knighton201

Hey I am not sure about your community colleges in your area, but for many nursing schools that I looked at in New mexico before i moved closer to family had competitive wait lists, where students who scored highest on entrance exams and had higher GPA's as well as other factors get in before other students with lower GPA's and test scores (due to accreditation and needing to have higher pass rates for nursing boards). You may want to speak with an academic advisor, and many of the nursing schools I looked at had nursing school academic advisor specifically for nursing school and that would most likely be your best bet to learn exactly how the wait list works, criteria for selection, and what you can do to improve your chances and speed your entrance into a program. Also, you should talk to financial aide office at your school as well as some other schools you are considering attending. Depending on your income you may qualify for financial aide programs especially since you are older than 24 (until you turn 24 you have to list your parents income on your FAFSA which can significantly reduce federal aide you receive to afford school) I was able to get the Pell Grant for 2 years which covered my tuition and books and then I was able to get a subdidsized loan (a loan where the government pays all interest you accrue while in school and you make 0 payments until after graduation) to cover my food/rent. Hope this helps!

hey after about 3 months of searching I was able to get hired on PRN at a home health agency and about a month after that a hospital called me for a full time position on a med surg floor, after a couple weeks of orientation with an experienced RN I just got done with my first week solo. If anyone else see's this post here's a few pitfalls I am seeing on the other side of my ordeal... 1. New Mandate I found out about talking to various staffing directors/nursing instructors in the area that by 2020 80% of nursing workforce employed by each facility must be BSN prepared... being an ADN shortly after that mandate did not help, so anyone doing ADN program may want to look into immediately moving on to a RN -> BSN program before searching too hard if its hard to find work as an RN in your area (I am in the Dallas region at this time) 2. Its not what you know... its who you know... the home health job I established was due to my sister who met a home health nurse from the same company by chance through her job and was given permission for me to use that nurse's name on a resume. One of the ladies who attends my church works at the hospital where I was offered the full time position as a med-surg nurse and knew the director personally and allowed me to use her name as a recommendation. Also volunteer clinics always need extras and are happy to have warm bodies and are great places to meet other professionals who may know of openings. 3. Don't give up, I think a month after I got the job with the hospital 2-3 more employers called me back, and I had a chuckle a bit. Also in regards to the military option as a nurse... I am unsure about the Air Force (as the recruiter from the Air Force did not the email I sent just returned an email with their enlistment webpage instructions and didn't answer my questions regarding being a nurse in the Air Force.) The Army recruiter sent me a great deal of detailed information specifically related to nursing however to be a nurse in the Army a BSN is required. They have options to have you enlist temporarily while you work on it, but there are several "hoops" one must jump through to reach the goal at the end to be a nurse in the Army (sounded like approximately 2-3 years of hoops before you could even be considered). Another thing to be aware of is not every state recognizes every military branch's nursing as valid nursing experience, so read up on it before you sign up otherwise you will get out after several years and be in the same boat.

Thanks for the advice, I found it very useful, now to see how well it works :)

I wouldn't turn them down quite yet, I graduated in December, and am having issues with hospitals who require 1 year or more experience, so I'd make sure you have somewhere to go before turning them down. Not sure about there, but where I did my student clinical rotations, I usually saw that there's some safety net in place for newer nurses in case they don't know what to do, and they'd ask other nurses or the charge nurse if they were unsure about something, and worse case scenario with a patient a rapid response team (the team you call before a code becomes a code). Maybe some other options there to help you gain confidence and get going to gain that crucial experience. Either way good luck.

For that you'd have to talk to the instructor and/or whoever wrote the exam to see when they rounded as well as what answer the expect in the box, and if they will let you "challenge" it if they rounded early and got 86.5 where as you rounded to the tenths at the very end and got 86.4. I once missed a question because the correct answer was "1.5" but myself and half the class put "1.5 ml" or "1.5 mL" or some variation, but the teacher when presented with the facts that the instructions were unclear gave us credit and changed the blackboard programing a wider range of correct answers as well as clarified in the instructions not to add units or round early. Long story short, depends if its a standardized nursing test (HESI) or something your instructor has more control over (blackboard tests) and discuss what is expected, then you can always point back to, "but you said do it this way..." for tests the instructor controls. For the standardized tests, to the best of my knowledge, round at the end to how many decimals the test question tells you to round too, the HESI's & NCLEX are very specific on what they want to see at the end (rounded to the nearest whole number, 10ths, 100ths, 1000ths place etc, and usually ask that you don't include units) also rounding at the end from a math standpoint gets you closer to the correct answer, if you were to have rounded early on a longer problem, your answer could be off by more than 0.1 mg, and depending on the drug being given that could be an issue or could be no big deal

i'd recommend do all your multiplication and division then round, early rounding within the problem or truncating can lead to a very different answer if you can save rounding to the very end, then thats the best, and 86.36 should be within a reasonable margin of error

my headache is primarly in the area i'm trying to apply there are tons of jobs for experienced RN's, and I believe that they are even flying in traveling nurses, it seems to the point that they have many more experienced RN slots than they can possibly fill (though the grass always does look greener...) In my search alone I've noticed several hundred jobs which in their description say require certian number of years, most 1 year + (about half of those very specific where that year is spent as well) and a good number requiring 2-5 years experience, though most of the 2-5 year experience are supervisory positions, which I very much do not qualify for, nor would want as a fresh new nurse. Thanks for the extra info, I appreciate the extra insight into why new nurses aren't always welcome, and thank you for putting up with my frustrations. where would be a good place to get ACLS training done and what does that typically cost btw? We had a last minute incident cause our ACLS instructor to become unavailable so we were unable to finish it and get that certification complete edit: PS: also thank you for the suggestion of the military, actually was looking at their recruitment websites for that, though not sure i want to go that route, last i heard its a 5 year commitment as an officer to get those loans repaid, if i do end up contacting them I will let you all know

my prayers for both you and your patient

well, not sure about all nursing schools, but mine had a 16 hour work limit restriction in place to remain in the program, though they didn't catch everyone who worked more than 16 hours a week in nursing school, the ones i knew who did work more didn't survive very long, nursing school at least for me and my class, was not easy, each semester between clinicals, homework, and class time, would spend easily 40 or more hours weekly doing all this, some weeks i counted 60+ hours for nursing school alone, and that went up even further on test weeks for mass studying Not to discourage anyone, the reward at the end is worth it I understand (i wish i could say i know it is, but I'm at the new RN grad w/out job stage as many positions are open for experienced RN's but very few for new RN's in the geographical area I'm actively looking to work in) But i think to get back to the point the original author was attempting to make, is I won't be turning my nose up at any jobs, but from what I've seen, working a LTC/SNF doesn't even gurantee to get you that job you want in another speciality down the road, many of the requirements i've seen for some of the specialities I would like to be in only accept experience from very specific areas (looking at ICU for example, ICU/Med-Surg/Tele ones i see accepted most often) though not sure how much of that is "preferred" when the job posting says "required" PS whats this about the lie of a nursing shortage? Is it just in the short term its non existant?

I'd have to say nursing would be a "hybrid" of the two, our work at the nurses station documenting care, making care plans, assessment, would seem more white collar I would think, however when called upon to help with a code "brown" i would think that falls back under the blue collar category

What i had to do for my first few assessments is take the sheet i had to turn in and do it at bedside, so if you miss anything, patient is right there for you to reassess so you don't forget anything, eventually (and hopefully your turn in sheet is written in some order like this) you'll want to develop a system and order to how you assess, so you practice it the same way each time and it becomes a habit which order you assess, we learned head to toe at my school. so as a student I would: check pupils, cranial nerve check, inside the mouth, heart/lung sounds, bowel sounds then palpation (never palpation first), Genitary/Urine via foley/bedside comode/urinal or interview patient (unless you were lucky enough to catch them before they flush or get them to call ya before flushing), UE strength check, peripheral pulses UE & cap refil, lower peripheral pulses & cap refil, LE strength test, all while checking for skin integrity and anything else irregular. For purposes of convenience on my patient, the one facility had strict 2hr turns for all bed rest patients, and I'd follow the two PCT's during their next 2hr turn schedule when they did my patients area of the hall to check back for skin integrity (usually had big boys/girls that weren't easy to one man roll) as the others said above, without a good assessment you cannot get a good care plan going, cause you won't know what patient needs you as the nurse will need to fulfill, and hope this helps for a basic head to toe *disclaimer new grad so still looking to refine my assessment skills into a more effecient methods, constructive criticism welcome*

There are also LVN/LPN and RN programs at community colleges (the 4 year state schools also give you a RN title for job placement) and then you are able to go LVN > RN and RN > BSN (the 4 year degree) and BSN > MSN (graduate school degree) not sure about there, but where i went to school, the community college and the state university worked very closely (practically a single entity) and the pre-requisites were the same, many students applied for both programs, or a few of my friends at the community college applied and were accepted for the BSN at the state. Which ever path you decide, best of luck, and I'm sure there are other paths to getting to becoming a nurse

first one i got the same answer, though in your work you left out the 60 minute/hour conversion, but apparently remembered it when you used your calculator as you came to the same answer for the 2nd one, I also got a 86.36mg dose out of curiosity, are you using dimensional anaylsis? makes these questions a heck of a lot easier cause you then just have to compare the units to make sure the ones you don't want in the end are cancelled out, it works wonders for dosage calculation and conversion math questions you see in nursing

I've been doing the frantic job search for my first job recently as well, and yes for new grads, not a lot of openings that I have been able to find... however seems there are a ton of openings for people with 1+ years experience at least in the areas i've been looking, not to mentioned even seeing traveling nurse jobs (1+ year experience again I've been told) all over the place which typically cost the employer a pretty penny. However if you can get that first job and get that 1 or more years of experience, if the current trend holds, you'll be very marketable. Also keep in mind the pay difference from what i've heard is $0.50 more per hour with a BSN

not sure if this is the best technique, but one i observed very early in my student clinicals at a nursing home in the alzheimer ward, is the cna would weekly (as it was the policy every resident showers at least once a week there), would trick this lady into getting a shower, each week i understood she would use a different tactic. the week i observed it, is as the lady was going to use the restroom, the cna ran across the room, and shouted, "don't use that toliet its broken!", then proceeded to guide the lady to the shower room saying, "here the toliet in here works, let's use this one." then while the lady was doing her buisiness (they had an arangement with the shower chair rolling directly over the toliet which the cna placed her on) the cna helped her undress and then said, "we'll since we're here in the shower room, and all ready to shower, lets shower!" after a quick shower the lady emerged smelling much nicer, however did little to improve her mood as i believe the comment was as follows, "i'm going to shove my foot up your ......" probably well deserved, but as i understood it, that particular cna and that resident had a unique relation of being each others arch nemesis. dunno, hope this helps.