tenjuna

Here I am 3 years from my last post as promised lol. I did finish my MSN in Nursing Informatics online last year with a 4.0 GPA from University of Mary (umary.edu). Good school but pricey. I would still recommend Western Governor's if they have a program you are interested in! I just enrolled this week for my DNP in Nursing Informatics after taking a year off. 7 years of nursing school is draining to say the least I needed a break. This program should be 22 months and then I am all done, just a little over 10 years from the day I started my journey. What I learned from the difficulties of the ADN program have been carried with me throughout this entire journey. Do not underestimate it, make a plan to get through it, and make sure everyone around you understands that this is more important than going out or playing video games or whatever. I do have to laugh a bit at how crazy those initials years were, I spent most of it entirely lost. I now understand that this is normal, so if you are feeling like the world is going to end, trust me it isn't. You will get through it too, just keep your eyes on the prize. ❤️

I went to WGU for RN to BSN, very highly recommend it for many reasons. However, I did my Informatics MSN at University of Mary (umary.edu) before WGU opened their program. Good program overall but pricey.

Before I became a nurse my dating options were practically nil. Since I became a nurse they have been practically nil with the option of dating from the workplace, and that option comes with an enormously high risk profile. I finally found someone (another nurse) but we have agreed to completely separate work and personal lives. We do not have any interactions at work other than the few necessary times that come up (I am an Informatics Nurse, she works on Med/Surg). This has been a very good compromise but I am definitely lucky. I would not generally recommend dating someone at work.

Hello all, I am coming up to a crossroads in my relatively young nursing career, and I really could use some advice. Graduated with my ADN and received my license in 2014. I moved to North Dakota to work in Ortho as a new grad, but after 9 months had to return to Iowa because my daughter was having a lot of problems in school. I felt at the time that being a good father was more important than my new career. When I went back to Iowa, I worked on an Ortho unit there as well, but it was an incredibly toxic environment, and we parted ways after 3 months. Since I had already started working on my BSN, I went ahead and concentrated on finishing that before moving on. I also worked a few PRN positions during this time, but I got some really bad assignments that honestly almost got me out of nursing entirely. Got some good advice to use my 25+ years of IT experience and get into Informatics Nursing, and I was lucky enough to find a position back in North Dakota, and I have been working on my MSN in Informatics at the same time. Which leads us to today. I am a few months away from finishing the MSN and I already have my Informatics Certification. I am completely lost as to what to do next. Where I am working now there is no upward mobility and they don't really care about the Master's degree or cert. While I am grateful for the opportunity they provided, I do still want to learn and grow and do more than I am doing now. This leads me to believe it is time to move on, but my question is WHERE? I feel like the events that occurred early on are a problem as most places seem to want 3-5 years of clinical experience anymore, even with the Masters and Informatics Certification. I also don't have enough experience overall to be considered for a leadership position, even though I have lots of leadership experience in IT. I am also considering another Masters in IT and maybe a DNP in Informatics as well, but I am holding off until I figure out what I am doing. All in all I feel like I am underbaked, but I also feel like my IT experience should mitigate a lot of that. Anyway, that's the circle my brain is spinning in right now, hence the need for advice. Anyone have any thoughts of what I should do next?

Sanford in Fargo is a great facility and the OR unit is pretty tight. I think you'll like it. It's expensive to live in Fargo as far as rent, but there's lots to do and Minneapolis is 3 hours away if you get bored.

You could look and see if Clinical Informatics interests you. I was in Ortho for a year and a half and it almost completely killed my desire to be a nurse. I switched to CI and couldn't be happier.

I was a new grad 2 years ago and after 2 months of nationwide searching I had to move to North Dakota to get that coveted first job. The jobs are out there but usually the requirements are more than a new grad can handle. The job I took I was in over my head from the start, the nursing program I went to simply did not adequately prepare me. It took some soul searching to even decide to stay in nursing and even then I switched to nursing informatics and am pursuing a DNP just to leverage the money I've already spent getting here. The jobs are out there, but that doesn't mean that it'll be a good job for you. Do your research and stay in school as long as you can, you can thank me later.

I am in Informatics as well, mainly because I worked in IT for 25 years before I became a nurse. I am doing my Masters in Informatics now, and will be doing a DNP in FNP at Grand Canyon University in 2018. I would say if you are interested in both go for it! It will definitely help in your job search, though I wouldn't expect to be doing both or a mixture, as an ADN or BSN is perfectly suitable to work in Informatics. I am focusing on becoming a Director of IT or Informatics (or both), and I figured since I wanted to go for a DNP anyway, I may as well do an advanced practice focus. Good luck!

I very highly recommend WGU. It was cheap, it was fast, it was easy. I waited almost a whole year before starting though in hindsight I have no idea why I waited, it was very easy in comparison to the ADN.

It's been 3 years since I originally posted this, and wanted to give some updates to my journey and maybe some more helpful advice. A few weeks ago I finished my BSN, which I took online with Western Governors University (wgu.edu). I finished it in 9 months, and I followed my own previous advice with finding a balance between studying and life outside of school. I still spent 40-60 hours a week studying and doing class work, but I found by doing this time in restaurants, bars, and such outside of home I could still feel like I had a life while getting work accomplished. Not the ideal solution for everyone I know, but I didn't want to repeat sitting at the kitchen table for countless hours. I was also very lucky that the state of Iowa paid me a training stipend so that I didn't have to work during this 9 month period. In any event, I highly recommend getting your BSN as soon as you are able. 65% of nurses do not get their BSN or higher degrees, and frankly this is going to be a mandatory thing eventually. Just do it and get it over with. The BSN portion wasn't nearly as hard as the first 2 years was, at least for me. I have since changed course away from Orthopedics and OR nursing work and instead recently became an Informatics Nurse (deals with data analytics and electronic health record training). To that end I am starting a Masters in Informatics later this year, and then finally a Doctorate of Nursing Practice next year. It's somewhat amusing looking back and remembering how difficult the nursing program was 3 years ago, as now it's trivial...but I do still remember the horror of that first bad exam...I learned to not underestimate anything in nursing, and that memory has helped me many time in the last 3 years. The Critical Thinking book I linked previously is still hugely valuable to me in my daily practice. I have actually read that book many times over the years. I very highly recommend it. Otherwise there is some great advice in the comments, I encourage you to read through them all. I wish you all the best of luck in your nursing journey, and hopefully I will be updating this post again in 3 years as Dr. Cross.

Speaking as a straight male nurse, I can honestly say it's not even easy to meet a woman, so I imagine it's not any easier for anyone else. All of the long hours and stress are not great aphrodisiacs. Just like anywhere else it's about meeting the right person at the right time.

Sanford Ortho in Fargo

Thank you for this post as I have just been offered positions at St. A's and at Sanford, so this helps a lot. Probably be seeing you in a few weeks :-)

That's precisely what I was thinking lol...I just don't want to get trapped in a bad choice so I figured if someone knew something this would be the place to ask.

A little late answering this, but just noticed it so here it is...I decided in February (while I was still in school) to utilize NCLEX review tactics as a study method for exams in class. For whatever reason this worked very well for me, as my grades went up 10% easily after doing so. I was a bit unique in my class in that I quit my full time job in order to focus on school, so I studied practically every day for 6-12 hours. I carried this over to my NCLEX review over the summer, but I DO NOT recommend you do this. Looking back it was really way too much studying for the exam, almost to the point of being overprepared and burning out. I think 4-6 hours a day for 4-6 weeks is a realistic amount of time to spend studying for the NCLEX. In fact, if you go to the NCSBN review program, they have example timelines for studying you could follow and I believe they say about the same thing. Obviously for some people even this would be too much, and for others not enough. The main point is know yourself and how you do things, and make a plan accordingly. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to this, but hopefully some of this information will be of help.