vickymarie

Try public health! I precepted in public health and went directly into it after graduating with my BSN. It's a vastly different experience, for certain, and won't meet the experience requirements for every position, but you learn a lot of systems level thinking and case management skills, while still using assessment and the nursing process every day.

Come to public health! A lot of people think public health and home health are the same, but they're most definitely not. I started as a new grad right away in public health and have never regretted it. It's great, because there are a lot of different programs that demand different types of skills. It runs a spectrum from preventive home visiting programs to desk-based case management and epidemiology/surveillance. You learn a lot about working closely with interdisciplinary teams, and get a good understanding of what health resources are available in your area. Plus, great work-life balance! I get nights, weekends, and holidays off, I have time to attend grad school classes because they can work with my schedule, and have a healthy pregnancy right now on top of it. Edit: I was wisely advised by my professor and advisor when I was a student wanting to precept in public health - there will be a lot of people who say that you can't be a marketable or complete nurse without "doing your time" on the floor. They are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. If you know right away that the bedside is not for you, then you are lucky. Trust yourself. You are in no way obligated to do something that will make you burn out quickly in a profession that you worked so hard to enter, if you find another option that better suits you.

For me personally, I don't feel like I'm "missing out" on anything, having skipped floor nursing experience. I came in as a new grad and love public health - though I'm considering maybe in the future moving to a better-paying county. I think that in many programs, bedside nursing experience is helpful of course, but not a dealbreaker by any means. I know that a lot of people think that you should "do your time" in med-surg or something first, but I am against that school of thought.

I went directly into public health from nursing school and never looked back. I'm from Northern California too and I know that my agency is hiring at least two entry level PHN's. I think other nearby counties are recruiting very actively also! There are some nurses in the clinics (not necessarily PHN's, but work in the health/human services department) who do triaging, but I think help/advice line nurses are often through healthcare providers like Kaiser and Sutter.

The work hours normally are M-F, 8 to 5 with an hour lunch at my work, but there are multiple options for "alternative" work schedules where you can work your 4 hours in different permutations. The work days are set M-F for me, but I feel like if anything, it's more flexible than bedside nursing because there's no clock in/clock out environment. You have a set work schedule, but let's say you're a parent and want to make it to an activity at your kid's school, or you have something planned with your spouse for an anniversary. You can almost always just let your supe know you are "flexing" off a couple hours and will make them up by taking a shorter lunch another day or adding a little bit to your other shifts. I work in child welfare services/foster care, and I get to spend time in the field doing assessments or home visits, in the community doing education, and yes, time at the desk doing some "case management" type things such as making sure parents are able to navigate the health systems and access services. Every program in public health is so different, I feel like there could be a program of interest to everyone.

Whenever possible, allow mom (or dad) to hold them while it's happening. If they're old enough to communicate with, feel if they're tensing up around the site where you're going to administer and coax them into breathing until you actually feel the muscle relax. Also, each child is different. Let them feel like they have a little control. Don't order them to look away, or try to show them the needle. Tell them something like, "You can look away. Do you want to look at mommy?". It also helps if the parents are engaged - but they won't always be. Center yourself and breathe before entering the room with the shots - a shot from a shaky hand hurts more, and the kid is more likely to flip out if you're nervous. For babies, you might need to comfort the parent more than the child in some cases - especially new parents. And if it's available at your clinics, offer the FluMist for those that qualify and save yourself the heartache of seeing a sad little face after they get a shot. There's usually more laughing and confusion when you administer the mist because people don't know if they should snort or tilt their head or breathe.

This was something hat always genuinely bothered me when I heard it. A lot of people say that public health nurses "lose their skills". No. Public health nurses have a different skillset that they use on a daily basis, that they work hard to develop. They develop skills in case management, creative assessment techniques, trend identification, teaching, resource-finding - and none of those skills are less important that clinical skills that nurses use at the bedside. Do you tell an ER nurse or an OR nurse that they "lost their skills" because they no longer are proficient in using OB/L&D maneuvers and equipment that they learned about in nursing school? No. Most people would consider that ridiculous. Public health nursing simply expands on different skills, just like any nursing specialty.

It took me months, they didn't really hurry it up until I started going into the office on a weekly basis (I live in the Sacramento area). Phone calls and emails didn't help at all at that time.

Is it a huge pay-cut compared to hospital nursing? Yes. I turned down a job at a VA hospital for my current public health position - I took the lower-paying position because honestly, it was well worth it. The benefits are excellent. The hours are convenient and flexible. I don't ever feel compelled to drag myself to work when I'm sick. I get weekends off, holidays off, and recently, they adjusted my schedule to fit in with my school schedule since I am starting grad school. Public health, besides being the part of nursing I am really passionate about, has a flexibility that other nursing specialties do not. I can set my own pace and look out for my own sanity. Plus, I am not as physically drained. It's mentally a very challenging job, but it is easier on my body. I think the work/life balance is well worth it. Plus, public health comes with immense networking opportunities while on the job, and many times, that's how you move up. Public health has amazing opportunities for upward mobility.

$142 per credit? That's like robbery! The community college I attended for my prerequisites is currently $46 per credit, and when I went to school there about 5 years ago, it was even cheaper. I never looked into the cost of tuition in other states, but I know everyone says everything is more expensive in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I went to school... so I assumed $30-40 was going to be on the expensive end. $140 per unit is practically how much it cost me per semester to attend the university when I do the math.

I was wondering if anyone here was a graduate, current, or prospective student of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing through UC Davis. I will be in the MS Leadership (Nursing Science & Healthcare Leadership) program this upcoming fall. Just wanted to connect with anyone in any of the programs, and hear about any experiences!

I'm still struggling with how your tuition costs so much - were there not any cheaper options? When I was in school and before I got married, it was not that my parents held out on me, but that they made too much for me to qualify for grants, and I refused to ask them to provide financial support because I'm the oldest of 4, so there are 3 kids AFTER me who will need to go to school too. I started off in community college when I turned 18. I worked, saved, and transferred to university, then became a nurse. Along the way, yes, I got engaged, got married, and qualified as an independent student, but before that, I knocked out my prerequisites at a community college because that's what I could afford. I'm not sure where GSU is, but I presume that it's a university, which is MUCH more expensive. You can easily save yourself money by going to a community college first.

First of all, don't let anyone tell you that you "need to" be miserable for a while just to be a nurse, or that in order to be a real nurse, you need to pay your dues and work at the bedside. It's always an option, and it's a good way to develop skills, but as my public health instructor told me, there is this belief out there that you need to be at the bedside to be a "whole" nurse, and that's not true. I precepted in public health at the health department and eventually got my first full-time nursing job there. I tuned out the negativity about how I needed to sculpt my career a certain way, and I'm incredibly happy. Public health, to be sure, takes a very different skill set than bedside nursing. There are many different settings out there, even in such a saturated market.

Hi there! I'm a graduate of the Sac State nursing program (Fall 2013) and I thought I would just share a snippet of the text from my admissions decision way back when, to see if it helps clarify some people's questions about alternates and rankings and whatnot.

I agree... that's why I said that I didn't think the petition itself was going to be the agent of change, but that it would be helpful as a sort of community-building and awareness-raising gesture. I think that nurses as a community, especially new grads and new nurses, have still yet to fully come into their own as a community with a collective voice, so that voice is something that needs to be gathered and developed before it can more actively be used in more effective ways to bring about change.

I don't think I assumed much that the petition itself was going to be the specific agent of change. But, what I've seen in the past is that having something online and shareable has been a helpful way of reaching out to people. I saw it with the movement against the MTV show, "Scrubbing In", which gained a lot of its voice because of a well-maintained Change.org petition, paired with a Facebook community that encouraged supporters to network and speak out on social media. But I agree, there is more that needs to be done than signing a petition. I just think that the petition is a helpful deliverable to have on social media to help get the message out and encourage others to reach out to elected officials directly. :)

Hi everyone! So, I'm a new grad from a BSN program, and a large majority of my graduating cohort (as well as many others from other programs, from what I've read) have been feeling a great deal of frustration with the delays in receiving our ATT's and the BRN's limited capacity to process applications that it definitely knows it's going to be getting. Some friends and I got into a discussion today and were trying to see if anything could even be done. It seems like the system itself is what's lacking, and that the applicants AND the employees are both frazzled in trying to deal with it. It seems to me like the BRN could do with some QI of their own. So... I guess I just wanted to see if I could spark up a discussion about what, if anything, we could advocate for as nurses and future nurses far as improvements to the process? I don't know if it's allowed here to post, but I started a Change.org petition this afternoon containing some of the ideas that came up today. (The link is: http://www.change.org/petitions/denise-d-brown-reform-licensure-application-processing-by-the-board-of-registered-nursing, but I worry it might not be allowed because it has the name of the Director of the Department of Consumer Affairs in the URL) ----- In the State of California, 10,814 students completed a prelicensure nursing program in the 2011-2012 school year, compared to fewer than 6,000 in the 2002-2003 school year. Projected new student enrollment is only expected to increase in coming years (1). In order to begin practice as nurses, all of these graduates must submit applications to the California Board of Registered Nursing. Implementation of the new BreEZe system and "circumstances beyond the control of the Board of Registered Nursing have resulted in inordinate delays in processing new applications, in some cases forcing potential nurses to wait 8-10 weeks after their satisfactory completion of requirements and graduation from nursing school to receive their Authorization to Test (ATT), which in turn allows them to register for the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX). The delays in the process of passing this examination cause unjust hardship on applicants, who are depending upon reception of their licensure to be hired or retained in nursing positions. The delays in the process result in time, income, and career opportunities lost. Moreover, visits in person to the Board of Registered Nursing in Sacramento often reveal that phone inquiries by applicants often yield false or incorrect information being given over the call. Often, phone calls yield no information at all, and many applicants are forced to travel in person from all regions of California in order to receive any helpful information on the status of their applications. While we recognize that this delay reflects limitations of the new system and of the ability of the available personnel in the Board of Registered Nursing's employ, it is evident that these delays are resulting in undue burden and anxiety among applicants, and that the burden on employees of the Board of Registered Nursing have seen a tremendous increase in their workload which limits their ability to perform their job in a timely fashion. As such, we petition Governor Edmund "Jerry" Brown, the Department of Consumer Affairs, and the Board of Registered Nursing to implement any or all of the following interventions in processing applications for licensure by the Board of Registered Nursing: + MAINTAIN a pool of qualified temporary personnel to aid application evaluators to address the current backlog; + HIRE and TRAIN both evaluators and front counter personnel to address increased demand for service and deliver timely, correct information; + UTILIZE aforementioned personnel in periods during which high volumes of applications are active (i.e. June and December, when many students complete nursing programs and graduate); + OPTIMIZE work flow and protocol to prioritize in state licensure applicants; + EXPLORE more efficient ways of communicating application status, rather than constant busy phone lines and the necessity to drive long distances to the Board of Registered Nursing office; ----------- (1) California Department of Consumer Affairs, Board of Registered Nursing. "2011-2012 Pre-Licensure Program Annual School Report: Data Summary" Anyway, I hope there was nothing inappropriate about me posting this here... anyone named in this post is a public figure, and this isn't self-promotion, but rather trying to see if we can come together as nurses and advocate for something to make things better on the policy end of things, just as we are challenged to do in the clinical setting.

I have the health insurance through CNSA as well - it's not fantastic coverage, but it will do in a pinch. It is coverage through United Health, and you sign up for coverage on http://www.uhcsr.com.

Just a quick note - the class I'm in is the class of Fall 2013, I believe you guys are Spring 2015? Most of the information (and a lot of your sign-up/registration/ATI information) is organized by graduation semester, so it might be more manageable to have your group named similarly so you guys can keep track. :)

Like VintageSwagger said, the abbreviations test is not really a big deal. I meant to bring it up during the panel, but everyone was really enthusiastic for medical terminology so I didn't want to discourage anyone from taking initiative. It's a very short list, I can give you a sample of what's on it: CC - chief complaint CNS - Central Nervous System c/o - complains of CPM - continuous passive motion CSM - circulation. sensation, movement DNR - do not resuscite DOA - dead on arrival DOE - dyspnea on exertion (I keep them on a poster on my "nursing wall", which is basically a wall in my room I've dedicated to nursing information, so I'm just typing the first section of terms I saw). I think in previous semesters, a lot of people have gotten the list ahead of time from someone else they knew in the program if they already knew someone. Since you guys have a summer ahead of your first semester, I don't know how early you'll get the terms list, but you can shoot me a message with you email and I can send you more of them to study! Also, I've been doing mentoring for a couple semesters, so I have copies of my patient prep writeups that I showed my mentee scanned that I got full points on, so she could get an idea of what type of information they were looking for, but you won't need that until much later. And if you are taking pharmacology, there are tons of blogs out there with the quiz answers, and you are also allowed to use the internet to look up questions for the final. Just copy/paste the question into Google and more often than not, you will find a blog with most of the questions. The one I used was N14 Pharmacology but there might be others with more questions/answers. You guys will be assigned a mentor at your orientation, and your mentor can be your go-to person for advice and questions too once you've been to orientation. I might be assigned to one of you! Also - buy a planner! A lot of people use the "UnCalendar" because they sell it at orientation, but I didn't like it and honestly prefer a regular one. It's been a saving grace for me and a bunch of my friends in the program.

Congratulations guys! I'm super excited for you, can't wait to meet you!

Hopefully this is acceptable to post here! But -- for you guys wondering what the nursing program is like, there is a Pre-Nursing Panel on Friday at 4PM at our building (I probably shouldn't post the room number, I don't know if that info is okay to post). It's a panel of nursing students who can answer your questions about what the program is like. It's potentially a lot of helpful info for those of you who are going to be starting soon!

Hi guys! I started the program in Fall 2012, so I just wanted to share how my admissions experience went! So, I had the exact same point value as the "cut-off" that was stated in the email, but was still Alternate #8. (If it hasn't changed, since they immediately admit the first 75-ranked applicants, applicant 76 became Alternate #1, so in essence, I was #83). I figure it was because quite a few people had the same point value as I did, and I didn't know how they differentiated in case of a tie. I didn't have any of the supplemental points, because I'd never worked in a hospital, couldn't qualify for the low income status, and my foreign language in high school was French, which wasn't one of the desire languages (I speak another language at home, but I didn't live in the area and couldn't come to take an exam for it). That being said, I felt pretty sure that I was going to get in as an alternate - the initial decision that I was an alternate came out 11/28, and I got my "Congratulations, You're in! Here's all the crud you need to get done!" email on 12/16. So - don't get too discouraged if you're chosen as an alternate, especially if you're high up on the list. If you guys get your admissions decisions before Friday, you should totally come to the CNSA meeting on Friday and get a feel for the people and the program - a representative from each class always updates everyone on what each class is doing, so you'll get tons of good info, and you can meet folks and ask questions!

When I took Pharm in my first semester of nursing (2 semesters ago) it was NURS 14, and it looks like it's offered in fall, not summer. But the class is totally manageable to take during first semester if need be!

People can have very different experiences with getting all the requirements done - I personally was a wait list candidate and had 2 weeks less than everyone else in my cohort to get everything done while trying to move in a rush from Daly City to Sacramento, all during the Christmas season, but somehow didn't feel too terribly crunched for time. I thought it would be helpful to go bullet-by-bullet through the requirements just to share my experience. :) TB Skin Test (2 Step): Fairly simple and cheap to get done Measles, Mumps & Rubella (MMR): You probably have this vaccine series from your childhood, so if you or your family have saved your immunization records, that is a huge help. Hepatitis B: Same as above Tetorifice, Diphtheria & Pertussis (Tdap): Easily accessible if you don't already have one on file, but slightly more pricey Annual Flu Shot : Easily accessible, possibly free depending on your student status Varicella (Chicken Pox): Positive Titer saves a lot of time, so try that first before trying to get the vaccine series, because it can get pricey. CPR Certification: Personally the biggest headache for me because since I was called from the wait list, I had to try and get into a class fairly last minute. Car Insurance : Health Insurance: If you're currently uninsured, try going through the CSUS Healthlink page, or if you can already get a membership in California Nursing Students Organization (CNSA), their PPO health plan offered through United Health is pretty feasible financially.