grahamd01

Thanks, what hospitals in those areas would you recommend?

I completed my BSN through WGU, western governors university. Its completely online and much more affordable than any other program I researched. Its an accelerated program allowing you to move as fast or a slow as you want to through each course. I held a fulltime job, I have 3 kids and was able to finish this program in 13 months, pretty much stress free. Some courses took me 2 months to finish and others took 3 weeks. I was also very lenient about school so I could be active in my kids sports schedules. I had great support when I needed it, but its important to evaluate your self motivation to be a successful independent student. Many nurses I work with hated the idea of too much freedom and would never complete a course without the traditional timed schedules and deadlines. I personally love the way WGU gave me the opportunity to arrange my studies according to my own lifestyle. In the end, I spent 13,000$ total and I have an accredited BSN degree. Check them out. I highly recommend them.

Thanks for your reply. Good to hear honest opinions before moving. So, what areas would you recommend?

Thanks so much o your reply! Ill take a look at this area

I'm looking for information about the Greenville area. What are the best areas for a family with 3 school aged kids looking for some land and good schools? What about the hospitals. I notice some large hospital systems, but none offer any details regarding pay rates. I'm currently a BSN med surge nurse with 3 years experience. What do ya think? Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm looking to get some info on the best hospitals in the eastern areas of Georgia. I'm currently in New England so I realize a pay reduction is expected but the cost of living seems much lower. Any areas better for a family with children looking for land and good school systems? How about hospital info. None of the hospitals seem to post pay rate information online. Any advice from other peeps out there? I'm looking for the nitty gritty details. Which hospitals offer the best for nurses in regards to pay and benefits? I want to make a good decision based on word of mouth from fellow nurses? I'm currently a BSN with 3 years experience in med surge. I have acls, telemetry, and float experience. What do ya think?

Med Chica: I'm glad to hear that there are others who absolutely do not have time to socialize. I kinda feel bad when co workers want to be chatty with me and all I'm trying to do is think of how I'm going to get away so I can keep to my schedule. Talkative co workers are sometimes worse than the chatty patients.

I suppose I feel bad asking NA's to do things for my patients even when I know they should. Unfortunatly, we are generally always, 'down an aide today,' so I will typically try to do as much as I can when I'm in there. I get a little confused as to what is appropriate to ask them to do and what is their responsibility to do. For example, I know they usually bathe and toilet the patients, but I get stumped sometimes as what other care they can do for me....so I'll usually wind up doing it on my own. I agree, kinda time consuming. I have been better at clustering care. I'll assess, give 0800 and 1000 at the same time if the meds are reasonable to do together, but if I'm starting at 0730, sometimes I'll try and do some 0800 and the assessment, but end up back in the room far to many times and getting behind because I'm so worried about meds being late.

Hi everyone! I'm a May 12' grad and am lucky to have landed a job as a per diem RN float for several different med surg floors in the hospital. I've been working on my own for about a month (I had 6 weeks of orientation). Although for the most part I feel better every shift, I'm trying to figure out why I rarely leave on time? My question for all of you, is what are your strategies to getting out on time? Documentation seems to be one area I fall behind on no matter how hard I try to stay on top of it. Any advice? The other is when everyone seems to be due for meds at the same time. I work first shift, so the trend is 0800, 1000, 1200, and 1400's on 5 patients. I seem to just finish giving meds to everyone nd realize that if I go to lunch, I'll be too far behind by the time I return and end up not eating or taking a bathroom break all day. How does everyone else manage their time and what can I be doing differently? Thanks!

This may be silly to ask, but does Massachusetts require any continuuing education credits when you renew your license? I'm a new RN, and haven't heard anything about this here. Does this requirement vary by state? Thanks for your reply!

Your detailed reply is very helpful, thanks for that. It's so hard to research areas when you don't have a realistic idea about the community. Any hospitals in Fort Worth you'd recommend? I know you have a good knowledge base of this area so I appreciate any info you can suggest.

Thanks for your input not.done.yet! If there's any hospitals around Plano that you've had good experience with, please let me know. I'm trying to do as much research about this area before I plan a trip to visit.

I'm trying to research rental townhome communities in the DFW areas. I've come across many options and wanted to know your opinions. I found affordable rental areas in Plano: 1. West of I-75 and West Plano Pkwy, 2. Medalist Circle areas....are these areas good, safe neighborhoods for a family? Any other areas you would suggest? I also was considering the Fort Worth area. I did find the housing to be very affordable. I was interested in: 1.the areas around 35W and 20 Its around the Seminary Hill Park. 2 the western side of Ft. Worth near Angler Ave and Old Decatur Rd. 3.Calmont Ave and Las Vegas Trail. I really would like an area that is family friendly with as much space as possible in a rental community. I'm hoping to find work in the Dallas area and I have a year to consider different hospitals. I'm a new grad RN this year and am working currently on a Neuro/Stroke floor, but am looking to take every specialty class they offer to get into Critical Care ASAP. Any advice on hospitals would be appreciated as well. Thanks for your info!

Hi and welcome! I was new to New England 6 years ago and had some of the same questions you do. I would seriously reconsider the Boston area unless you end up with a solid job offer only because you can find decent costs of living and very good wages if you look on the western side of Massachusetts. Boston is a great place to live if you can afford to. A previous poster suggested Baystate medical Center in Springfield. This is an awesome facility. Look it up online and although the city of Springfield is affordable, its still a fairly BIG city. The good thing is the highway access is very easy from that hospital, so if you want to live out in the country (The Berkshires, parts of Agawam) you can certainly commute with little problems. Oh, and Baystate has a terrific L&D unit. You can search open positions online and they are usually always looking for nurses with experience. The school systems in the western Mass areas are phenomenal. My children currently go to a VERY small school out in 'the hilltowns'. Coming from a big city where kids go to schools with hundreds of other kids, my kids are among 87......in the entire elementary school. Not that all schools out here are that small, but the education systems in Massachusetts, in general, are terrific. Okay, so the question about mudrooms and basements. The most appealing thing to me when I first moved here was the houses. They are architectual beauties. There are areas that have more contemporary housing, but I'm still in love with the older style that still seems to flourish very nicely out here. The 'mud room' is a small room very close to the front or rear entrance of a house where you can take off your boots (usually covered in ice/snow/mud...etc.) and leave your coat/hat before tracking things into the house. I'm sure someone else may have a much better description but this is the jist of what I've noticed. Most of the older houses have these rooms and they are wonderful in the colder months. Pellet stoves are heat producing stoves that people install inside the home. They are similar to wood burning stoves except you fill them with small pellets.....I'm not exactly sure of the specifics of what a pellet consists of but I think its still wood based. These stoves are cleaner than wood burning stoves and people who have them love them. Sorry for the looooong post,but I couldn't help it! Hope it helps.

what hospitals have you had experience with?

Thanks for your reply TheCommuter, what type of differences do you see with your adjustment? What do you recommend in making adecision about a hospital.

You are ready for this! You are the RN you've been working so hard to be for years in school. Now its your time to PROVE it! (you need to know this in your head) SCHEDULE your test and take the next step. Remember, you already graduated from school.....that was the hard part. Now its time to close the chapter of being a "student RN" to starting the role of RN. You've worked hard and now its your time to shine. KNOW THIS AND GO PASS THAT F****** TEST!

Thanks for your great insight not.done.yet. I really appreciate all of your comments. I'm curious as to whether northern Texas hospitals are beginning to unionize yet or not? Any suggestions? Also thanks for your opinions about HCA health systems, I will certainly keep them a part of my research into moving.

Absolutely. The rationales are the part of these books that are the most useful. You will certainly KNOW why certain answers are right and may not need to reread those rationales, but certainly the ones that you came down to 2 choices and chose the right one.....make sure you are clear as to why its more right than the other choice. Kaplan and Lacharity are great for this purpose because they devote the whole back end of the book to the answers which makes it convenient to page through when needed.

I'm considerring a move to Dallas area. I have 2 children ( 1st grade and 6th grade) and am looking into either the Frisco or Allen areas. Any advise about school systems and good family areas? Also, if anyone can advise about the hospitals in Dallas? I'm still fairly new with only 2 years under my belt. Is Medical City Dallas reputable? Any other suggestions?

Shiningstar0602- You should definatly schedule your test. I had constant anxiety during school and had to consistently work my a** off to graduate. NCLEX is the summit. It's the last torch to light before we can call ourselves nurses. I do believe that school has prepared us for the NCLEX....what we need to work on is how to comfortably take a test of that kind. 1. Study all the practice tests and be sure to read the rationales of what you got wrong. REMEMBER- if you get it wrong in practice, you will remember it in the real thing. 2. Learn to eliminate answer choices. It's easier to pick between 2 answers than 4. 3. SATA- treat them as individual true/false answers...its helps! 4. Reword the questions- these scenarios are trying to find out if you can answer a particular subject matter, be sure to know what that subject is before trying to answer it. 5. KNOW WHAT IS NORMAL! I'm referring to ECG and blood values (this is crucial) This was the bulk of my NCLEX. I had 75 questions. 25 SATA, 1 ECG, 1 lab report, the rest were multiple choice. Good luck and get a sign to look at over your desk to keep your head right. Mine was an index card stating, " I'M GOING TO PASS THIS F****** TEST!"

Hi all other future and current nurses! I wanted to thank all of you for your stories and inspiring encouragement about your NCLEX experiences. I really feel like this website is the reason I passed my NCLEX-RN this passed weekend. First off, making to graduation was my sole priority throughout nursing school. I never thought at all about NCLEX until I recieved my ATT. Even while registering on PEARSON VUE, I still had another 8 weeks to finish school and never gave it a thorough thought as to what I should do to pass it. School was tough and I figured I had to make it to graduation before I even consider NCLEX. When I recieved my ATT, I had been out of school for maybe 2 weeks. I was just starting to somewhat relax.....then the chaos started. I didn't have the money to pay for fancy prep classes and scoured the internet for days trying to find the 'BEST' study materials, but that was fruitless as well. Then I found this website and I was positively thrilled to find a collaborative site with real forums of people just like me trying to make it through NCLEX-RN alive. The resources suggested on this site were truly helpful and I wanted to pass them on to others. There were many suggestions so I only picked these because of the price and constant attention they recieved on this forum. 1. KAPLAN 2012-2013 NCLEX-RN (the green book. I found it on amazon for 20.00) 2. LACHARITY Priority,Delegation, and Assignment (amazon 16.00) 3. Mosby's medication cards w/ mneumonics (flashcard set- amazon- 25.99) Other than those, I researched any unclear information in my textbooks from school. I really felt like the questions on NCLEX-RN were very similar to these 2 books. Whenever I didn't get a question correctly, the books offered clear reasons why the choices were right or wrong. If I was still unclear... I looked it up to clarify further. Nclex asked so many different types of random information that it was ideal that I studied every page in both of the books....TWICE. For me, it helped me to retain the information better. I also made a point to memorize the important reference ranges listed in the Kaplan book. VERY HELPFUL!!! Knowing what is normal vs. abnormal is a huge advantage on NLCLEX. I hope this helps someone else and thanks again for helping me!

It feels so great to finally be where you should be after years of studying and constant worry. Congrats!!!

thanks, I hope so.

Are heath insurance benefits better being in the nursing field? Wanted some real life opinions because in my current position (not healthcare related), the health insurance is super expensive and has a really high deductible (1000$). Does being a nurse in a hospital benefit in the way of health insurance? What about for a family of 4?