gemimi

Good job owning up to it, the worse thing you could have done was try to talk your way out of it ~ hence the second chance. From now on, think clearly through everything before you do it and double check all work. Make sure to question yourself if there is the slightest doubt. I don't think it will come back to haunt you because you did the right thing in owning up. Good luck!

Isvalliant is right on target. FLY UNDER THE RADAR AT ALL TIMES!! If you have a question, find the answer out by asking another student or research it, if you ask the instructor they figure you don't know your assignment, if you ask a nurse in your clinicals they go to your instructor. If your instructor thinks you are doing "too much" of ANYTHING you are screwed so kiss butt and then haul it. You may not fail in HER class but the chances are the next semester you will as they all work together ~ especially in Med Surg which is famous for failure rates because so much of your grade is up to the instructor's disgression. I have another degree (first) and it was NOTHING like praying my way through nursing school. Do not, repeat do NOT get on an instructors wrong side or you're screwed ~ may not be by that instructor but one of the others will help her out so that you have no complaint to follow up with ... good luck and have fun. Been there, done that, wouldn't do it again for the world but I DO love my career choice.

Don't bother, they obviously are not a company that values their employees in any way, shape or form. Personally, I would not have called them the FIRST time after an interview three ring circus such as that. Remember, YOU are interviewing THEM as well during this process and deciding whether or not YOU wish to work THERE, and you would want to..... WHY???? Just pass the word along to others about what type of facility it was so they stay away as well. No one wants to work for rude and thoughtless people, a letter would mean nothing to them, nor would it change their habits. Don't bother and consider yourself fortunate.

Go for it, you'll adjust. If you have a husband he needs to pitch in ~ no reason why not if he has the interest of the family and you at heart. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today, life is too short and it's not worth it. You don't want to EVER look back and wonder if you should have, could have or would have.....EVER.

Different people have different learning styles, just as some people study better at night than during the day. Study the way that suites you best and stick with it. You are obviously computer savy and can google things, I might suggest getting a Mosby or NCLEX review book. A lot of times, rather than read 200 pages on the same thing that is stated seventeen different ways I would just go to the review book, look up whatever the subject was (ie: depression in the psych section) and the signs, symptoms, treatments and careplans were all there in a two to three page format and gave you the same information the textbook did only in a barebones outline "just the facts", no frills and confusing extra stuff. There are also practise exams in the book on the subject you are studying and I found that instructors would lift questions almost word for word from them and just change it a little. A Mosby or NCLEX Review Book and good care plan books will get you through just about anything combined with the notes taken in class.

Ummm, when did the 40's become old? :)

Guess what??? Next year you'll be 46 whether you go for it or not ~ want to look back at 75 and say, "gee, wish I would have lived my life instead of coasted...?" I graduated in my 40's with absolutely no science background and am now a Director of Nursing. Do what you want in life ~ it's short. Life is what happens while we make plans for the future.

Coming from the administrative point of view, they pay so little because they can. If CNAs and/or nurses would stand together instead of tearing each other apart every time they turn around (ie: that's not my patient....ever hear that one?) and just decide that enough is enough they would find out how very valuable they really are. Who do you think is going to do that care if you strike? I do, however, know of one strike that was lost in MI (Petoskey) where it literally went on for more than a year, divided the town, and many many nurses lost their jobs related to others who crossed the picket line. Managememet dug in and entrenched and so did the nurses. Result? No go, friends and family affected, care affected, and a mess. They have recovered and are now moving on, but it didn't do a lot to change things.

I had ET for about three years but it was after nursing school. It didn't stop me but did become more pronounced under extreme stress. Don't let it stop you from your dreams, many are better off than you and many are worse off than you. Go for it and work with it, it will be OK. Oddly enough, I later was diagnosed with cancer and received a full bone marrow/stem cell transplant. I had to go off my meds during the last run of chemotherapy and after the transplant the tremors went away. Funny how those oil changes work!!! AND GET TO YOUR DOC AND GET BACK ON YOUR MEDS!!! WE ONLY HAVE TIME TO DO WHAT WE MAKE TIME TO DO.....Good luck to you and God speed.

For the heck of it, if you're on a waiting list you might want to check out physical therapy. They make good money, less work, less paperwork, still have patient contact and leave the worry at the door. You can also specialize in hands, etc. and make even more money.

Nope, never around, never stop talking medical, never a "different" slant on your life ~ just the disease process and how crappy the help is. I love having some diversion in my life. Good thing about it is that they're probably never around so you can do as you wish ....

Sorry guys, I have to disagree on a lot of things said here. Let me say first that I have a BSN ~ reason being I already had a prior BS degree and the time spent for the BSN would have been the same for the ADN. I am a DON and hire brand new LPN grads all of the time (just hired one about three weeks ago). In their training they get a lot more hands on clinical time than the BSN does and in SNFs can do anything the RNs do with the exception of IVs and even then they can do IVs if they get certified. The LPN gets paid less but DOES their pay sucki? Not really, if you are presently making $8 - $10 an hour and you start at $15 - $17 an hour you just got a $5 to $7 an hour raise and that improves a LOT of peoples living conditions. Most places will pay for you to go from LPN to ADN and it's cheaper than paying for a BSN. Please don't tell me they are beginning to say that you "have" to have a BSN to even be looked at anymore because they were saying that when I went to school years ago ~ not true. BSN is great, especiallly if you want to be a DON or higher supervisory work but you can only have so many supervisors. If, like many people, you need to have that extra money while you are in school for your ADN then get the LPN and have the option of working three different shifts while you go to school to finish up. You will then have experience under your belt and more hireable. In either case, good luck to you ~ it's really a personal choice.

Badphish ~ I'm with you. Lighten up guys. The older regime wasn't perfect and THAT is when all the regulation came into play, now they are just adding to it for the sake of job security and yes, patient safety. I'll never forget going into my first med surg patients room and seeing tubes protruding from every orifice possible. Thank the heavens that his wife knew what they all did 'cause I sure didn't. Though I asked my instructor about some of it and found she was correct on every one. It's amazing what patients and their family pay attention to and learn. Just like i have learned a lot from CNAs. EVERYONE has something to learn and teach, NONE of us are perfect, and in nursing a sense of humor is essential. Yes we do stupid things and yes we learn from them and yes there are even those who make tragic mistakes. We are not a perfect lot, just people who choose to do our very best each and every day and pray we do everything the way it should be or get someone to help us who knows how.

StrawberryVanilla: If you like working in LTC you're probably going to be just fine. I've been in it pretty much since 1995 and last week I had my job interview ~ my first one ~ as I have been off work for 18 months now (see prior post above) and was hired as their DON. I'm soooooo happy! I start tomorrow. With the exception of a few Nurse Manager stints in hospitals it has mostly been LTC / SNFs for me, it's my passion and sounds like you already have a heads up on what it is like to work with our senior citizens. We need people who love older people. Stay with it and keep in it after your RN, if you've worked the floor as an LPN then apply for charge nurse / unit manager / or ADON positions next and after that you're a sure winner for DON. Salary isn't bad either but you'll earn every dime. Good luck!

Man, reading all of this is really making me depressed. I was encouraging my son to become a nurse because he is barely hanging on and is usually in the hole every month after working a fulltime job (no, he doesn't overspend, his ex-wife gets the money) with no hope of a second job where he is. He is a people person with tons of compassion and would make a great nurse he is also a teacher but there are no jobs in that field either. I am a BSN and now have to enter the workforce after an 18 month time off because of cancer and the death of my other child. Just what I need....no job possibilities ~ great. Now I can be depressed for my only remaining child AND me. Good luck fighting the good old US of A related to foreign nurses ~ there's another losing battle.

First of all Dsorn, and I do not mean to be rude, but you do not "wait" for a job, you go out and GET one! I know times are tough, I am looking myself after recovery from an 18 month illness. If your husband is trying to make it on a teachers salary, please remember that teachers are VERY needed within the school systems (my son is one ) and that HE is able to relocate and teaching salary is pretty much the same anywhere unless you've been doing it for years and then you lose your seniority (wrong but it's the teaching world and it sucks). Find a city that is possiblly a good place for you to get a job and have him get employed first (he'll probably have to transfer his degree there but shouldn't be difficult ~ he can always sub as they are needed almost every day if you have to move faster). You then can look online while waiting to move. Moving isn't a piece of cake but is much easier to do when the kids are little than in school like 5th grade and have established friendships, hopefully yours aren't that old. Moving is exciting if you look at it as exploring new venues and places to see and things to do. Pick somewhere interesting and go for it! Perhaps you have a friend or relative that can assist you somewhere until you are on your feet. Look at the online newspapers from different places and see whawt the ads say, call the hospitals that are listed in the paper and the SNFs (though I think a lot of people get a job in a SNF just by showing the initiative of showing up there and asking if they are hiring). Remember that not all job openings are in a paper, it's very expensive to place an ad and they usually can get help by word of mouth or reputation. I'm headed for the SNFs next week with resume in hand and hope in my heart. Kind of difficult to find a job with an 18 month gap from illness being over 50 but I know I'm a good nurse and completely recovered now so keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for me. I'll do the same for you :) GOOD LUCK and dare to explore !

PLEASE people understand that acute care in the LTC setting is NOT a fable!!! I have worked in both from midnight nurse all the way up to Administrator of a SNF (that is what they are now, Skilled Nursing Facilities). I have run hospital wings (psych, Med/Surg/Tele and rehab). SNFs have trachs, vents, psych patients, wounds all of the way up to stage IV (no not created there, sent there by hospitals to get healed via wound vacs and extremely dedicated and diligent care). They also have rehab so people can strengthen to the best of their potential via the physical therapy department. Yes, they even do IVs though the LPNs have to be IV certified and under an RN. They have speech therapy as well ~ the old "nursing homes" are where people who normallly would have been in the hospital now go. The hospital is now where most people who would have been dead are. Difference? Patient ratio is usually 6 or 7:1 in a hospital, SNFs are 7:1 on first shift 13:1 second shift and 20:1 third shift (numbers vary from state to state) and they don't hang blood. Nurses also do not have doctors around the corner if there is an emergency like hospsitals do, they have to think and react and call the doc all at the same time while directing staff to do what they feel best. They deserve Kudos and are NOT bottom of the barrel nursing. NONE OF US ARE ~ we just specialize in different fields. One is never better than the other, just different with different challenges. If you're not good at organization a stint in SNFs will cure you of that quickly, it's sink or swim! Hospitals are the same way....

Please pay attention to what Zookeeper 3 is saying. Support is VITAL ~ I lost my 26 year old son to a drunk driving illegal alien about 4 months before I was diagnosed with cancer (I was told I'd be dead by Christmas). Were it not for the people I had to hang on to I would never had made it ~ reach out for support for yourself and you'll also discover how great it will be because you will become a source of support for others that are not as far along as you are. Good luck to you and definately check out Mayo Clinic in Rochester ~ it's outstanding (I didn't think they'd let usput the facility name in there on my first post but I see they are included in others....).

I'm sorry hon, I don't think they'll let us answer that. Try calling that major hospital in Minnesota and asking for a referral to a facility. Good luck to you.

Yes, you do have the right to post things. However, as previous people have said BE VERY CAUTIOUS. You have not graduated yet and instructors have their own way of doing things. I once saw a classmate of mine make a comment during a psych clinic, his instructor gave him a talking to and nothing else happened about it THAT SEMESTER. However, Med/Surg was next and clinicals are objective. Guess who washed out? Yup. Instructors are close wiwth each other and work together (mostly for the good I might add), but many a potential nurse has been known not to make it because of objective clinical scorres (usuallly attached to something they did or said but they'll never be able to prove it). Be careful, Nurses eat their young ! (as told to us BY an INSTRUCTOR).

Of course you made the right decision ~ you've got a job!!! WAHOO and good for you! Congrats and good luck. Midnight's aren't that bad really, it's how I got started and it's kind of nice to have the pace slow down (a little but not a lot), especially when you're learning the ropes. Have fun not having the doc's hang around all day long (you'll still be there for the a.m. rounds but you'll hardly notice 'em!). Let us know how it goes!

Thank you NAVRN, I am trying to. Right now I am looking for work, however, with an eighteen month gap in employment because of the "C" word I will have difficulty ~ "insurance risk" is the first thing that companies think of, not experience or understanding, etc. Though I am 100% grafted and am in 100% remission, I still have a low immune system and need to be careful to a certain extent ~ which rules out bedside or close contact nursing. The cancer that I had is usually 2.6% of cancers and usually male over 60 (go figure ~ I'm female and 50+) so the odds of my contacting it were pretty slim and very little data is written on it. Hopefully someone out there will take a chance on an employee who wants to work another ten years, but who knows? Oh well, I'm alive when they said I wouldn't be, healthy when I wasn't supposed to be, and I have a lot to be thankful for. I know God didn't have me go through all of this to leave me now. Take care and thanks for listening.

Hi NAVRN: I don't know how helpful this will be for you, however, I am a cancer survivor of 18 months now. I had a full bone marrow transplant in April 2009. At the time i entered the cancer institute I was being treated at I was on dilauded 2 mg prn which was all that I needed and rarely took unless I was experiencing the horrifying pain in my lower leg bones (felt like someone stabbed a knife into them and then ran it down the length of it ~ it would be so bad I could hardly stand and my feet would hyper-extend making it extremely difficult to walk it off. Trust me, I screamed). I digress. After the transplant my dilauded was increased to 20 mg which still was not enough as I had horrible mucocitis where the skin was in large white and red patches that literally hung off the roof of my mouth and tongue was white blisters from the chemo pre-transplant. My pain centered mainly in that area and my husband, God bless him, was my advocate dogging them until my dose was raised to 40 mg which pretty much put me out of it. He'd come on the unit and say, "how is she doing?" and the answer would be "pretty loopy" with a smile for about five days. Then we weaned it down and off. I will state what I said prior to this post on another post. God bless you for doing what you do each and everyday. An oncology nurse has got to be so difficult ~ you have to be prepared to have your heart broken and pieced together time and time again, see us suffer every day, some go home and others do not. You become our lifeline, our counselor, our friend and our source of information. When we get angry ior sad it is usually the nurse who hears it (fortunately for my nurses I didn't get angry). I appreciate you more than you will ever know ~ my nurses and doctors were the best team of people that ever walked the halls of a hospital and I owe my life to them. I was supposed to have been dead by Christmas of 2008 according to my first doctor who wanted to send me home on hospice (after a stint in ICU with kidney failure, septic, pneumonia, CHF and a slightly enlarged heart) he said I wasn't strong enough to make the induction phase let alone through a transplant. If I had listened I would have died right on schedule ~ thank heaven I didn't. My new doctor and nurses saved my life and I will be forever grateful. Because of them and people such as you, I have seen one daughter married, another will be next June, and a grandson born. Thank you for all you do from the bottom of my heart. (Sorry, I guess I didn't say a word about opioids did I? The regular narcotics did fine for me but others were so much worse. Thanks for keeping up with the pain side of things, it's definately not for the faint of heart.

Please do what Caliotter said and see an attorney. In the future, for ALL nurses going before their State Board of Nursing, please NEVER do it without an attorney, they both can and do make a difference in whether you get your license reinstated.

If you are pressed for time and working and just can't fit it all in, try reading the "review" that shows up sporatically throughout the chapter (short version of all the reading before ~ it highlights the important parts, the rest is "fluff"), do the test questions at the end to see how much you comprehend and pay attention to the diagrams (ie: ROM, pictures, etc.) and clinicals / lecture. You'll do fine (I'm an ex-instructor).