JoseQuinones

So Trump's new Surgeon General is A nurseA military vetA black femaleHas a Ph.D.Worked in nurse researchVery interesting. Thoughts? Acting Surg. General (@Surgeon_General) on Twitter Nurse Replaces Surgeon General After Obama Appointee Resigns

This response to the culture shock of real life is a direct result of the self-esteem and safe space atmosphere we have created. Lord help us all.

Let me share a little nugget of wisdom my wife gave me when I said the same thing to her five years ago. I told her, "I don't want to waste the next four years of my life in school." She said, "You will still live those four years. But in four years you will either have your BSN, or no." She's a smart girl. I have learned to listen to her. Now my sights are a little higher, but the same thing applies.

One more thing: I had a windfall $150,000 inheritance come in recently. I used it to buy a place of my own, debt free. Even in the depressed economy of Puerto Rico, it did not buy a luxury apartment. Nice, yes. A little love nest for my wife and me. And it's gone. $150,000 tax free went really fast. That's about what a CRNA makes, after taxes. It is not enough to sell your soul for.

AllRightMike, the CRNA role is not a "fast track" to a highly paid career. I wish it were, because it was what drew me into nursing. Along the way, however, I decided to finish my BSN and then go to medical school instead of spending more time pursuing the CRNA track. Here are my reasons: CRNA's make a lot of money, it is true. However, if what you are interested in is anesthesia, anesthesiologists make an awful lot more. CRNA's are nurses with expanded roles. You do not simply sign up for nursing school, get your BSN, and then go straight into CRNA school. That is not how it works. You have to get your BSN, then two to three years of critical care experience, then apply to CRNA school. Critical care departments generally do not hire new grads. In fact, all the places I have applied have told me straight up they do not hire anyone will less than 5 years of experience "because all the new grads are just here to get their experience for CRNA school." Food for thought, bro. As others have mentioned, seats in CRNA schools are competitive. I have friends who have applied and been wait listed year after year. Going the CRNA route will not save you time for the above reasons. From the time you sit in your first nursing class till the time you graduate with your CRNA, based on my conversations with CRNA co-workers, is going to be about 12 years or more. In 12 years, you could be graduating from your residency in anesthesia. CRNA's are going to be required to have DNP's soon. A DNP is like any other doctorate. Think money. Lots of money. For all of the above reasons, plus a few more (I want to know more pathophysiology, I want to check out being a surgeon, and a few more), I decided against CRNA. If you are already working as a critical care nurse and you want to expand your role and make more money, wonderful. CRNA is a great idea. If not, I would highly recommend against taking it as Option A. I know more than one person who is making $35,000 per year working at a nursing home because they got stuck paying student loans when they wanted to be a CRNA. Nurses are nurses first of all, and that is something to bear in mind. All of the expanded practice roles (DNP, CRNA, FNP, etc. etc.) come secondary to the primary role of nurse. I think you should examine your motivations and see whether you want to be a nurse or something else. If it's something else, go for that and don't waste time in a detour situation.

Good morning everyone, I am pleased to announce that I passed the NCLEX on my second try. This post is for anyone who speaks English as a second language, as I do. Number 1: You can do it. Number 2: You must dominate English to pass this test. My first step before attending nursing school was to take intensive English courses. I grew up mostly in the Dominican Republic and moved to Puerto Rico in my teens. Although a lot more English is spoken in Puerto Rico than in the Dominican Republic, I quickly learned that there is a huge difference between spoken English ("de la calle") and professional or medical English. When I prepared to take NCLEX for the first time, I took the Kaplan prep course. The professor warned me that my English was still probably not up to par. She gave us some English terms we would need to know and encouraged us to learn more. So I took another intensive advanced English course. And when I took NCLEX for the first time, I realized that my English was still not quite there. Not surprisingly, I did not pass. So these last few months have been English and NCLEX, English and NCLEX, constant drilling. I read my Bible in English, changed to an English church, even prayed in English (I think God was laughing at the beginning). Last week when I finished all my Q-Trainers from Kaplan, I felt that I dominated the English. When I arrived at the testing center my mind went blank and I could not remember anything in English at all! I forced myself to check in all in English, speaking to all my fellow sufferers and the ladies there only in English, to get in the zone. Number 3: Do not be like some of my classmates who say, "Why don't they give the NCLEX in Spanish? (Or whatever language.) After all, we give the reválida in English for them." Life is not fair. NCLEX is what it is. There are so many languages spoken in the USA, you could never have an accurate test in all of them. Learn what you need to learn. Most of your patients will speak English. Number 4: It takes time, so start early. ENGLISH IS A VERY HARD LANGUAGE. You do not learn it in a few weeks or months. Formal, medical English is based on Latin and Greek. So is my language (Spanish). But do not let that give you false confidence! There are lots of words in my language that look very similar to English words, but they will throw you off! So a woman who is "embarrassed" is NOT embarazada (pregnant). A patient who is in "agony" is NOT in agonía ("death throes"). "Constipation" is not constipación (congestion) and so forth. LEARN YOUR MEDICAL TERMS IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. Also, there are lots of idioms in English that you have to know. This is so, so, so important. If your first language is another Romance language (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, etc.) you will have your own false cognates to avoid. If not, maybe you are luckier. A classmate of mine was from Romania and had tons of issues with false cognates. I never knew Romanian was a Romance language, but I guess it makes sense. Number 5: You can do it! Work hard, keep a good attitude, keep your eye on the ball, and don't ever let yourself become negative.

I caught that too, LOL.

I swear, the time has come to write a book to blow the lid off this "natural health" movement. I remember in clinical practice a mother who came in with HELLP and was stable, but due to the influence of her -non nurse- "all natural" midwife would not let us push IV fluids or magnesium. We lost her and the baby in a totally preventable seizure. Someone needs to write a book about all the ways the "natural health" community spews pseudoscience that at best helps nothing and in the worst cases, delays treatment till it's too late.

Nurses who debate this topic need to keep in mind a very simple fact: In all industries that run 24/7, the employees with the least seniority get the graveyard shift. Those industries are expanding rapidly. It used to be doctors, fire officials, cops, and military. Now it's the guy stocking shelves at CVS and the girl taking your order at McDonald's. We're nothing special anymore and our complaints look really silly to the guy who gets up at 2 a.m. to refill the napkin dispenser at the Kwik Trip you stop at for coffee.

You have got to be kidding.

For me, one of the hardest parts of nursing is listening to nurses yak on about how tough they have it and what heroes we all are for showing up to work at all. We sound like public school teachers and cops that way. Maybe we all buy our own union rhetoric. Every person with a job has to deal with what we deal with. In this days of increasing automation, rising costs, stagnant pay, everyone out there deals with our issues. We can't even claim a saintly mantle for working odd hours anymore - so does the cashier at the increasingly common 24/7 Walgreens and the fry cook at the 24/7 McDonald's. Sheesh, people.

All due respect, but that is terrible advice. You may get through nursing school by sticking to the PowerPoints, but when you graduate you will swifly come to see how much content you need to catch up on before NCLEX. Take a look at Saunder's. That massive tome is the Cliff Notes of all the content they assume you know.

A research paper is a formal piece of writing where you condense the research of several sources into one paper of your own. For example, let's say your topic is the incidence of nosocomial (hospital staff caused) infections on IV lines. You would go to an academic database (not Google) and look up several peer-reviewed studies on this topic. You would look for statistics, causes, and solutions. You would present an opinion on the best solution, based on (A), (B), and © research study. And perhaps a contrary opinion from (D) and (E) study to show you have considered all sides. Research papers have a very specific format and you must follow the rules or lose points. My school uses APA formatting rules. I bit the bullet first year and shelled out $70 for the APA style guide. All my papers in all my classes have gotten A's.

How about you write about the time a college asked you to write about discrimination you faced so they could weed out anyone white from a normal middle class family. I am a proud black Latino and have faced my share of stupid comments, etc. Just in case anyone pulls the race card on me. Seriously, everyone just stop. I grew up in the Dominican Republic, and my parents remember when Trujillo's goons would come through looking for someone and kill him, then disappear his entire family. THAT is real discrimination, and it is happening all over the world to this day. You have it so easy in the USA and don't see how blessed you are, but *cough cough* certain people are blowing hard on the coals of some past injustices, trying to create a fire.

Get plenty of caffeine.