Medic625

I graduated from Excelsior in August, passed the NCLEX in September, and was hired into the Emergency department of one of the Cleveland Clinic's community hospitals in October. I was never asked where I went to school.

We have 4 rooms per nurse with the possibility of 1-2 more hall beds per nurse in my ED. I'm a new nurse, so I find that any more than 4 patients seems overwhelming. I can't imagine having 8 or more! That's insane!

Am I missing something or have you been asking the same question for the past 5 years?

I have been a paramedic in Ohio for the past 10 years. I recently graduated from Excelsior's P-RN program and actually got my license number today. The program worked great for my rotating schedule. I was already offered an ER position. I would say go for it!

Thanks. And the program was fine. As long as you can motivate yourself to study, you'll get through it quick. It took me a year. I used the college network books. I wouldn't recommend using them, but their material was spot on. When you get to the cpne, I suggest using robs cpne. It's gold and its inexpensive.

I'm from Ohio and recently graduated from Excelsior's program. I take the NCLEX next week. I already have an offer in an Emergency Department in the Cleveland area contingent on me passing the NCLEX. I didn't have any problems finding a job after graduating from excelsior.

Use Rob's CPNE material. It's less than $100 and more than you need to pass the first time.

For the Excelsior LPN to RN there are 31 general education credits required in addition to the nursing courses/ exams. I had an associates degree in fire science, so I was able to transfer in most of the general education requirements. The only Gen Ed exams I had to take thru Excelsior were sociology, a&p, lifespan psych, and microbiology. I started the program in July 2012. I was able to complete those 4 courses plus the 8 nursing courses by December 2012. I was testing roughly every 2 weeks. The big hold up with the program is the 8 week FCCA and the wait for the CPNE. I took both FCCA courses January through March of 2013, applied for the CPNE in April, and tested the last week in June. So, it took me almost exactly one year to complete the program. I have read posts on here of people who were able to finish faster than that. However, you really don't have control over how long it takes because of those final 2 tests and the wait time. I would recommend using a community college for your general education requirements. You would save a bunch of money that way. $100 a credit hour vs $400 a credit hour is a big difference. And lastly, I don't think all those gen Ed requirements have to be completed prior to starting the nursing exams, so you could go to a community college full time while also working your way through the nursing tests. That would probably be the fastest way if you can handle it.

I'm using the ATI program provided by Excelsior, Rx for Success provided by the college network, and an exam cram book I bought from Barnes and Noble. I'll let you know if they work. I test in two weeks.

Congrats!

You can apply to whatever rpac you want. I applied to npac at the end of march, got a date mid April, and tested June 28th.

Thanks

Good luck with the program. And stay motivated.

I already have the stats and chems from my fire science degree. I sent all my transcripts to the adviser and all the excelsior sciences were approved without the labs. I even questioned her when I got the approval. It's strange since their prereq list specifically states the labs. Oh well, good for me I guess.

That's the one

Thanks for responding. Since I passed the CPNE I've been looking into the different rn to bsn programs and have found 3 (cleveland state, Louisiana at lafayette, and univ of Cincinnati) that will accept those labless sciences. And all 3 can be completed in a yearish.

I'm a fire medic for a busy dept and a medic in a busy ER. The majority of people that call 911 probably don't need a squad. However, a good percentage do and those calls are exciting. But in the ER the majority of patients are walk ins that couldn't get an appointment with their doctor, were unable to find a dentist that accepted their insurance, ran out of medications and need refills, and other stuff like that. If that sounds fun, then more power to you. For myself, I intend to work critical care transport or in an ICU as a RN because I want to work with people that are actually sick. Not to mention, the nurses in ERs always seem to have way too many patients assigned to them.

I second that.

6 weeks. I studied most days of the week. On average I probably spent 2-3 hours studying per day that I studied. I didn't start practicing the labs until I was 2 weeks out since that is the easy part. I spent the majority of my study time memorizing the AOC's.

Don't second guess yourself!!! It's not that bad. Im sure you'll do fine if you keep on studying until you test. Good luck.

Thanks. I took the cpne at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany.

I didn't know I was ready until during the middle of the cpne. I read all those negative posts and allowed myself to doubt my preparedness. However, after my first PCS I knew I was ready. That doesn't really answer your question. I was able to spit out all my mneumonics verbatim, complete all the labs in under 10 minutes, and use the nursing diagnosis book without incident. I guess that meant I was ready?

Don't over think it. Just say what specifically could happen to your patient if whatever happens or doesn't happen.

I tried using that rationale on two of the practice PCS's that you can email to excelsior. Both times they said it wasn't good enough. So, I made it specific to each pt: "Mr Smith was admitted two days ago for a myocardial infarction. He is scheduled to have a CABG times 3 tomorrow. If Mr Smith is not kept comfortable he may begin to experience a physiological response to the stress that could increase the workload of his heart and lead to further destruction of heart tissue. However, if Mr Smith is kept comfortable he will be less apprehensive about his upcoming procedure and he will be more likely to actively participate in his treatment plan." I used something along those lines during my CPNE and got an "atta boy" after each PCS.

I was actually wondering the same thing. 6 of the 7 of us were still in it this past Sunday morning. I'm not sure how many ended up passing though. As soon as I passed my third PCS I got out of there as fast as I could. The test itself was a lot simpler than I thought it would be. Maybe they needed to increase the pass rate. Or maybe we were all just really prepared. Who knows. Just study that study guide and do your best.