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PS - I also totally believe that life experiences make us better nurses: being a mom, having worked in the food industry and gaming industry, having worked in a doctor's office as an assistant and surgery scheduler and first assist for many years, etc. Working for docs whom I admired and respected prevented my from having that "Us vs. the Docs" mentality that a lot of nurses seem to have, as well...

I graduated at 49, got my BSN at 55 and start my MSN at 57 (this fall) prob for an ANP degree, by then I will have 5 degrees. I love school, obviously, and I love being a nurse. What I do see is that my age-peers are burnt out, and I am not, since I've only be a nurse for 8 yrs. Another plus is that pts trusted me right off the bat, bc they presume I've been a nurse "forever" :) Good luck with school. I found my memory was worse and my study skills and drive were much better!

toradol is great stuff, sort of a compromise betw tylenol and narcotics, in my mind, anyway. i worked in oncology and critical care for seven years and now at the va, and veterans for the most part hate to take pain meds. they are tough guys and at heart do not want to ever admit weakness, exp to women of any age, and i do a lot of pain education. here is what i know to be true: research tells us that less than 1% of people who need pain meds for acute pain become addicted to them, and those 1% generally tend to be people who have had addictions already. that said it is unethical to withold pain meds from a pt who needs them, addict or not. (try telling this to a resident sometime ...) anyway, my little pain talk includes the information that if pain is under control, they will sleep better, breathe better, move better, use the is better and use their healing energy to get well - rather than dealing with the stress of the pain, which is their body's first concern. i know somebody already touched on this and it is true. i also remind them it is easier to control pain at a constant 3-4/10 rather than letting it get to a crisis of 11/10 and trying to bring it down. severe pain is scary and i have been there. good luck.

It seems that a discussion about the quality of a CC nursing degree is difficult to separate from the ADN/BSN controversy. Otherwise how would we rate the ADN degree; to what would we compare it ?

"In being able to take into account the "big picture" instead of being task oriented, given the same patient and same resources, what exactly gets done by the BSN trained nurse that doesn't get done by the ADN trained nurse? Where in the course of care does your interventions and actions differ from that of an ADN trained nurse?" Yeah, I wonder the same question, myself. Floor nursing IS task oriented. Supervising and being charge are more, and managing a unit is even more. Lots of ADN nurses make great bosses and some of the BSN nurses are terrible at it ( actual experience with this one ) Also, as has been probably pointed out already, the amount of credits I took to get my ADN and my previous degrees put me way ahead of a simple BSN program, with much more scope. It is all in the performance and the outcomes, and what kind of people we are, I think... And it is nice to see nurses encouraging each other to get as much education as they possibly can, including certifications. It is all valuable, always. "

UM, that may be true of some ADNs, but not even half, in my experience. It prob relates to their previous work/life experience and their age. Most RNs I know are able to think globally and collegiately whether they have a 2 or 4yr degree. Just my opinion.

When I got my RN, I went to CC for time/cost and they also had a higher pass rate on NCLEX than the university, and they did for several years. (I have not looked recently.) I worked in a doctor's office and a hospital, and asked every nurse and MD I knew what they recommended, and they all said the RNs from CC were better than from the 4yr program. One doc told me that in a couple of years, he could tell no difference, but the new grads from CC were way better. Then I did an online RN>BSN program and worked very hard. My GPA was within .03 of my RN GPA and my previous degree as well, so I feel pretty good about that. It was not a piece of cake and I worked as hard as I ever do, so I totally feel I earned that BSN & GPA, and it was not a diploma mill, as some educational snobs might think I think school is what it is, and we learn SO much more after graduation, while we are working--- to me, this is how and when I learned to be a nurse. Good mentors, great managers and loving my job are the best ways for me.

Here is my advice- keep at it. I was 50 when I got my RN. Most pts and families (and some doctors) just assume I have been a nurse forever. ALso all the pre nursing life experiences I've had made me a much better nurse. I don't freak out at stuff like the young RNs and I don't get caught up in the drama and gossip the way we did when we were in our 20s. My memory is a bit worse, but I have tricks to help me, and I do get tired at a 12hr shift, but I did that when I was a young mom with a baby and two jobs also. GOOD LUCK

I wanted to go for most of my life, with a few side trips (one in the medical field) took 16 yrs to do prereqs and went to school at 46. KEEP going, if you want it you will get there. Cannot believe I haev been a nurse for six years now, and I am not burnt out as are some of the older nurses where I work.

I love hearing all this, I was not a nurse yet, but I AM that old

I am an RN (was not a CNA first) and have worked with some of the best CNAs in the world. They worked their butts off and I always thank them. When I was an apprentice nurse, I deferred to them because they knew a lot more at that point than I did. There are still CNAs who are more experienced at their jobs than I am at mine. I still make sure they know how much I appreciate them. We are all in this together :) Now I am in ICU with no CNAs- we do it all. It is just the way it is.

A friend in nursing school who graduated a year after I did, went to a very large city to work in a university medical center & after coming in there with just one year of med-surg floor experience, was making $51/hr on nights ! I envied this person a little until I found out she could not afford to live in the city and lived in a dorm room for staff, with three other people.

I did research on this after getting out of school. This was about 4-5 yrs ago, and the pay scales in the US ranged from $22/hr to around $40 per hr, a huge difference for a new grad. (The lower hourly amounts were in the Midwest.) ---I think CA was the highest and NV, where I live, was toward the bottom of the scale. The next chart on the site modified the list by cost-of-living indicators for the states and CA was near the bottom and NV was #4. I was very happy to see I was not doing so bad in NV after all! Another interesting thing is that when they modified by cost of living, the compensated differences between the highest hourly and the lowest hourly was not very much, it came out to 4-5 dollars per hour. I wish I could find the link so you could all look it up, but cannot find it today.

I am kind of with you and GIRLvsRN on this one. I would not want a tech drawing from my art line either, and where I work it is only RNs and RTs.

I agree, I learn something every time I am on the site. I have been a nurse 5 years and I got into the site while in nursing school. I LOVE it, and it is nice to see all the encouragement given to students and new nurses.