C.J.

kknud, hey I've been accepted to Odessa's campus for this fall too! Shoot me an email at [email protected]!

HealthyFuture congratulations!!! I can definitely relate to you. When I got the call asking for an interview as a surgical aide I was intensely excited!! I just wore a nice button up shirt and khakis (I'm a guy). Just take a deep breath. The clinical managers/administrators remember what it's like to be a student, PCA, or PCT. They will ask you some questions to see if you have what it takes to be a good PCA. You may or may not get an offer on the spot. Never the less, it would be a good idea to write a thank you letter to your interviewer. Just make sure to relax and act confident, and express your desire to learn! You will do fine!

I'm not a CNA, but I'm a surgical aide and work mainly in pre-operative care/post-operative care and love my job! I just found out I got accepted to a BSN program and am excited to incorporate what I've learned. I will say this; it is HARD. It is no joke one of my main duties is transporting patients from the surgery floor to the pre-op unit and I have been afraid my feet were bleeding from walking. The nurses are low in staff sometimes and some (but not many!) tend to be grouchy. Some surgeons are bossy and yell, some anesthesiologists like to have everything done their way or the highway, but in the end, as long as I have done everything necessary and in my will to help the patient and the patient is happy, then I am happy! I love helping with a pre-op procedure, and if it ends up being discomforting for the patient, it is nice to know that I am there for them to advocate and share their feelings while the nurse/anesthesiologist performs the procedure. I feel as though it has! I have learned to transport patients, prepare IVs, learn about hospital standards/protocol, communicate effectively with both patients and professionals, learn about medications, and the various factors that can all influence patient care outcomes...the priority for nurses to make positive!

You sure will be ahead of many! I have been an EMT since I was 18, and have recently been an anesthesia tech and surgical aide right before being accepted to my BSN program which starts in a few months. I have helped with sterile procedures, ambulated patients, prepare IVs, and all other kinds of nursing-related activities! I do however wish I had the opportunity to become a CNA (I lived in the middle of nowhere, and EMTs were needed!) because even though I can administer o2 before the preop nurse can even detect a lowered SpO2 and know more about fractures, surgery, and airways than many, I am having to catch up on learning the basic nursing procedures (which are equally important, trust me!!) and it's kind of embarrassing. If you have ANY clinical experience communicating with, working with, or assisting nurses and other professionals, you will be ahead! It is different for everyone, but just remember to treat your patients when you are a nursing student with the same manner as if you were an assistant.

Has anybody heard any followups on orientation dates or if there is one big orientation or anything? If anybody's going to Odessa shoot me an email at [email protected]!

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE A&P!!!!!! Micro....not quite so much. Still liked it but it felt like a lot more work. I loved pathophysiology too! Sad to see it go, but I'm happy to apply it .

@Hopeful_st I am actually going to the TTUHSC Odessa Campus! I know I've only heard of one other person who is going there....

Like I said I haven't been to nursing school yet, but I am expecting it to be extremely hard and time consuming! Thank you very much! However, I don't see physicians superior to nurses, and I work with both parties all day in the OR as an anesthesia tech. I've even seen a nurse give a physician orders. In the OR, if the CNOR circulator sees that a surgeon isn't performing adequately, he/she has the right to suspend him/her from the OR. Is med school harder? Probably, but I don't know that personally. Like a previous post said earlier, it is all subjective.

GingerRoot I get asked that a lot. I'm about to start nursing school and have a 3.94 GPA, and I never once thought A&P or micro were hard. However I don't want to become a physician because medicine and nursing are 2 totally separate different disciplines. Nursing encompasses caring for the patient as a whole, rather than curing the disease. Personal preference to focus on the patient is why I don't want to be a doctor

Congratulations to everyone who got in! Has anyone received follow up emails or formal notifications of acceptance yet?

Hey haboukar thank goodness I saw your post! I was beginning to think the exact same thing! I am going to the TTUHSC Odessa Campus too!! I got my email on Sunday! So glad to find somebody else in Odessa! Shoot me an email at [email protected] or find me on facebook!

LittleMissRedRaider and sml0432 I have been to the main Texas Tech University Health Science Center in Lubbock and can say it is AMAZING! It isn't with the actual university, instead it is on a campus nearby. It is pretty much connected with University Medical Center. The campus is divided between he academic building, the library, and the actual hospital. All of the campuses for nursing have similar campus structures I believe, with Abilene being right next to Hendrick Medical Center (they are building their own new building!) and Odessa being next to Medical Center Hospital (That's my campus!!). They are similar to Lubbock, but on just a much smaller scale. Don't know about El Paso though. LittleMissRedRaider I'm just ready to get some more instructions and get the show on the road, ya know?!

Yeah I keep looking at my email in disbelief too!!! It is just so crazy to think that in August I will be a nursing student! I cannot believe it's finally came! Has anybody received any further instructions yet in follow-up emails?

I GOT MY EMAIL TODAY TOO!!!! I was driving when I got the email and saw "Texas Tech" and immediately pulled over. I was sooooo excited to see that I got in! Congratulations to everybody!

LittleMissRedRaider, I wasn't too fond of my teacher and it didn't help that it was ONLINE lol. I'm still taking gov right now, and of course the nursing classes, and that is it. Oh wow ok! I'm excited about it now! That totally makes sense. I feel like I'm expecting a newborn baby or something....it can arrive any minute haha! hdoty, that's great! I applied to the Odessa campus so I would like to take an elective :). I almost applied to Abilene (my family is from a town near there) but decided I'd rather be in Odessa because I have a part-time job with the hospital in Midland. I wonder if any other schools in Texas have began accepting yet?

Hdoty I heard the exact same thing about it being Late April via email. It would be a pleasant surprise to find out sooner! I don't know exactly....I know that on the website it does say that it must be completed in 4 semesters, but it doesn't say how long as far as summers go. I have **** for pathophysiology and **** for Intro.

248bwhite, LittleMissRedRaider is totally right! Tech treats students holistically :). It ain't over until the fat lady sings if I were on the admissions board, I would totally rather have somebody with work experience over a perfect GPA! I have faith in ya! Thank you LittleMissRedRaider! I know I made a B in statistics and I was happy with that LOL. That and economics are the only B grades I have. I know I really want to go to Lubbock and meet everyone, even though I'm not going to be on that campus! What?! Really?! Ooooooh wow! What grapevine did you hear that from?! I am definitely excited now! That made my day :w00t:

Oh my gosh me too! This week is kicking my butt with the concept map and 2 quizzes! Yeah I think that there is a lot of work out there that could be applicable, not just medical work history! My GPA totaled up to a 3.94. I'm finishing up my associate's this semester at Western Texas College and because I cannot get my butt into gear with these last few classes for my AS degree, it may drop just a little . So far so good, but I'm having to seriously push myself. I'm just ready to start, you know? I'm excited to meet everyone!

Not a problem, EmilyP8589! The OR is a great place to work, and when I graduate I am contemplating going back, at least to PACU/POCU. Like I said, it can be a bit scary and overwhelming at first, but just take it one day at a time, remember that nothing lasts forever, and enjoy your weekends and time off! If you go into OR, before you know it you will be missing the team(s) during your time off and calling to check in on them :).

I'm a male anesthesia tech and a pre-nursing student and I remember oh too well the first day one of the more experienced middle-aged scrub nurse looked at me and said "wanna dance?" I thought she was absolutely nuts! So glad I'm not the only newbie that thought that was funny . Yes, and the "milk of amnesia" was a very popular term for propofol, as was simply "gimme some pro!"

I am not an RN yet, I am merely an EMT who is working as an anesthesia tech in the OR right now working towards nursing school. Working in the OR is like stepping into wonderland...it is a place unlike any other! Pros I've observed so far include the fact that the perioperative nurses (mostly circulating, in that they aren't sterile, but some actually scrub up and are first assists) are able to advocate 1 on 1 for their patients one at a time. This allows for the nurse to provide efficient care before surgery (you have to interview them and make sure they are prepped, receive proper meds, etc.), during surgery (assist with anesthesia induction, do instrument counts, make sure who ever is scrubbing in has proper tools, make sure family is updated on status of patient, assist with crashing patients by taking over with anesthesia), and after (counting again, transporting the patient to PACU, giving report to PACU nurse, provide plan of care template, transfer, etc.) the operation. Working this summer was the first time I was exposed to the OR environment, and to be honest I was surprised with the cleanliness of it all. Yes, some surgeries involved a considerable amount of "blood and gore." For example, after orthopedic surgeries it wouldn't be a surprise to find bloody bone chunks lying around the OR, or the smell of GI surgeries involving septic trauma (yes, there is a wintergreen solution you can put on your mask, don't worry!). As a perioperative nurse, if you circulate you will be watching the OR from a very broad "big picture" situation, looking for details of distress from the scrubbed tech/assistant, the surgeon, or the anesthesiologist/CRNA, so you won't be right there. However if your hospital chooses to train nurses to scrub in, then you will see more blood for sure! One big trait plus is the ability to collaborate with others and be a "team player." As the perioperative RN, you will be the glue holding everything together, as the coach, the manager, and the cheerleader for "Team Patient!" Nothing makes a surgery sour quicker than an OR nurse who doesn't play that way, because it takes the focus off the patient and makes the other team members uncomfortable. Another great trait is what I call the "mother hen" personality. Some of the best OR nurses I have met have had the mindset that they would take a bullet for their patients. I have seen nurses fight for patient advocacy PERIOPERATIVELY...that's right, they would raise their voice in protest for the patient during a surgery if the surgeon, surgical tech, or the anesthesia provider said something out of turn or stepped out of line. As far as what I do, I have been an EMT for 2 years, and an anesthesia technician (assists the anesthesia provider, nurses, and others involved in anesthesia) for just a short while while finishing up my prerequisites. It is TOUGH in the OR at first, especially if you are young (I am only 20, which is young for an OR staff member). When you step into a world where the staff has known each other for years and is in a room with each other for hours at a time, they sometimes get a bit dysfunctional (in a good way!). They are a family to say the least, and at first they might be tough on you, but give it some time and they will accept you. I am back in college now not working, but I miss the OR so much! By the end of my time there, they had accepted me as family and I still go back and visit the OR staff every now and then. I hope I helped!

Yeah, it definitely is nice, and you know I am glad they have made them prerequisites because with nursing school being difficult pre-nursing students should know what they are up against! It was difficult, but I bounced back after spending a whole weekend doing the modules and everything haha. Yep a whole lot of nurses who went with ADN simply because it was "faster" are kicking themselves to go back and get their BSN. If I don't get into TTUHSC Permian Basin this time around, I'm going to work for the fall to save up and get my CNA license. I already have my EMT, but if I don't get in this time around it will keep me in the nursing game for next time! If you don't mind me asking (totally cool if you don't want to share, I understand), what is your GPA?

That's exactly what I am seeing in various regions of Texas, too, with the whole home-health=ADN/LVN pattern. I plan on going on in nursing, so why not cut to the chase and get my BSN, you know? Very nice! I am actually taking both from Tech too right now! I got in the class a few weeks late (I am going to school to complete my Associates from Western Texas College) and just jumped at the opportunity. Intro to me was pretty easy to catch up in, but patho took some serious studying to get ahead!

I'm getting better at not checking so much :). You're right it just becomes depressing when you look 4 times the same day!! I agree. I thought the CAS was a bit difficult when I first opened it, but it became pretty easy once everything got done! I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the whole GPA Calculation/Transcript Verification took! I applied to the Odessa Campus. I'm not from Odessa, but I have family from around there and I had a nice job in surgery at the hospital in Midland and they said I could have it part time/prn in school and on holidays. This is the only one I have applied to so far. I considered applying to the associate degree programs in the area, but Midland hospital has issued a statement saying that they wouldn't hire anything under a BSN for RN anymore . I haven't met one person applying to the Permian Basin/Odessa Campus yet, makes me wonder how many have applied! Did you already take pathophysiology or intro. to nursing?

Hey LittleMissRedRaider! Oh gosh I'm doing good if I don't check Merlin and NursingCAS once an hour!! I know but as it gets closer I'm getting more and more nervous! What campus are you applying to?