samist

Not a male nurse, BUT I can sympathize with your situation. So let me offer you some advice that helped me along the way. I think and I know that it is extremely difficult to try and pursue something when you have no support from your loved ones. When I first told my loved ones at the time, that I wanted to become a nurse, I was met with a series of the following responses: "why do you want to do that?...You know you're going to be working as a peon, scut work?...But you're so smart and talented, why don't you become a doctor, that's what we had envisioned for you?...". My boyfriend at the time had the audacity to try and convince me to switch my career choice because he had envisioned marrying a doctor, his sister was a nurse and he said "I'm sure she now regrets becoming a nurse instead of going to med school". Everyone is quick to offer their opinions when it goes against their vision, their hopes, and their beliefs without a single thought of how it could impact the other person. So what I'm getting at is, if this is truly what you want to do, then go for it. The only person that has to deal with the choices and consequences is you. No one can live your life for you except for you. You have to not only be happy, but passionate about your career choice. Your passion will see you through school and the duration of your career. Follow your passion and success will follow. Since your family isn't supportive of your decision, make sure your external support system is strong (friends, teachers, etc), you will lean on them more than ever before, during, and after nursing school. Maybe one day your family will come around like mine did. You have a dream, just maintain your tenacity and push through it! Good luck and all the best dear!

Yeah....that comment had me laughing! Like if you're "that smart" why didn't you go to medical school, why be a "nurse"? Honestly, I don't see what all the hype is about about NP schools, but that's just my opinion. I feel like the inconsistent scopes of practice from state to state is somewhat off putting and the market depending on what area you're can be super saturated. Why aren't nursing schools focusing on encouraging students to see nursing education as a viable and honorable option?

Why?!?!?!?.....Keep your seat. I know right now the BSN is "in" right now and some hospitals might be exclusionary and won't hire ADN new grad nurses, but you will without a doubt not regret getting your ADN. I'm 100% glad I didn't shell out thousands of dollars for a BSN or entry level MSN degree (I have a previous degree) I just graduated with my ADN this past May, passed the NCLEX with 75 questions, and found a job at an extremely prestigious Hospital in Cleveland. I applied for a RN-BSN program before I graduated so I could put on my resume that I would be matriculating into a BSN program. KEEP YOUR SEAT!

So your instructors are saying your confidence level is lacking, but in essence you'll become a great nurse? So from what I read, it's your fear that's holding your confidence level back. Nothin else :) Go in saying I don't know much but I will when I leave. The worst thing you can do is get cocky, if you know it then you know it, but once people start to get cocky all hell breaks lose. :)

14 days?! Wow, how many hours? For the state of MD, there's a certain amount of hours of lecture and clinical that needs to be met. My CNA was every Tuesday and Thursday 5-9pm, Sundays 1-5 (7-3 for clinicals). Started in February and ended the last week of April early May.

After two semesters of Ochem, this the advice I can give: -buy study aides: spark charts, etc. -buy: organic chemistry by LG wade. Hands down the best orgo text book. He gives a good breakdown of mechanisms which is needed in orgo!!! ( dirt cheap on amazon!) -make your own charts: in MS word, use the shapes to draw boxes. Print them out and draw out each type of mechanism and what elements are involved and why. This works!!!! The hours I poured over the mechanisms that I conveniently practiced and organized helped me pass with a B+. My own orgo teacher was impressed!!! -buy colored pens: it might be an expense now, but they go along way to help you remember things. Plus reused them in other classes! Enjoy orgo, it's actually fun once you really understand it.

I'm not well versed in terms of what is really going on with people jumping into nursing. I never meant to say that nurses are trying to gain the respect of others, what I meant was the ANA in its mission to push the BSN and DNP and NP. They can't sell the concept of "it's the same but better" in terms of all 3, it doesn't add up. I'm not saying that NPs aren't needed or incapable of providing care. I'm not even stating that nurses should walking around begging for respect from physicians, nurses have their own merit and respect. I don't even believe MDs should be called doctors in the first place same goes for the dentists, DOs, pharmDs. If you want to be called doctor go get your PhD (my dad and I joke about this all the time, he has his PhD). I was just saying that if the ANA wants to flaunt that concept then they need to revamp things to make it so and justify it. Idc if it took me 6 months or a year to get that BSN in conjunction with my ADN. Heck no. I will not be pushed into some scheme to make me feel degraded because I don't have a BSN. I have a bachelors in a hard science, that will do. I will have the knowledge of a nurse with an in depth knowledge of biology to apply in caring for my patients. As Bart Simpson would say they can "eat my shorts". I chose nursing for a myriad of reasons. I love biology, love love love it. I had issues with doing research in a lab for hours with little social contact. Couldn't stand the thought. I love science I love to learn, but I wanted to use my knowledge to help people. I have always wanted to help people, I felt I couldn't do that in a lab. I had taken care of my grandmother for 10 years, she couldn't speak English, and was always in the hospital. If she was in the hospital, one of us was in the hospital with her. I have seen a lot in terms of the level of care being provided. During the last few years of her life while I was in college, she became really sick, and practically lived in the hospital or rehab unit of a LTC facility. My parents couldn't visit her as much as they would have liked too, and I was the closest to her in proximity. I used to visit her everyday and was absolutely appalled by the care she was being given by the nurses and physicians. I had one nurse hand me a printout of a medication from the manufacturers website when asked what kind of medication they were giving her, the nurse gave me no explanation handed me the sheet and walked away. If I had known that, I wouldn't have bothered asking her to kill trees. I became my grandmothers nurse while she was alive. So I know the type of care that can be given and the type of care that should be given but isn't. I'm not going to say all her nurses were bad, one of the ER nurses was amazing. She was sweet, smart, and she had her ADN too. I ended up in the hospital for bad chest pains and my feet were oddly really cold, when I brought this up to a nurse she looked at me and said "that's a circulatory problem not a heart problem." *facepalm* Oh how wrong she was, I ended up seeing a cardiologist and was diagnosed with a type of Orthostatic intolerance that brings about chest pains, cold feet, etc. I had massive issues with the way physicians treated their patients, it disturbed me, it was just so inhumane and somewhat degrading. I felt nursing treated a person as a person and not a problem that needed to be fixed. When i started school I wanted to pursue a career as a pharmacist, I almost had my foot in the door and worked as a pharm tech for 2.5+ years and absolutely despised it. I didn't feel like I was helping people, I just typed prescriptions and made phone calls, I wasn't doing much of anything. It just wasn't enough. I wanted to be able to use science, caring, technique, and good social skills to help people, and allopathic Medicine does not do that.

I'm in a very different boat than most. I already have my bachelors in biology. Im about to start an ADN program. I'm pretty sure that I will not go off to get my BSN, instead I'm going to jump straight to a MSN when the time comes. I refuse to invest in a year long program that makes me a BSN. In reality this makes no sense. Both programs take 4 years essentially (prereqs and major courses). The point of taking another year long program to be at the same standard and same level as a person with a BSN in which the same core subjects are being taught just baffles me. I think it's great that nursing is establish itself with an actually BS, but I don't think it's doing much good. It isn't the the degree that makes the good nurse, it's what's being taught in courses and in clinicals that counts. The debate shouldn't be BSN vs ADN, it should be the course standards to get into nursing school and what's being taught in classrooms. I don't regret getting my bachelors in biology, I think the classes I took and what I learned is going to help me become a better nurse and one day a better NP. I took the same prereqs as MDs, DOs, PharmDs and DMDs. From what I see it's the name of the degree that's changing not the standards or what is being taught that changes? How can that be taken seriously? I'm not hating on Bsns, they worked hard, it's not them it's the nursing association that's the problem. You can't sell a BSN if the same main subjects are being taught in an ADN program. Change the standards. You want MDs to take NP programs seriously, you want them to take bed side nurses seriously, then offer the science courses to back it up. Show them. That we belong not because we are not only needed but because we have the knowledge to back it up. Yes I might not know much, but this is what I've observed and seen.

Yay!!!! I'll be seeing you and the patho gang in June I just faxed my letter today.

Honestly I wish they would have just told me at 4pm that I wasn't accepted, instead of leading me to believe there was still a possibility.

Not sure. But I called around 4 o'clock to see if it was ok for me to turn in additional material like updated grades, the admissions assistant said it was fine to do so that my application was still under review.