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Ahh I see then gotcha bullet points it is then, thanks! And by all the details do you mean you actually put normal things you would do for every patient? Like for example... *Enter room and introduce myself to patient *Wash hands to protect patient from harmful bacteria *Put on gloves to protect myself from harmful bacteria *Close curtains for patient privacy and then proceed to assess patient and do interventions? Cause basically that whole spiel should apply to all scenarios and I've only seen a handful of people mention things like gloves

Hey everybody, I'm taking the PBDS in a couple days so I scoured the entire site and read every PBDS thread I found and got a lot of useful information however there was one question I wanted to ask to those who have taken and passed the PBDS. When writing your assessments, interventions, doctors orders, etc, do you write it out in full sentences or just literally put line by line? For example, would you put "I would assess the patient's blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate" or just put Assess blood pressure, pulse, respiratory rate Just didn't want points to be removed for simple things. Thanks!

In my opinion, take the generic course. I have several friends that started off in accelerated and ended up switching over to full time after 2 semesters because that pathway is just insane. When one of them got to Pharm, 95% of her class failed the class. That was when she and a couple of her friends switched to full time and are doing just fine. Pharm is a tough subject and having to learn like 12 chapters in a week cause you have a test the next week is not fun at all, nor I think is it conducive to proper learning. You basically are just cramming the entire time and hope to stay afloat. Remember if you fail three classes total you are out of the program and also if you fail the same class twice you are out of the program. That kind of pressure sucks imo so save yourself the headache and future anxiety medication prescriptions and go generic ?

It's a pin name plate that says your name on it. You need it for clinicals. As Sara stated earlier, it takes quite a bit to get there(mine took like 6-7 weeks) and it's only like 8 bucks so I recommend going to the bookstore and buying it as soon as possible. Also, SCANTRONS, You need red scantrons from the bookstore for your exams in each one of your classes. Each teacher will require about 3-4 scantrons from you so buy ALOT. I bought 80 scantrons when I first started the program because by the time I get there for my part time classes at 6pm, the stupid bookstore is closed so I never had to worry going to the bookstore ever again

Basically your courses are just like how they are on MDCs website, you won't start your clinical course in the nursing home for at least a month after your other classes started so you could have some sort of foundation. The nursing home honestly is the worst... while I was there I was doubting my choice in nursing but honestly you aren't doing nursing work there but CNA work since that is who you will be following. Clinicals should be once a week, at least that how they have always been in the part time program. Medsurg clinicals are cool, peds and ob clinicals were very interesting, psych clinicals are bleh As someone else mentioned, you could find most books online in their pdf version which is all you'll need. Don't spend unnecessary money. Oh and get ready for a headache, if your orientation was anything like mine you will come out of there with more questions than answers and a migraine ?

Congratulations everyone! I told you all there was nothing to worry about Definitely start doing all your complio crap asap, leaving it for the last minute is not a good idea because there is always a delay in something.

Ahh yes they went through a rough period for a while there. My cohort was the last one to take the TEAS test for admission, then they switched it to some test called NLN or something for the next semester and basically everyone did horrible on it so they removed that one and made it all about GPA until they could figure out what to do and they decided on HESI. I thought I remember it being 60% of your cumulative gpa added with 40% of your sciences gpa to get your total for that semester, maybe that has something to do with it?

Your GPA is a small part of it really. The main thing is the HESI score which is 60% of your total score. The difference between your GPA and your friends was just 2 points on the total score really.

I remember getting the news that I got in the program via email. I believe I got the acceptance letter through snail mail a couple days afterwards. Just keep checking your MDC email everyday

Have you guys added your total score together yet? According to the classes before mine, everyone that got acceptance letters had like an 83 total score or above. I had a like 95 so I wasn't worried but my friend had a 77 so he was very worried he would not get in but I guess not that many people did great that semester because I asked everyone in my class and the lowest person had a 72 or so with a lot of high 70s scores. If they had applied 1 semester before that one, they would not have gotten in since most of the people had high 80s as their admission score. So in other words, what I am trying to say is that don't sweat it, if it's meant for you to go this semester, it will happen. Oh and MDC sends I believe up to 3 waves of emails, yes they will choose the 25ish top scoring people for say Part time and send them emails, however that same person could have signed up for Full time also and might choose Full time over Part time, so that immediately opens up a spot for the 2nd round of emails, and so on and so forth, which again means you might get lucky if your score isn't super high. Last note, to calculate your "Admission score", multiply your HESI score by .6 and multiply your GPA by 10 and then add those numbers together.

Well in my opinion the part time program is harder than the full time one because we all work full time compared to the full time folks that don't work and can just focus their entire time to studying and getting other stuff done like the community service you will need later on. The difficulty is pretty subjective because I personally find the program to be pretty easy and straightforward. I skim the chapter (I used to read every chapter front to back in the beginning of the nursing program and that quickly stopped as it takes way too long and you aren't going to remember it all) and then use the powerpoints given to you by the teacher to study. I make a quizlet and just add in all the stuff I need to study and go from there. Most teachers give a outline of what sections you should be focusing on for their test. If you study the sections in the outline you should easily pass the test. Now I say that but many people in my cohort view the program as difficult for sure. Some of them would be outside of the class before a test reviewing last minute and they are firing off answers left and right, but then they enter the test and get really bad anxiety and bomb it. To put it in persepective my class started with around 25 people and now there are about 13 of the original group left. Oh also if you are able to do either the full time or the part time program, I'd recommend you do the full time one definitely (assuming you aren't working of course) because that extra year doesn't seem like much but I tell you it is. Which brings me to another reason why part time is harder... Take Med-surg1 for example, mine started in August and ended in April which totaled 8 months in the same class. That final was truly annoying because after 8 months you completely forgot the stuff you learned in the beginning of the class and have to study even harder. Imagine all the Fundamentals stuff you have to remember 2 years later when you are in medsurg2 ?

Hello all, I am currently in the part time program at MDC, started January 2014 so almost done. I used this site to get a lot of information before starting the program and to alleviate my fears so I want to pay it forward, if any of you guys have any questions regarding the program just post it here or PM me. I received my acceptance email on October 17, 2013 btw so the first round of emails should be coming in a couple weeks.

It seems that the test was more about us helping out Pearson with their questions than it was about them evaluating our performance. Basically, the test results don't really mean anything.

They apparently changed the date of the RASE exam. Even though the acceptance email might say another date, you have to register for the date/time that the recent email states.

According to the lady who we turned our health forms to, she said that the Part Time group can decline the flu shot this time around since it won't be flu season by the time we start clinicals (in the summer) but everyone else needed it supposedly.