Aedana

I'm taking my NCLEX January 30th (less than 1 week from now)! I'm feeling both so ready to get 'er done and also kind of worried because I started my internship and they have been making me work full time + some overtime as well, which has really cut into my study time and kind of got me worried. I am glad that at least I'm immersed in med surg and having to make a lot of decisions about prioritizing and meds and lab values on the job that can be similar to Kaplan questions. :) Those of you who took the Kaplan course and passed NCLEX, what scores were you making on the Question trainer tests? Thanks!

I just hung 3 bags of LR and Ancef today alone and I graduated from an ADN RN program, so I would say no. :) I believe that depending on the state's practice act, LVN/LPNs may have restrictions on what they can do with IVs like what you are talking about. However, I also believe that they can administer IV medications if they take special certification classes from their hospital. (Maybe a friendly LVN out there can clarify). Hope this helps!

I didn't really feel ripped off when I took the ADN program. The reason why is that 1 semester of nursing school in my ADN program was 250 dollars (including fees) per semester for full time study (if even that much), while the cheapest BSN program I could find was easily 4 times that much (the local public university cost about 2500 dollars/semester + fees). Some of the private school BSN programs were even more expensive (12k-16k per semester!!!). I had NO assistance whatsoever with college tuition (I didn't qualify for federal aid during any of my time in school for various reasons) so I really had to scrimp financially just to gather together the 250 bucks. However, I graduated with no debt under my belt (unlike many of the BSN grads I know). Now that I am employed full time, I can get the hospital to pay for my ADN-BSN bridge year with no out of pocket costs, so I can still remain debt-free. :) So, like I mentioned, there are a lot of factors that can weigh in on whether you choose the ADN/BSN route. I am very glad for my ADN program because without it, there would have been no way for me to be a nurse. Aedana

My hair is shoulder length and I always put it in a ponytail or put it back up whenever I'm working in the hospital. The reason why is that you may have to bend over a patient to do a procedure such as a dressing change in an awkward spot and your hair can accidentally fall forward into the wound/questionable substance/sterile field etc. Gross for both you and the patient. I have been at two different hospitals and haven't seen any rules specific for hair (except in the OR) at either one, but that's just what has been working best for me. :)

Wow, they don't let you work as GNs in IL??? What was their rationale for making that sort of change? I would personally go to my state rep and :trout: And your testing place would get a double :trout: :trout: :) There is so much stuff to be done during the GN period, like get oriented, that doesn't involve direct patient care. From what I've seen in the Pearson site, there are lots of dates available, including weekends, so hopefully that will be the same with Continental. Your mileage may vary, because it just depends on the testing centers near you. I do know that when you get your ATT, schedule ASAP, because the centers do fill up fast. I'm lucky because I think I'll get to test close to me, rather than having to drive 111 miles out to Waco (nearest testing center outside the 2 in the DFW area).

YAY!!! I finally got mine today! Our school overnighted our graduation paperwork to the state a couple of days back and I finally got that blessed letter in my inbox today! When I opened it, I thought I heard angels sing! :-)

As an updated, I called the board today and they said they received our affidavits today! :) However, it will be 1-10 business days before they approve us. Just FYI.

Yeah, that was what I heard when I spoke with the nursing secretary early yesterday morning (1/2). I've been pretty lucky because the hospital I am interning at is letting me attend orientation since that does not involve direct patient care, so that buys me some time. But after that, I don't know what they are going to do with me. I wonder what happened that the ball dropped on our paperwork... Did someone in our nursing department go on vacation? Anyways, I definitely share your frustration there and I hope everything turns out ok for all of us grads.

Don't get too discouraged! :) NS is stressful and I haven't met anyone who has gone through it themselves and said otherwise. Like boot camp, it's kind of one of those experiences that makes it so nurses of all levels of experience and education can relate to each other. :) I outlined one of my strategies for surviving in the post above yours (being sure to take care of yourself). Another thing we were taught was to make friends in our nursing class because we needed each other. Nobody can really understand what you are going through like another nursing student, which is why this forum is so awesome! You might search for NS stress relief tips, as I wouldn't be too surprised if someone has already covered the topic before. Good luck and I hope an acceptance packet finds its way into your mailbox next summer! :)

I personally did not "like" nursing school while I was in it. Now, I found it interesting learning about pathophysiology and interventions and I enjoyed the time I spent working with my patients, but fun...uh, no. :) For me, it was pretty much as you said, complete and utter exhaustion alternating with brief moments of panic and a lot of moments of feeling like you know absolutely nothing. And I remember feeling that way especially during my second semester (adult med-surg I), mostly because the excitement and happiness of making it into nursing school started to fade and my knowledge base was growing enough where I could really understand how little I knew. :) The first semester of med-surg is also just plain hard because there is so much to learn with absorbing all the stuff for cardiac, diabetes, etc. I will tell you this. After second semester, things got a lot better for me. By the time you get to the last semester (adult med-surg 2), you are so good at being a student, you usually have a system in place that clinicals are much less grueling and a lot of times, the instructors will go easier on you and treat you more as a peer (which you soon will be!) Then when you graduate, the knowledge you reached your goals and getting that first big fat paycheck makes it all worth it. :) It sounds like you need to take five and give yourself some TLC. At my school, we were taught to pamper and reward ourselves frequently (especially after doing great on a test), because if you don't care for yourself, you can't care well for others and you burn out. Everyone pampered themselves differently, from going on a nice walk outside, to buying a new pair of shoes, taking a bubble bath or sending the kids to grandma and getting an extra nap in. Hang in there! The look of pride when your family watches you cross the stage is worth it!

Well, I got an update on my license situation. I graduated Dec 13, and supposedly my school was going to send out our affidavits of graduation to the Texas BON the next day, according to our little graduation checklist. Well, I called the state and they said everything was ok over there, they just needed my affidavit. However, when I called my school of nursing, they are mailing out the affidavits only just today! So, while I feel better knowing that's what the hold up is, it's also irritating to know my school has been so slow about this stuff, especially when other Texas grads already have GN in hand and are scheduled for the NCLEX. For those of you who are still working on the application process, my board told me that you want to pay Pearson first and then any applicable state board fees to speed up the process. They said something about how Pearson can be slow and doesn't always check everyday to see who has been approved by the state while the state checks as soon as they get the money to see if you paid Pearson. Our nursing school told us to do the opposite in our graduation checklist. :)

Whew!!! Glad to hear the letters are starting to come in. :balloons: Some of y'all are lucky to have such fast BoN's! :) I paid Pearson back in November, graduated in the state of Texas December 14, and no letter yet. :continues thumb twiddling:

Has anyone received their ATT letter yet who graduated this fall?

In my state (Texas), the big difference between BSN and ADN programs is 3 courses in nursing school. BSNs take Management, Research, and Community Health courses, other than that, the curriculum is the same. If your interest lies in one of those 3 areas of nursing, definitely go for your BSN. Otherwise, you just need to weigh the other factors other posters have already discussed as to the best choice for you. I am a new grad from an ADN program that has a reputation for turning out fine nurses. Our school has new grads in the ER, OR, ICU/CCU, NICU, L&D, and PICUs, so we held our own quite nicely competing this fall against the grads in the multiple BSN programs in the area.

I think it's funny how even as some things change, others stay the same. Even back then, nursing shortages and man/woman power issues were a problem. :-)

Hi Shakshi, I am a new grad from an ADN program in Texas. When I went to internship fairs, etc., everyone (ADN, BSN, and a couple diploma soon-to-be grads) was offered the exact same starting salary and benefit package. If you are in a fabulous ADN program that has a good reputation in your area that you are comfortable with, I'd second the advice that one bird in the hand is two in the bush. With ADN-BSN bridge programs being mostly online now, it's not as bad to have to go back, and you get tuition reimbursement from a lot of the hospitals these days. The major difference between ADN and BSN (in Texas) is that BSNs take a community health, research, and a leadership and management course. As you can see, while these courses are important and worthwhile, you can still function quite fine without them in an acute care patient setting (I have no major interest in managing other RNs at this point). If you do have a hunger for community health or management, shoot for your BSN. But anyways, to me, academic reputation and NCLEX pass rate is most important. My school has new grads in the ER, OR, ICU/CCU, and tele units, so there are really not many career restrictions for us. When I got hired on for my externship, we had to tell the RN orienting our group what nursing school we were from. The RN was polite to the BSN program nurses. But when I told her my ADN school name, she lit up and said, "Oh, we looooove our *ADN school name* nurses here!" :-D Hope this helps and have fun in nursing school! Congratulations on your acceptance! :balloons:

I feel really lucky, I've never really had any CI get in my face and really rudely try to crush my spirit. They would make the occasional offhand remark to get under my skin, but the good thing is that I worked during my time as a student at a county hospital, so I'm used to insulting remarks from people and it just rolls off my back. Our clientele has a LARGE homeless and/or neuro and/or mentally ill population and while many are awesome patients, many are not always the most polite folks towards our staff. I'd also get sniped at from patient visitors who were nurses from non-profit chains in the area. They would assume automatically since we were a county hospital, our care was substandard. :trout: Fortunately, by the end of the day, they would turn their opinions around about us after observing my unit's kindness and hard work. I did hear stories about other CIs that sent chills down my spine. The only thing that scares me more then negative, abrasive feedback is NONE whatsoever. My foundation semester was that way... None of us students could find the instructor and except for mandatory checkoffs, we never saw her stop in to observe us interacting with patients. I ended up getting a B (missed an A by the skin of my teeth), but I still have no idea what she graded me on since she was never there. :uhoh21: But anyways, I sure am glad to have those days behind me! :balloons:

Here's feedback from someone just about to graduate in 2 weeks! :-) 1. Don't skimp on your 'scope! I used a really cheap stethoscope in my first semester and could not take a manual blood pressure if my life depended on it. I was so frustrated that I wasn't going to pass my BP checkoff and felt like a failure. After I bought a Littman classic, I could actually hear the noises and passed that skills checkoff so I could be a nurse... My spiffy BP cuff has sit in the back of my closet ever since that checkoff because we use the dynamaps (automatic BP cuffs) and the hospital's own manual cuffs for vital signs in clinical. 2. Carry multiple black pens and a couple of penlights. These like to disappear at the most inconvenient moments and it's nearly impossible to find one to borrow in a hospital because everyone else is always losing theirs. Your clinical instructor will also ask you to evaluate pupil response on a neuro patient at the exact moment all your penlights choose to disappear. 3. Wheeled backpack in the first semester, then a light, very small bag for remaining semesters. As a soon to be orthopedic nurse, I am extremely protective of my back, so I was grateful for my bag on wheels. Most foundations texts and all the other crap you have to carry to theory as a new nursing student is heavy!!! 4. Be conservative buying stuff and learn to travel lightly as a student. Your needs will change from semester to semester depending on the needs of the course, and will change as you perfect your style as a student. Also, MRSA and other superbugs make contact isolation rooms more common, and you can't use your things in those rooms anyways. Finally, depending on the facility, you may or may not have a secure place to store your stuff so carrying less stuff reduces the theft risks there. I never worried much about my books getting stolen by patients though... I figured if they were dumb enough to take those heavy things, they deserved them! :lol2: Hope this helps!

Very well said, Marie. :-) I think you forgot one more rule: Always keep your sense of humor. :-) A fellow student (who works as a surgical tech) and I observed a C-Section. The nurse reviewed the importance of sterility, blue fields, not touching anything without asking, etc. After completing the mini lecture, she loudly and emphatically told the other nurses to keep an eye on us students to prevent us from violating the sterile fields. Finally, with a grand gesture, she opened up what looked like a chuk. As the chuk unfolded, it tore. *FoOf* A geyser of fluffy chuk innards spewed EVERYWHERE, floating all over the entire OR theater, pretty much violating any and every sterile field in the room. Needless to say, everyone was horrified and it was a mad dash to the next room to re-prep. We were fortunate there was a clean room available so what could have been a terrible situation turned out ok. Mom safely delivered a beautiful baby. But the other student and I did chuckle after the day was over at the irony of the situation where the nurse teaching us was the bigger violator of sterile fields than any of us students present. :-)

I'm one of the Spring 06 students making my way through Foundations. I wouldn't say that school is hard, just very, very, VERY different from the pre-reqs. The first thing to adjust to is the structure of the classes. In pre-reqs, you get a nice neat objective list and if you can properly spout out what you learned from reading and lectures, you make an A. In nursing school, you not only have to know the material, but ways to properly and logically apply your knowledge. The test questions are formatted in a completely different way with an NCLEX style. You usually end up with two 'correct' answers to the questions that have fabulous rationales for either. Then you have to hope that whichever 'best' answer you pick matches the 'best' answer the instructor chooses. I hope that as I gain more hospital experience, some of the NCLEX style questions my instructors make become more obvious. The second big change is the increased influence your people skills have on your success in school. In pre-reqs, even the most anti-social Nursing Student Rachet can make an A, she just needs to study. In nursing school, learning how to quickly build a sense of rapport with your fellow students, your patients, the nurses and ancillary staff in your unit, and your instructors is very vital to your success. I'm not advocating kissing butts at all, but just helping to wipe them on your floor. :) My clinical group has worked very hard on pt care and our unit actually looks forward to us coming in because they know we are there to work and learn and assist. Another thing our instructors told us is to make buddies with your fellow students as early as you can because we students need each other as much as we need them. And it's true! In addition to having a support system for studying, you feel less anxious knowing that others feel just as anxious as you do about nursing school. Finally, the last big change (for me) is having to learn not to beat myself up for long periods over test mistakes, bad days at clinical, etc. I hyperanalyzed everything and ended up piling a lot more stress on myself than was really necessary. When working with people, Murphy's Law and the School of Hard Knocks frequently intervene to test how flexible you are, even more so if you are a perfectionist. (Rule #1, the most exceptional care plans written are for the pts discharged Hope this helps! -- Aedana

I got my acceptance letter for the Spring 2006 ADN program at my school today! I am 25, single, and nursing will be my second career after working with computers for almost a decade. RN's seem to run in my family with at least one in each generation and I just inherited the nursing cap of my grandmother and her 50+ year old nursing school pin. Congratulations to everyone else who got their letter! *pops the cork on a bottle of champagne for us* :balloons: :balloons:

Hi sunnyjohn, Thanks so much for the encouragement and advice on admission strategy. :) I'll check and see if there is an open slot in the Psych online class during Summer II that I may be able to slip into to boost up my prerequisites. I forgot that TCC offered more advanced courses online, so that really is a bright ray of sunshine on my day... :) Take care and thanks again, Aedana

Hi Fun2Care, Wow, your website is really amazing! That's a really great idea about taking lab photos... I never would have thought to do that! :) Did you take your pictures with a standalone digital camera or a cell phone w/ the included camera? *insert gears turning in head here* Over here at TCC, a new book appeared called "Home Lab" that actually contains photo slides of all the models we use in class (in a format kind of like your pictures) that are keyed(!). Man, I wish I had the UTA version of that during A&P 1, since they enjoyed locking us out of lab so much... But your idea is very useful even with the book, as the new book doesn't have many examples of wet specimens. So I guess I'll be sheep gut paparazzi here in a couple of days. Thanks, Aedana

Hi all, I'm new to this bulletin board. I had a question for the TCC students out there as I'm feeling kind of nervous right now with the application time coming up soon (too soon, almost). :uhoh21: I'm a transfer student from a couple semesters back from UTA. While I was at UTA, I took A&P I over the summer I. Not fun... Out of the 100+, I was one of the handful of actual UTA students as the rest were TCU folks trying to get a prerequisite out of the way. After five weeks of everyone leaving the tests in tears crying (we weren't allowed to have any time w/ the models/bones other than very limited time in lab, and they ended up using different ones on the lab tests), I ended up getting a B. On Intro to Psych, I also got a B. However, after I transferred to TCC, all the rest of my prerequisites and sciences (Micro, Chemistry, Developmental Psychology, etc.) are A's. My TCC GPA is a 4.0. My current class, A&P II (Marieb book), is going great, and I expect to probably get an A in that. Do you think that my 2 B's from UTA will keep me from getting admitted into the TCC nursing program? I know the ADN programs are really competitive, and I'm starting to have really bad regrets about having gone to UTA. Thanks, Aedana