nguyency77

I wish I had known this before I started my first semester of nursing school; but I'll pass along the torch in the hope that you don't have to go through what I did! Between classes, pay attention to your classmates. Learn to read their behavior, but keep it to yourself. Why is this important, you may ask? Some nursing schools believe that group projects foster teamwork and collaboration, while failing to recognize that group work has a tendency to be exploited. When you are allowed to choose your work groups, try to work with seemingly responsible students. Typically these are the people who raise their hands and ask a lot of questions. There are no consequences in group projects if you don't do your work, as many students fear confrontation and want to promote a peaceful and supportive learning environment (at least, early on). This sets the stage for lazy people to just show up on presentation day and pretend they did something all along. The worst thing about group projects? If everyone else did the work, the slackers still get the A's. So try to stay away from those types; many find smart students to leech off of and skate through the program. Don't let it happen to you; it's not a matter of grades, but a matter of integrity. If these people were not trustworthy enough to carry out a simple task, or at least own up to the fact that they didn't help, how do you know that they actually gave the med that they documented they gave? How do you know they actually assessed the patient when they said they did?

Couldn't have said it better myself. My clinical instructor praised me at the end of our first clinical. I don't get compliments like that every day, so it meant a lot coming from an instructor I admire. That did not make me think I was destined to be the greatest nurse out of my whole cohort, though. Say what you will about CNA experience being "pointless" prior to entering nursing, but being a CNA taught me so much. The most important lesson was: It'S NOT ABOUT ME. So let's make nice. Age and appearance do not determine nursing ability; however, they influence how patients view us and how much trust they are willing to give us. Actual ability and patients' perception of ability go way back (think Psychology 101!) to the halo/horns effect. Your management is probably attempting to tap into the halo effect by overestimating the influence appearance and personality have on Press Ganey. It is experience and open-mindedness that make a great nurse. We are all taught that nursing is a science...and an art. You might be good at technical skills, but have atrocious bedside manner. You might be the sweetest nurse in the world, but can't start an IV to save your life. The caring, the knowledge, and the wisdom to make judgments are traits that every nurse needs and hopefully acquires as he/she moves through life and through their nursing career. Even when (if!) I pass my NCLEX, I recognize that I'm still not done. Just because I'll graduate with a BSN doesn't mean I know more than anyone. There is much to be learned from the LPN and the ADN who have spent decades on the floor.

If I see them and it's convenient for me, I will say hello. But if they are scattered throughout the facility (a couple at the med carts, hiding in the break room, and some down this hall and some down that hall), I'm not going to play hide and seek. My point was that I don't go looking for them because between the 3 confused residents plotting their escape, and the new admit who is yelling for iced tea and the bathroom at 5-minute intervals, and the RN asking me to take 20 vital signs and do 4 showers, you all know where my priorities lie. Unfortunately, not all preceptors are like you. When I was new, one of my preceptors spent the whole shift MIA (AKA texting her boyfriend in a comatose patient's room while I ran around getting all her call lights). But I digress.Perhaps that CNA should not have 'yelled' at the OP. But at least now you know that patients'/residents' diets are everyone's responsibility. Another example is code status. Everyone needs to know that, too. You cannot just resuscitate someone who didn't want to be revived and just say, "Oh my bad, I didn't know." You would be in for a major lawsuit and legal actions against you as a person. You would also lose your job and any chances of getting another job. OP: Students actually ARE a liability. When I'm in my nursing clinicals, I work under my instructor's license AND the RN preceptor's license. Meaning if I do something wrong, both of them are in big trouble and can lose their license to be a nurse. And then the hospital/site will get sued if a patient is harmed and it will be also my fault. That is the definition of liability. You probably thought I meant "annoying" or "in the way," but no. Please don't be defensive. I never said anything about you as a person (because how could I know that from one post?); likewise, I would appreciate it you refrained from making assumptions about how I am heartless and cold, just because my day doesn't allow time for me to go kiss up to nursing students. I am just informing you the consequences of what happens when you don't know someone's dietary restrictions. It's not about us CNAs and the inflated egos we tend to get from time to time; it's about the patient being well, and having the surgery or treatment that they need. We are here to care for our residents and make their lives easier. I personally don't come to work to get compliments, or told how I'll make a wonderful nurse someday. It's about humility, an idea that many people cannot grasp early on. When I was new, I was very shocked that some of the CNAs came across as stand-offish and wouldn't come say hi to me. Later, when I got their same workload, I understood why. It's not that they wouldn't; they couldn't. Maybe not now, but someday you will realize it's not about you. I sure did.

I'm sorry you had a difficult experience, but allow me to point something out... Maybe this is assuming too much, but why do you think the CNAs should have said hello to you? Our teachers drill this into our heads all the time: we are students, and therefore liabilities...not assets. No one should be kissing the floor I walk on. When I was working as a CNA, I barely had time to pee and eat...let alone go introduce myself to all 10 practical nursing students. If I got to work with one, awesome. If I didn't, I wasn't about to go out of my way to make them feel all special. I just didn't have the time. If I had a patient who was allergic to peanuts and I gave them a peanut butter sandwich, could I just shrug and say it isn't my fault because I didn't know? You took an NPO patient into the lunchroom. Why did this not strike you as a problem? If the person had eaten lunch, they may not have been able to have surgery they might have needed and it would have been your fault for not noticing they were NPO. I found that by losing my naive sense of entitlement to kind and fair treatment, and by proving to people I was serious about my work and school, no one picked on me. Never play the meek card. If someone has a problem with you, resolve it. Don't let yourself be the victim, and you'll never be one. :)

In Vietnam and China, ALL "female" jobs require you to have a certain look. It does not matter if you came up with the theory of relativity and revolutionized the world of science; if you are considered unattractive, you will lose the position to the ditzy teenager who slept with the HR manager. If by 'their' standards, you are slim and leggy with a cute face and a girly voice, you're hired. This is true whether you are a cashier at KFC or if you're a new nurse. Never mind logic. There is definitely a shift from Nursing by Merit & Experience to Nursing by Customer Service. It's kind of sad that healthcare is shifting to a customer service model.

If it's a wellness nursing diagnosis, I think it has to be only one part.

I'm in Level I. So far, this what we've done: 3-4 Reflection papers for community clinicals 2 Reflection papers for SIM Lab 3 Skills Checkoffs (graded: full head-to-toe assessment, Foley, IV; pass/fail: trach suction, NG tubes, NG feeding, blood draws, etc.) 3-4 Electronic Medical Record documentation (we have a student system to practice on with fictional patients) 2 Class Presentations (patient teaching & professional nursing association, with APA citations) Lots of online quizzes Online discussions Online, interactive case studies Watch skills videos to prepare for lab & lecture READING: Lots of it! 1 Care plan What we will do once clinical starts: 2-3 Care plans Health Histories A full head to toe Whatever else they feel like assigning us!

This is one of the most bizarre things I have ever heard of. As Erikson would put it..."Identity versus Role Confusion."

Yes, I got all A's in my science classes. I say this a lot; it's not about the time. It's about the quality of your studying! If you have only two hours at a time to study, how can you make it meaningful? :) NEVER CRAM. Cramming might get people through pre-reqs, but once nursing school starts cramming does not fly. I still make To Do lists because I need something to keep me focused. I also like to make up questions that I think might be on tests; I put them on my gFlash+ app on my iPhone/iPad and quiz myself out loud. (I am finding that this technique is really helpful in nursing school! Doing this seems to help me re-word test questions so that I can find the best way to answer them). For patho, I used to draw out concept maps because this cut out a lot of extra words and simplified the concepts for me.

As TheCommuter said, we had a "staffing coordinator" when I was a CNA in a LTC/SNF. The person was a CNA; she was actually the person who hired me. She worked central supply, hired new CNA and med techs, and drove the van occasionally. However, discipline was always left to the ADON or DON.

I thought so, too. This is going to sound really passive-aggressive, but the next time she starts on a topic like that I'm just going to ask her if telling the story is okay with HIPAA. She used to work in a LTC, and she actually shared information about who lived on what floor. And of course they were all people within the community who were identifiable. Maybe this isn't a problem to some residents, but in our culture some people consider it morally wrong to institutionalize the elderly because of family values. I personally don't feel that way, but I digress. It's as if she thinks I don't know what HIPAA is, and somehow that makes it okay to gossip about patients to people who know them? It doesn't.

I have a question! I'm just a student nurse. But there's a certain person that I know who is a RN. She and I are both part of our ethnic community; therefore, most everyone knows everyone by name, gossip spreads like wildfire, etc. The problem is...She likes telling stories about patients that are identifiable. The other night, she told my grandparents a story about Mr. So-and-So who had X amount of strokes, was having X treatment at Y Hospital, is about to die, his WHOLE life story (including how many kids he has, how long he's been in the hospital, etc.), his NAME, who his wife was... This is an arbitrary example of what she does. Call me a silly idealistic student, but isn't that WRONG? I can understand it when nurses tell stories of funny/weird situations. I know I have had to care for interesting people during my time as a CNA... Won't ever forget the times I got punched by residents! But it is NOT ok to be sharing information that is specific and identifiable. I knew exactly who the person was and how to find him. I just feel that the people in my ethnic community don't necessarily understand their rights under HIPAA. What do I do? If I keep my mouth shut, she's just going to keep telling the whole world about her patients.

Hey! (: What I did for A&P 2 was to know the textbook really, really well. If you have who I think you have, he likes to test on matching! So know the anatomy of everything, but especially bones. He likes charts and graphs for physiology, especially about thresholds. Many of his questions are about function; I thought it was helpful to make flow charts. For reproductive, I wrote out step by step which hormones do what at which point in the ovulatory cycle. If you have the leftover time, he also likes to test on things that "sound cool," like the Nodes of Ranvier. Don't space out during his lecture because if you lose him, you've lost him for the remainder of the class. People are often saying that his lecture is pointless, but if you read the book before you go to class his lecture will clarify a lot of things for you! Like someone else said, make flashcards on Quizlet or another site. I would not rely on other people's cards. Make up your own questions! Integrate terms with questions like, "Drugs that increase the threshold of myocardial contractility will do what to the heart rate?" Because it's important! :)

I went on a field trip when I was a senior in high school to the gross anatomy lab at the university. They had a cadaver already dissected for us. It was awesome!

fuzzywuzzy: In my state, we are not allowed to cut nails whether we are a CNA or a RN because of the risk to diabetic patients! So my old facility used to have a podiatrist come in but I've never seen him, and people's toenails are always pretty gnarly.

Hi there. Sorry you had a bad night! It happens. They tell us all the time in nursing school that although we may perceive OUR patient's needs to be the most urgent (you are right; no one would want to be rolling around in their feces), there may be other pressing matters like changes in another patient's condition. When nurses take report, they have a LOT more to hear/say than we CNA do. All CNAs say during report is, "So & so needs to be toileted at X time, so & so got up and fell this morning, I showered so & so this afternoon, watch So & so because they always get up several times at night." Nursing report can be very long because there is just so more to it than med passes. Perhaps on a regular night when nothing major occurred, the colostomy bag would have been addressed sooner. I would just let it go. You were trying to do a good thing for your resident; however, you know the night CNA was there. It would have been possible to just clean up the resident, put him to bed, and ask the night CNA to keep an eye on him.

Exactly. I never said I hated CMA, or that it's the CMA's fault that facilities are shifting to a "cost-effective model." In fact, I am one! I just do not think our training is adequate enough to perform a previously nursing-only function. Yes, we CMA can just blindly hand out pills like items on a checklist. We do not have the judgment to assess the patient's condition, which would decide whether to hold or give the med. Someone here said that you can be a nurse in a year, as though that somehow makes nurses non-professionals. I don't think that is a very conclusive statement, given the amount of time LPN spend doing the required science classes and clinical hours. LPN programs around here require 2 semesters (at least) of pre-requisites, which is one full academic year. Then, students have another full calendar year of nursing coursework. My brother is in an LPN program, and he will have spent 1,566 hours in clinical by the time he graduates. How many clinical hours does a CMA have? When I got my CMA, I spent (get this!): ZERO HOURS in clinical. EDIT: Some of you have stated that there is no evidence that CMA make more med errors than professional nurses. I did examine some of the studies that were done, and it is true. However, this seems to be the case because there is still some LPN/RN supervision going on. I refer back to the OP's post that he/she was indeed replaced. What is the error rate going to look like when LPN/RN are no longer utilized in such settings? Can we depend on people who cannot exercise nursing judgment to make nursing decisions, if professional nurses are continually being replaced by unlicensed personnel?

This is example of when the "slippery slope" fallacy does NOT apply. I agree with you 100%, Brandon. I hope that when my class graduates, we won't be facing the uphill battle against "permissive licensure" like some of you did when you were new nurses. Remember when licensure wasn't mandatory? It is a terrifying thought; people could just see a classified ad seeking an RN and apply if they thought they had the "skills." The only catch was that the person couldn't call themselves an RN. Same thing is happening now. Every state has mandatory licensure, but it seems like new job titles are being invented every day for UAP. Pretty soon, I'll be a CNA XII and I'll be able to do everything an RN can do! Only I just can't call myself an RN.

I can't say I know what you teacher is getting at, but it makes sense. If I were an ADN, I would attempt to bridge to BSN as soon as possible. It's not a matter of which degree makes a better nurse, but rather which degree will give you more opportunities. GrnTea: Someday soon I'm going to make a GrnTea appreciation thread, lol!

OCNRN63: It doesn't seem like it's a big deal, but I think it is. It's frustrating that patients can't tell you all apart from the housekeeping department. Nurses are professionals, and when companies take away what distinguishes nursing staff from non-nursing staff the lines between who gets to do what are blurred. That's when the "watering-down of care" happens. Yes, I'm aware that nurses know the technicalities of what they're allowed to do vs. what the CMA is allowed to do. But to a patient, it's all the same; anyone in scrubs who is twirling around a stethoscope = nurse. Then if you add in the issue of non-nurses calling themselves nurses, it's no wonder the public has no idea what to think. It's sad that nurses dedicate so much time to finish school and to gain experience in their specialties, only to be replaced by us puny dime-a-dozen UAP.

The majority of private/vocational schools in my area usually include in their fine print the following statement: "Credits earned are unlikely to transfer." It depends on how well people do their research...

I am a CMA. Let me enlighten you all on how I got my certificate! I took my transcript to the BON, with a form that stated my name and address. I brought them a $40 money order; they mailed me the paper, no questions asked. That was it! I took pharmacology as a requirement for nursing school. The course was intended for us to learn the names and actions of medications...Not so much about how to administer them, or when to hold them, etc. Not just that, but my guilty conscience weighed on me. Whose job would I be stealing, if I decided to go to management and tell them I got my med tech certificate? I say this OVER and OVER on these boards...You nurses need to do something about your professional image! EVERYONE wears scrubs, from dietary to the secretary. Even people who have never been near an OR in their life wear green scrubs. I knew a front-desk medical assistant who routinely wore OR scrubs and told guys at the bar she was a nurse...Lol. Granted, uniforms are usually color-coded... but the public doesn't really care enough to find out what each color stands for. There's gotta be something that can be done to differentiate nurses from non-nurses... Until something is done, corporations will exploit the public's ignorance regarding who is qualified to provide care and who isn't by using "Med Techs" and other inflated job titles to protect their bottom lines. Thoughts?

The cost of scrubs is outrageous. Then I think about the poor kids who are sewing them for us in some lonely factory, and I get even more peeved. The $20 they make off of one shirt is probably what the kids make in a year.

CMA is a very expensive program, as very few community colleges offer it. Many trade schools do, but it is outrageously expensive. Read: schools in my area cost upwards of $20k for a CMA. And nearly every newspaper ad that is asking for a CMA insists that the person be bilingual (English, Spanish and/or a regional language like Dine), have experience in both secretarial settings as well as drawing blood, and be willing to work for $10 an hour. I would not really say that it is related to nursing, because most CMA work in physicians' offices. In my area, those that work in hospitals get to push paper, schedule appointments, and clock out at 4 PM. Maybe you could look into other schools in your area that offer an ADN?

I wish my homework was that easy...But that's beside the point. What did you end up writing, OP?