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If you're going to work for HCA I'd say the lesser of two evils is Mercy hospital.

They have a huge ICU. It's split into 4 sections. CICU, SICU, MICU, TICU. They also have a step down IMCU type unit you have to float to that sucks. All the patients are in contact and airborne precautions but the rooms are curtained. They're not the correct rooms for those types of patients. The have a pediatric unit that is mostly empty. I wouldn't take my kid there. It's big and the patients are very sick. And you see scary things. Like patients dying after they looked well enough to go home. I say if you're going to do terrible, do it where there are no contracts. That way you can leave as soon as you get a better offer. All you really need is 1 year experience and you can apply to any hospital. Some even have RN volunteer programs where they will hire you if they like you. I settled for KRMC because they were my first offer and I should have never done that. I should have pursued where I really wanted to work. Some people are doing it just for the experience, and if you think you can handle it go ahead. ICU was my dream too. But I hated it there. Also, no employee parking. And I was constantly parking on the side of the road and got a ticket. And take your own food. I got food poisoning there. And they don't serve food to employees on the weekends.

Well, if you can handle insufficient training, large patient load, unsafe environment, and lies about the job and contract and training, you should be fine. I walked into that mess with no clue how bad it was and I felt sorry for the patients that they were there. I don't know how the hospital is still open. But you're choice.

Wow! Either your nursing school experience sucked or your preceptorship was awesome. I had the opposite experiences. I felt like the training program took away from what I learned in nursing school and that the people teaching were not up to date. I didn't learn hardly anything extraordinary outside of nursing school. I had learned ICU in nursing school and other than more details on IV drips and stuff like that, it wasn't anything to say WOW about. I felt it was very inadequate training for ICU. Plus they will give you 3-4 patients. Totally sucks.

As soon as you start the onboarding with Healthtrust.

Hopefully everyone had great StaRN experiences wherever they went. Mine was awful. Kendall Regional is the worst hospital I have ever been in. I would never go there as a patient. It's the only HCA hospital I have been inside and the last HCA hospital I plan on entering. HCA sucks. And I speak from what I saw going on. I wasn't mistreated although I noticed that HCA doesn't give a flip about their employees, mich less their patients. Stay away from for profit hospitals. All they care about is their profit.

Hopefully everyone had great StaRN experiences wherever they went. Mine was awful. Kendall Regional is the worst hospital I have ever been in. I would never go there as a patient. It's the only HCA hospital I have been inside and the last HCA hospital I plan on entering. HCA sucks.

I graduated from west coast university last fall. They are an excellent program. Definitely will become a name here in south Florida. The teas isn't hard. You can get a scholarship based on your scores. So study and do your best. The program is expensive. Not sure how much now since there was a change in tuition right before I graduated. But you can get all that info for free from their website or from an advisor. Edwin is personally my fav. He was my advisor and I love him. Very honest. And I appreciated that.

If it takes your payment you failed. If it won't let you complete the registration you passed.

A tip my dean gave me was to use a study schedule. Today study fundamentals, tomorrow study intro to professional nursing, the next day study fundamentals, and so on. That really helped me to juggle everything.

This site won't let me private message. Well, nursing school is hard and there will be disgruntled students. Usually students who fail become disgruntled. You will need to study hard. Nursing is not for everyone which is why some cannot make it through the program. The people I met from the LA campus had no complaints. They all graduated fine. So if you're ready to study hard and you're dedicated to doing this, I think you'll be fine.

I just saw your message in my inbox but I cannot reply. What did you choose to do? I just graduated from West Cost University and it was the best decision I've ever made. Was able to participate in their Oxford Honors international Program, graduated with Honors and all the great things that I would not have been able to receive had I attended an ADN program. Also they offer a lot of perks for their students. They have paid my application fee for the nclex, plus they paid for the exam itself. Then they paid for our prep program and even more. If you are not already in a program I advise you to consider WCU. Have a great New Year!

I just saw your message in my inbox but I cannot reply. What did you choose to do? I just graduated from West Cost University and it was the best decision I've ever made. Was able to participate in their Oxford Honors international Program, graduated with Honors and all the great things that I would not have been able to receive had I attended an ADN program. Also they offer a lot of perks for their students. They have paid my application fee for the nclex, plus they paid for the exam itself. Then they paid for our prep program and even more. If you are not already in a program I advise you to consider WCU. Have a great New Year!

Hi I saw your message but the site will not allow me to reply. I attended Miami campus and it was a great experience. Tuition is less in Miami because income is less. So I was able to cover costs of tuition with my federal grants, loans and a school scholarship I won. Let me know if you have any other questions.

It's a great school! It is just as hard as any nursing program and we do most of our clinicals in the local baptist hospitals. I graduate next year. I have been in the program for a year now and I really like it.

It is very hard to get into Barry. They have a strict admission process so your statement about accepting students with an imperfect record is not true. I am a student at west coast university and they did not have a strict admission requirements when I was accepted but now that they're getting busy I have heard differently from the new students. Not having strict admissions requirements just means more students will fail out of the program. Nursing school always weans out those who are not meant to be or smart enough to be nurses. It's not easy.

Are you sure you want to go to Kaplan? Honestly after my experience with them I would say, "Run for your life!" I'm still trying to get my money back after they lost accreditation and closed. Consider all your options before you choose them.

That sucks. They have some scholarships if you qualify. I qualified for 20k from my teas score. They've worked with me a lot. I don't know how costly universities are in CA but I wouldn't have been able to afford it there.

Hi! Sorry you've been going through that. I am going into my sophomore year at west coast and they've been pretty good. The student handbook says we might have an exit exam. We don't have exit exams after each term like some schools do. We do ATI, not Hesi. So far the professors have been very knowledgable and very willing to help the students. I heard tuition is over $100k in California but everything is high in California. They lowered the tuition here in Florida. It's the same as Barry university and less than university of Miami. Everything has been good. We all got our Oxford invites. And I've learned more here than I learned at the other school I was at. So far so good. It still is expensive but doable. It's easy to complain about a nursing school. But try going to a different nursing school. It's the same or worse. Nursing is just hard period. You have to respect the schools that demand a little more because as nurses we will have lives in our hands. No one wants the bad nurse who doesn't know anything. Do I complain. Of course. Who doesn't. But it's a general complaint. The school has been good to me and I love my professors.

The school is on probation and I am getting out. My grades are good but advising told me that 1 year would cost 10k and it has cost me 20k for 1 year. So for 40k to finish and find out my hard work is not worth the paper it's printed on??? I might as well start somewhere else and make the necessary sacrifices. In the end it's true. Either you want to be a nurse or you don't. In order to be a nurse you have to quit your job and dedicate 2 years of your life. If you want to be a good nurse just do that stop looking into these mickey mouse schools that are a waste of your money. I spent a year trying to teach myself how to be a nurse.... Find a good school. It's worth it.

I hope you didn't do it.... Try Barry University, or Nova, or FIU. Anywhere BUT Kaplan....

For all who are thinking of doing Kaplan's ADN online program.... I am currently enrolled and regret it. It's a new program that is on probation because their students have a hard time passing the NCLEX. Basically you are teaching yourself. It's online and you better study because the only thing you will learn is what the book teaches you. The program is very unorganized. They are constantly changing things to "help", but all it does is overwhelm you. I enrolled in Kaplan's ADN program because it was advertised as an online program for working adults. However..... the staff does not agree. They say this is nursing school and to h$$$ with your job. They put a lot of focus on practice nclex tests which is nice but I would rather learn nursing and focus on the nclex when I get to that time. Mind you I drive from Homestead to Ft. Lauderdale to these classes and I really wish I would have stayed local. It is not worth my headache. To all aspiring nursing students. Just sacrifice the job and go to class. You cannot learn nursing online.

The test isn't bad. Know your basic math, fractions, percentages, algebra. The reading was a piece of cake. The writing I didn't do well though I scored into honors English at MDC. My problem with that was that whole section was awful. The written pieces were sO poorly written it was hard to decipher what was "good" and what was "bad". The anatomy was easy. My problem was I studied my basic anatomy. Don't worry about that part. Study your physiology. They're gonna ask you questions about the functions not actual naming of the body. And it mostly focused on lungs, circulation, hardly any renal or brain. Thru asked about cellular fluids. Anyway, had I known that I would've done perfectly fine. However I got a 70. But I wasn't able to get the prep book and I have been in midterms. Sucks but I did what could do and I tried my best.