Venus Envy

I had a pt who was mostly A&O, but had some periods of confusion. I was preparing her medications at bedside when I looked over to find her laying to one side and a large, dark stain in the bed. "I think I'm dirty", she said. Pt had not been incontinent the previous nights I had her. Looking closely, it was dark, watery stool with lots of small, black specks. Almost like coffee ground stool. I leave the room, find a tech to help me clean her up, and as we re-enter the room we find the pt sucking the coffee ground-like stool out of her gown. :barf01:

At my facility LPNs can do anything the RNs do, with few exceptions: We can do IV push meds. We can hang blood, so long as an RN checks it with us. We can NOT administer conscious sedation. We can NOT do admissions assessments. We must have an RN sign off on heparin drips per protocol. We can NOT charge.

I am also trying to deal with the same issues as I make the transition from days to nights. One question, if anyone can help. How do you wake to an alarm while wearing earplugs?

I would be wary of a school that offers an Associates degree in LPN, when normally you can get that for RN. I've never even heard of an ASN degree = LPN.

Does anyone have any information on Kaylim Career Center? I found their ad and their measley website, but I would love more info on their LPN to RN program and especially to hear from anyone who has attended. Thanks! :)

I am not a traveller, nor black, but I am a nursing student in Georgia. In my nursing class around 20 or so out of 30 of us are African or African-American, and we have never had any problems. There seems to be a large number of black LPNs and CNAs working in Georgia though, so it's very commonplace. Depending on where you go, many areas in the south are predominantly black or white, but I've never been somewhere where either I or a friend wasn't welcome for that reason.

Make sure you try on a uniform if you're buying it secondhand. When you go to the new class orientation they'll give everyone a size chart and order form. Follow the size chart to the letter for the tops, even if it doesn't sound quite right in terms of the size you usually wear. They're sized a little odd, but if you follow the chart you'll be fine. Also, be careful of buying the pants through the company. They are $20 (you can get them for around $15 at Wal-Mart), and tend to be really long on people unless you're tall. Many of my classmates ended up with pants legs that drag the floor, so they told us they're fine with us buying any white scrub pants that fit us.

I'm in my first nursing quarter at NMT, and we are going our clinicals at two nursing homes in Cartersville -- Starcrest, and Maple Ridge. There is a guy on this forum who is further into the program than I, and he can help you out with where we're going later.

Very good question! I have had chest pain for one year now, and all of the above have been ruled out. Let me know if you make any major discoveries!

Yeah. In Winter you'll need to take PCT 108 and Spanish. Which means in the Fall you'll need to take A&P, Intro to Healthcare and Med Term. It's a load, but it's do-able. I did those three plus Psychology all at the same time my first quarter! Good luck!

Oh, one more thing! Be very careful about choosing which classes you take and when. They tend not to tell people this, and since admission is only twice a year now, this is essential information! You are not allowed to take certain courses the quarter before you apply, because they won't have time to get the grades in before acceptance. Therefore, if (hypothetically) you were applying for the Spring NP program, the only classes you are "allowed" to take the quarter before (winter), and still be considered, are Spanish, Psychology, Intro to Microcomputers, and I think one other, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. I made the mistake of taking Spanish and Math in Fall quarter with the intentions of applying for Winter, but they then told me the rules about that. It was a terrible way to find out! So, please keep this in mind when you make plans for your classes.

Thanks! I have heard before that you have to have a 3.5 to get an interview, and at least a 20 on the DET test. However, from what some of the instructors said, that is not a steadfast rule. I think so long as you have a 3.0 or higher you have a shot. Of course, the higher your GPA the better your chance. Medical experience is not a necessity to getting in. It may give a small advantage, but many people were accepted who have no experience over those who did, so apparently the advantage isn't significant. Most people who took A&P at a University, then came to a tech school think that the A&P is MUCH easier, so I think you will be pleasantly surprised. It takes some studying, but it isn't terrible. You can review some, but there's not much you can do really, aside from getting in the right mindset. Assuming you have no transfer credit, it takes most people three quarters to get the pre-reqs down. The program just changed it's rules so that acceptance is every fall and spring quarter, so you can try to time it so you're not sitting around with nothing to do. I can't recall the Spanish text off the top of my head, but if you go to the school website (http://www.northmetrotech.edu), the bookstore now has their stock online, so you should be able to look it up. :) I would be careful about buying it this far ahead of time in case the text changes, but it's not too expensive. Since you say you've had some Spanish I think you'll be fine so long as you stay on top of your studying. I really love the quarter system. I went to KSU (only for a couple of semesters) and hated it because I felt like the semesters lasted forever! So, we differ here. I like the variety of the quarter system. Around the time I start getting absolutely sick of my classes, it's almost time for new ones. The teachers here tend to either skip chapters in the book, or go more by the lectures than the text anyhow, so I'm not sure about having time to complete a textbook. Any more questions? I actually enjoy this. When I was considering going to NMT it was someone here on the forums who answered my thousand questions, so it feels nice to be doing the same for someone else.

I actually begin my first quarter of the PN program on April 5th. I just recently got accepted. :) In case you haven't heard, the competition is stiff and the process is highly selective, so you really need to make good grades and do well on the interview to get in. Although I haven't started the program yet, I have had some of the instructors for some pre-reqs, and I absolutely love them! The Allied Health department really does have a wonderful staff. As far as I know, most of the clinicals will be centered near the school, many in Cartersville, Woodstock, Kennesaw, etc. Most students feel that the most difficult pre-requisite classes are Anatomy & Physiology, Spanish for Allied Health, and Medical Terminology. I found Med Term to be easy, but I had a fantastic teacher. Unfortunately he doesn't teach that class anymore, so I can't give any recommendations for it. Spanish, if you haven't had any before, will be very difficult. The instructor (Ms. Santamaria) is wonderful, but really just skims the material while you learn most of it on your own from the book. For A&P, try your hardest to get Dr. Decker. He is wonderful. Of course the class is still challenging, but he is so much fun and keeps it interesting. If you have any more questions let me know. :)

I go to North Metro Tech in Acworth. :)

I had the same problem, I'm not very good at math, so I was very worried about it. Make sure that if possible, you take math the quarter/semester before you take the DET, just so you cover everything. I don't think the DET had much math that was beyond the basics. It only had a few pre-algebra, and a couple of algebra questions. Like I said, the English part has some very math-heavy graphs. Things like percentages, mostly. It would give you pie charts with different portions dedicated to different percentages of things (department store sales, for instance), and ask you to add or subtract them. That part was pretty tough. I bought a study guide for it that sounds similar to the one you bought. I only went through it once or twice, but it seemed to be fairly similar, so it may help. It definitely can't hurt! As for the English part, it was reading lots of passages and answering questions on them, editing sentences to make them grammatically correct, using the correct form of a choice of two words (for example: their/there), etc. For the math, make sure you know your fractions inside and out, and how to convert from fractions to decimals and back again. A huge portion of the math was multiplying, dividing, adding and subtracting fractions. Also, know your conversions! Know the dry and liquid measure conversions, like pints to quarts, quarts to gallons, etc. I remember kilograms to grams being on there a couple of times. That's all I can think of, really. Oh, the test is scored out of 30 points. Depending on your school (what school are you at, anyway?), you can get a pretty low score and still be fine. At least my school is that way! Let me know if I can help you with anything else.