cricket0414

Stealing food from the fridge is not nursing specific. I have worked in several industries and trust me - food from the fridge is not safe anywhere, law offices, banks, brokerages firms, etc., I never leave anything in the fridge, bring my own lunch pack with an ice pack and keep it with my purse. Sad but necessary.

What about hospice? in patient or home.

She is the instructor - she has the right to run her class the way she wants. Perhaps she thinks people get distracted reading their books while they should be LISTENING to the lecture. Sometimes text books are outdated or may not be correct according to your state. Text books are a great resource but tend to be written by academia. My experience in nursing school was that my instructors/professors had actual knowledge and life experience behind those lectures. You won't agree with everything you hear coming out of their mouths but they are also teaching you to pass the nclex where as your text books is just straight out information. Your schooling is all geared to pass that test. You will not use 80 percent of what you read in your textbook or learned in class anyway once you start working.

Don't agree - I went to nursing school late in the game in my late 40's. So I have plenty of working experience behind me and I'm sorry, but having kids is not an excuse to be late anywhere. You are hired to do a job at a specific time for a specific schedule, and get paid to do it to boot. Unless you fetter all that out in your interview you are expected to be where you are expected to be, regardless of your kids, your husband, your ride to work, whatever. It is called responsibility. Now you are probably going to say but her children are more of a responsibility and yes they are and if they cause you to be late you need to get a job that starts later in the day - this is not your coworkers or your bosses problem. This is called life and figuring it out. Sorry but having kids does not make you more special.

Sounds like you have a lot of entitlements in your class. First and foremost, people that are late are constantly late everywhere they go, not just class, it is ingrained in them - and I am not endorsing it just explaining the facts. They are people that just don't give a rip how disruptive or rude they are, they will never change. There will also always be someone that wants to change the rules and the schedules, talk amongst themselves and want to copy your work. You are getting an insight to how the real world actually is - you will see this a lot regardless of whatever your profession is so get use to it. It is annoying and one of those things that make jobs a pain in the butt. It will almost always be your coworkers that make you hate your job, not the job itself. As my dad said to me when I first started working, there is one in every office...............

No, this was not appropriate - shame on your instructor. Although I don't think much of the facility that left her in that condition in the first place. There are easy enough ways to cleanse someone's hair when the are obese and bedridden.

I know you don't want to hear this but as it worth getting stoned to wreck your potential career? You would have been better off having a beer. Just think about it - 1 joint can make your judgement off much more than a couple of beers - would you really want someone stoned taking care of your loved one? As a free country we are subject to some rules and passing drug tests is becoming more of one. It's not worth it. Perhaps you can plead your case to the dean and after enough random tests they may let you back in. If they do - stop smoking. It is also an insight to immature behavior and no one wants to work with that.

I would just leave now- i was in a similar situation except I was not offered a dream job a few days into it. I stayed 7 miserable weeks. That's was more than a year and a half ago and i do not look back and now have a position that i love.

My only experience prior to ICU in a hospital was 3 months in ltc., I think if you sell yourself well, are honest about your skills and your willingness to learn new ones, you can land any job. Just be honest, you don't want to get into a situation you cannot handle. I am 2 years out of graduating and almost 55. In my previous life I held many types of jobs that although not health care related, had relatable experience somehow, be it customer service skills, administrative or just a can do attitude. Maybe on some vacation time you can shadow somewhere or a couple of places to see what you might like.

I work in my states largest hospital - close to 700 beds. We have 7 icu's, are the leading neuro and cardiac and transplant hospital. I got my degree at 53, i am now 55. My hospital welcomes nurses new and old experienced and unexperienced. They have a great preceptor program and no one is thrown to the wolves without 3 months orientation/recepting. Resources are always available and other nurses on the unit are great. Granted it is an icu which is a whole different ballgame than floor nursing. Patient load is 2/1 never higher. I don't think any of the other hospitals in my state are any different. I am in Wisconsin. i am so surprised when I read about these hospitals with so many presumptions of their nurses and their degrees and experiences. We just do not have that here.

i'm not sure i understand. are you tapering off? if so, why? i have been on lexapro for years and it was a lifesaver. i have no plans at all to stop taking it because depression is for life with me. i have had depression since i was a child. i am not bipolar though. yes, lexapro has some bad side effects, for me it was weight gain. If you are indeed trying to taper off for some reason, do it properly, which will take months and months. Good luck.

Isn't this a nursing blog? Where else should one be able to rant free of judgement?

In my hospital we are not unionized - thank god. Unions protect bad employees, plain and simple. If i have a grievance, I settle it myself. I earn my own raises based on my own accomplishments or lack of them. We start earning pto right away and just have to submit our requests as early as possible. Unions should be a thing of the past. Yes, they helped found the labor force but with few exceptions they are not worth it anymore and nursing is one of them that should not have them. i don't know why anyone would want to pay dues to someone that is going to go to bat for a bad employee and base your increases on everyone else.

Hey - cut this RN a break! Anyone who has survived nursing school know's what she is talking about! You think she is ramped up - she deserves to be. She (I am assuming it is a she) got good enough grades to graduate and we have all been there with the 'critical thinking" questions that make absolutely no sense. We have 4 choices for an answer, one is usually obviously wrong and the other 3 could be justified if it weren't for "critical thinking" give us a chance to get out into the working world and let's see how well we all critically think. Just because she is ticked and is passionate enough to show it on here doesn't mean she would have a terrible bed side manner. I think it means she cares.

You will learn how to speed read and highlight what you need to know. First couple of weeks are very overwhelming. It will get better and you will get into the ebb and flow of it. Finals week may be rough but by then you will know so much. Good luck.

Maybe he thought your friend was cheating? Trust me, if they think there is cheating going on they will address it. Seen 2 people kicked out for cheating already.

I'm horrible at math but did fine. As others have said they will show you but there are also some good websites. Know your unit conversions, everything is metric. We have to take a test every week for dosage calculations and must get overall 80% and as I said I am horrible in math and only got one wrong the whole semester.

Our program is separate as well but I think the RN students can take the pn nclex. We have a "bridge" program to go from lpn to rn, it is an extra semester but we do not have to repetition. That's a shame you cannot take the nclex. Well, you will have tons of knowledge when you are done!! Best of luck to you.

I started at 49, am 52 now with one more semester to go. Chemistry was hard for me. I never had it in High School. I liked A & P. So far the nursing classes are fine. I am far from the oldest student which helps. I think the average age in our class is 35. My only advice is to watch out for some instructors. Hopefully they have kept up with the current industry standards. We have a couple that have such big ego's and like to grind us down. Fortunately the other ones make up for it but you always have that one that has a class you can't avoid. Do what needs to be done and you will be fine.

I don't care for clinicals but my first semester one was really screwed up. We initially had a laid back instructor that pretty much let us do what we needed to do. Wrote out a ton of care plans and poured over charts. Midway through she got sick and we got a new instructor, a 180 departure from the first. She expected us to know a lot more than we did and it was very nerve wracking. We were in a pretty depressing ltc facility. I was just glad to be done. Can't say I learned alot of actual patient care because most of the people we had literally could not talk and most could not respond to questions or request, such as leaning forward to listen to lungs. I am hoping this coming semester is better.

Like everyone else has said - your father comes first. I have not worked as a cna either. I took the class but did not take the test. I took care of my dad for 7 years and would do it again in a heart beat. I too am nervous to graduate in May.

At my school the LPN program is the first two semester of the RN program. We did have to do a lot of critical thinking but I think since you've already had the courses you will do well. Since you like your clinicals and love patients I think that's 90% of what's important in nursing. I initially started out to do RN but didn't get a good enough grade in Biochem. I'm a lot older than you and I get your frustrations. Good luck to you.