $40k not including the pre-reqs verses CSUSM ABSN which a friend told me was around $30k. (I am starting the first degree Generic BSN at CSUSM in the fall and it will be approx $24k). Community colleges are WAY less. My coworker paid approx. $3k at Southwestern Community College in Chula Vista. I hope this info is helpful. I hope you don't have to take any classes over. Good luck!!!!!

I don't have info on those programs because I am further south, but my advice is to get the list of requiements and complete them. The schools in my area accept based on points not a waitlist. I did everything on the points list including working in a hospital and volunteering at a hospital. I studied my bottom off to get A's in all of my sciences too. It took me 3 years to get through all the classes etc (some of it was part time) and I was just accepted into a competitive BSN program for the fall. There are not any short cuts but you can find a school that fits your needs. I wasted a lot of time trying to fullfill requirements for several different schools. Just do some research :) Good Luck!

Hi TG, I read your post and began to read all the responses..... so very touching! I want to answer your question about your intentions: Only you know if your intentions were good or not. From what you stated in your post I believe your intentions were good. I am not a nurse (yet) I work in an ICU in a supportive role and I am the one that answers our door and usually the one sent to ask the family to limit the visitors or provide information regarding visitors ..... UGH .... I am so very lucky that over the last 10 years I have not had someone react the way they did with you! It would indeed break my heart a little. What I do is explain the policy and give details about why we limit the visitors and give parameters on kids and the age. Germs, equipment, and - yes I go there - I ask the parent ... and words used vary greatly depending upon the individual & circumstances ... will your child be ok if they see grandma or grandpa this way? That usually zoinks the parent back into thinking about the child's mental well being too. It means I have given them all the information to decided. Now my ICU has made exceptions of course. A mom that had cancer and really should have been with hospice had 3 young kids. The nurse let them back and after the visit the doctor asked her if she wanted to be intubated or provided care where she could spend time with her children. That was so tough to be a part of! I hugged her while she cried and made her choice. Three days later she was intubated ... 4 days after that she died. Another time a lady was intubated, extubated, intubated, extubated and she was not getting that again..... we did not think she would make it and allowed her lap dog to sit on her lab for almost 24hrs. That doggie did not make a peep. She died shortly after. THANK GOODNESS no powers that be were there that day! I will put this out there too: My unit is uniform and communicates to the ENTIRE staff during morning huddle where we need to be aware of visitors - easy on rules or strict. This helps because then we don't have one shift letting all the cousins back with there 3 kids that they can't control while the patient next door is barely hanging on so the nurse can focus. We also let everyone in the family know who the spokes person is and redirect them. Its not being a mean nurse, its prioritizing on a case by case scenario. We can't always be right, we will def have times when we are wrong, but as a nurse you know in your gut who should be let back and when. If your facility is strict and your charge or manager is around have them explain it to the family. PS if anyone ever told me I needed to be prayed for I may call our chaplin to stop by. Sometimes they just need to be angry at someone and our chaplins are skilled counselors with a wealth of spiritual knowledge they can use to speak with the individual.

I was hopeful but did not get in my first app (only applied to one BSN school). So I looked at those pre-reqs and other point opportunities (my area uses a supp point system) and I did EVERYTHING on that list. Although I already worked at a hospital I applied to and served at the best internship/volunteer possible, although I took French, I went back and powered through 3 semesters of Spanish (it gave more points) over spring and summer semester, I also looked at on assist.org and found ANY class that I could sub for any grade in the general pre-reqs (not sciences, classes such as speech etc) that I did not have an A in. Lastly I studied the TEAS inside and OUT to raise my first score from a 78% to a second score of 91%. All the while working on a different degree. Thank GOODNESS I got in my second time around! I had come to terms that I may not get in, but I love my current job at the hospital and knew I could do that and be happy. It's true, maybe you don't get in. My pal is at that point where she does not believe it will happen for her because she has C's in 2 science classes. She has not taken the extra time like I did with the additional point opportunities. So is it possible to change your chances.... YES. I did! I didn't think it was even possible but it happenned. Good luck to you!

Hi everyone! I wanted to see if there are any veterans from the CSUSM program that could tell us all about the semester workload. I know it is going to be tough and challenging.... but can anyone give an example of their first or second (even 3rd 4th 5th) semester? For example: First semester took 4 classes = 16 units and was on campus 3 days in lab 4 days. I was just accepted to the BSN generic and I am so nervous . I know there are many threads about the ABSN and those that are in that program feel free to comment for those future students! I just haven't seen many posts about this school or from the students in the generic program. Thank you! Good luck to everyone that is starting their new adventure and everyone that is continuing on their adventure! :)

I just wanted to thank you both! I did complete 360 hours of the PPH internship (I already had a job at a hospital but also took an emt class). I heeded the advice from both of you and now I am starting at CSUSM generic BSN in the fall. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! Good luck in your futures!

I may open up a can of worms here .... there are places that have a "shortage" but that shortage is of experienced nurses. There have been many RNs (of varying degrees) that have graduated over the last decade, changing the cycle (as others have mentioned) and other factors. I know where I work LVNs(LPNs) perform my job function. I am NOT a CNA nor LVN/LPN but we are all limited in our scope as outlined by the state. The state says what MUST be done by registered nurses which is influenced by the unions .... yadda yadda yadda I get that you are frustrated. I do remember the times of $10k sign on bonuses etc. They were real! I was working at a facility that offered them! They also paid for the ADNs to get their BSN. I was accepted into school without a blink! I did not go at the time and now I am back fighting tooth and nail to just get accepted into a school. It can be frustrating especially if you have a family, or are a single parent, have a sick parent, sick spouse, or in my case a disabled sister and no other family - just the two of us. Money problems, loans, mortgages ... the list is endless. I am willing however to jump through whatever hoops I need to. I know how important my decision to go to nursing school was. I even had to look at my finances to determine if I could afford the pay cut to take classes. I worked a full time Mon-Friday position and worked per diem at a hospital nights and weekends - and I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I also am volunteering and taking a second foreign language to earn points. My point is (like many have said) it wouldn't matter what it was you wanted to accomplish there would indeed be obstacles. I’m actually glad it’s tougher to get in and get hired. I have worked with too many TOO MANY nurses that view it as only a paycheck and treat patients badly. If I have to prove I’m not like them to get my dream job..... So be it

Maybe post what state you are in also. I do not know about skilled nursing facilities, but hospitals have a minimum ratio designated by the state. I did staffing for many years (obtained the nurses not the acuities). Hope you get the info you are looking for!

If all of your loans are federal loans (stafford subsidized/unsubsidized, parent plus) you can look them up on NSLDS website: National Student Loan Data System for Students I believe you can also look up any consolidated federal loans. This website will tell you how much you owe and who you took out the loan with. If they are private loans I would contact the original lender to see who currently owns them. I do not believe nslds holds private loan info. I worked in the office of an agency and we got those all the time. The employees would go to a new agency that didn't have their garnish info. I do not recommend doing this. Once the employer has it - they have it for all future earnings. If you hop around you might loose track of what you have already paid in the garnishment.

No way! It's tough to get into a nursing program!!! I will say that working in an office is different from the hospital and physical demands might be different. That shouldn't worry you. I am overweight, but I can move our patients around (100 lbs or 500 lbs) and have the stamina and dexterity to complete all the tasks I must during a shift. I am not in nursing school yet. I work in a vey busy ICU and float to TELE. Over the last year I have started to walk more and weight lift. I am trying to physically prepare for more demand on my body once I am in school since I will also need to work two 12 hr shifts during the process. I will share this also: Different hospitals have different lifting protocols. Some, although they don't want you to get hurt, do not completely enforce safe lifting. Others will write you up for non-compliance. Different types of nursing require different types of demands. Protect your body! (Especially your back) Being overweight does not mean you are not strong or quick. You may have posted because of how you may believe others think weight reflects on image .... I am responding with what I did because only you can decided how your weight affects how you feel... I will repeat that.... Only YOU can determine how it makes YOU FEEL .... that has NOTHING to do with how good of a nurse you will be or how well you will do in class or clinicals. In fact you may empathize (spelling??) better! And don't worry! Haha! There are slimmer counter parts in nursing that don't have the stamina or strength too! Its all individual friend! I think everyone gave great input! Get your study on! Congrats on the acceptance!!!!!!!

I took both the A and B online practice tests from ATI .... for me they were pricey, but since I was taking the real test on a computer I wanted to try them. They really helped me. The questions were very similar (not the same questions but the same topics). I took TEAS V as a paper test then did the practice guides and then took the computer version. After reviewing the online practice tests and using the study guide I increased my score by 9% (went from 80 to 89). I focused on Math and Science. I felt like I already had a handle on comprehension and grammer. I was WRONG. There were odd words I have never heard of for my spelling portion, but the trick was to know the rules in the study guides. The part of the test I did the most poorly on was grammer - specifically comma, colon, semicolon. The advice already given about math is right on based on my experience. The science portion for me on both test was right out of the study guide. Remember to READ THE QUESTION! Twice if you have to! The ones I missed were because I read the questions too fast. Good Luck!!!!!!!! You got this!

Your decision really depends on where your heart is. I would kill for a CVICU position 1 year out! Then again I love love love the unit. There are many more MS opporunities available. ICU generally pays more. If you have not worked as a medsurg RN I would ask about ratios and if you complete total care or if you have aids to help out. For example there is a hospital here in SD that has a MS unit as 4 to 1 verses the 5 to one due to the specific types of patient acuities that unit recieves. .... Bottom line is if you are not happy with what you are doing you need to know why. Congrats on securing two offers! SD market has been SO tough! Good luck! :)