mimib,rn

I know you are trying to finish as quick as possible, but that looks like a miserable summer! Due to where those nursing classes fall on the rotation, I would still try to get them done in the summer. My suggestion would be to drop the 15 week child development class during the summer and try to complete it in the fall with the other two nursing courses. Although it is more difficult to plan non-nursing courses, ask your adviser if they plan on offering it in the fall. That way, you have 10 miserable summer weeks and a breather in-between. I finished this spring and 4600 was one of the easier nursing classes. Good luck.

I think it depends on labor laws in your state. I practice in PA, so there are laws that help protect nurses from mandatory overtime. PASNAP | Pennsylvania’s Law Against Mandatory Overtime

Mandatory overtime is when they have no other choice but to make you stay later than your assigned shift. You probably are signing a voluntary overtime slip that indicate both parties are in agreement to the OT. One day I was supposed to leave at 3pm and was asked to stay. I said I could not and they told me they had no coverage coming in and would have to stay. I asked if I was being mandated to stay and they quickly found someone to come in! Although mandatory overtime is not usually illegal (check your institution's policy on overtime), it doesn't reflect well on management when it is frequently used as a staffing tool.

I disagree with using box 28.1 to figure out staffing using the given FTE number in the assignment. This calculation tells you how many FTEs are required. Being that the FTE number is given to us in the assignment, this formula does nothing to help determine person shifts. I do agree that the final staffing numbers do NOT support the average daily census but that is irrelevant to the assignment.

I think I've found a formula to help convert FTEs into person shifts. Page 16 shows how to calculate total direct FTE hours into shifts per day. I don't think it accounts for nonproductive time. It has a lot of useful information beyond the FTE calculations. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oahhs.org%2Fquality%2Fnurse-staffing-file-library%2Fmaking-the-numbers-work.pdf&ei=P2hxUYTvHJLs9AT044DABg&usg=AFQjCNH0IpI-VoaHJOmt-8POWeEYwNcHcQ&bvm=bv.45373924,d.eWU

I've found how to find the FTEs using the equation, but I am still unable to figure out staffing patterns using the provided FTEs. The equations in the book show you how much staff you need based on care hours or average daily census but this is not mean you will be able to afford it with the provided FTEs. Could someone please explain how the provided FTEs work into the equation?

Click on the AHRQ link in the DB instructions. You can select any topic that interests you. Once you click on that subject, there will be report summaries. Choose three of the reports and follow the remaining instructions. This DB should prove to be more interesting because of the variety of subjects that will be discussed. One of the topics I selected initially only had two reports, so I chose another subject. There are multiple bullets for this assignment, but I think the instructions are pretty straightforward.

There is a new cross cultural perspective course for Spring 2013. Introduction to Global Health in a 5 week format. This was not listed initially but is now showing up in the Academic Outreach program.

I agree. I copy and paste the text reference rather than formatting it each week and just got dinged for week 2's assignment. I guess I'll get points off for week 3 as well, as my feedback for week 2 was not provided until this past Monday (week 4!).

This is my 8th class at OU and my 5th nursing course. I'm also in Business Communications through the end of fall and will be taking Diversity next month. I work at Elkins Park Hospital. Do you work locally as well? It's great that I've found some other students in my community. This site helps the program feel more like school with students discussing topics without needing to post references at the end of their "discussion".

I'm in Fox Chase too. My co-worker told me about this site and it has gotten me through several courses already!

I just got my grade today and I was pleasantly surprised. I completed module 8 last night and it seemed like one of the easiest modules so far. One more week and its over. Thank goodness!

I do agree that they pick at little things on our written assignments, but I knew that was going to be the case after our first quizzes on grammar. Compared to the nursing assignments, these are a piece of cake. Broken up into 15 weeks, I think the workload is quite tolerable. When I was looking for my grade, I noticed it was graded on the turnitin website a day before it crossed over to blackboard. Try looking there first.