don_rhonda

our small rural hospital has microsoft outlook email. we are able to use it in house and away as well. it is pretty nice. for college students like me, it is a better way to keep updated about going ons when only able to work 1 day a week. regular posts consist of senior manager minutes and a weekly newsletter. the rest are postings of who is going to be out and when.... hmmmm ya got phony programs too huh? lol

I go to WWCC in Clarkston, across the river from Lewiston. I like WWCC as it is a 2 yr RN ADN program vs LCSC 4 yr program. I don't think it is a struggle to get into WWCC as long as you have your pre-reqs complete. One yr down and another yr to go for me! Good luck to you!

Signing your name to any piece of paper binds you to obey the law. Signing over Power of Attorney (POA) requires your choosing of specific delegations and may consist of as little as making health care decisions if you are not able to make decisions or speak for yourself, or it can be as much as being responsible for a person's financial decisions, bills, etc. It can be a great responsibility to be POA for an elderly person. Choosing a person to be your POA requires your mental competancy and a great deal of trust for that person handling your responsibilities and making reasonable decisions in your behalf, whether it be for health care or finances. If giving your POA responsibility for your finances, the POA has access to your bank accounts, charge accounts, etc. This is a good for a person that can be trusted to be your POA; however, it can be devastating if your POA takes advantage of this situation. POA is often given to a family member rather than a non-family member. Taking advantage of POA responsibilities is illegal and called Financial Exploitation. Sadly enough, this is frequently happening to elderly people in our community. Please, when giving POA, think of the responsibilities being given, and who you are giving these responsibilities to!

Ditto on Crocs for me!! :)

Signing your name to any piece of paper binds you to obey the law. Signing over Power of Attorney (POA) requires your choosing of specific delegations and may consist of as little as making health care decisions if you are not able to make decisions or speak for yourself, or it can be as much as being responsible for a person's financial decisions, bills, etc. It can be a great responsibility to be POA for an elderly person. Choosing a person to be your POA requires your mental competancy and a great deal of trust for that person handling your responsibilities and making reasonable decisions in your behalf, whether it be for health care or finances. If giving your POA responsibility for your finances, the POA has access to your bank accounts, charge accounts, etc. This is a good for a person that can be trusted to be your POA; however, it can be devastating if your POA takes advantage of this situation. POA is often given to a family member rather than a non-family member. Taking advantage of POA responsibilities is illegal and called Financial Exploitation. Sadly enough, this is frequently happening to elderly people in our community. Please, when giving POA, think of the responsibilities being given, and who you are giving these responsibilities to! For more information, please attend a 1/2 hour speech given about Financial Exploitation, given by Dawn Wortman from Adult Protective Services from the Lewiston branch. Grangeville, Idaho Senior Center (on truck route) 12 noon (after senior meal) Fri. Sept 22, 2006

I have seen several people go thru nursing school with grandiose ideas of making a difference in the world. It is not all that! The best advice I could give is to become a CNA (as I did) and take it from there. After years, lots of dollars, stress and tears, many new nurses that were not previously CNA's were disappointed as their expectations were not met. I did not ever intend to go to nursing school, but I was always wanting to do and learn more as a CNA. That is when my co-workers in a small, rural hospital encouraged me to go back to school. Nursing can be very rewarding but occasionally very sad/frustrating. It's all about weights and measures!

I back your theory of being a CNA before nursing school 100%. Several nurses that I work with say that their CNA years were their best years in nursing. I believe that a CNA gets much more aquainted with the patient and is able to assess the patient in ways that a nurse normally doesn't (if this is a observant, caring CNA). However, in rural nursing, I have the desire to be able to do more for the patient and just received my LPN and hope to get my RN in 9 mo! I found CNA work to be very rewarding and I feel that CNA experience has definitely helped me with tests/clinicals in the nursing program.

Ditto for me... The numbers were down at the right bottom corner of the screen. I was so nervous that I did not pay much attention to the numbers. However, I did get more-so nervous once I realized I had answered over 75 questions, dreading the moment I would be shut off. I got shut off several minutes after #83...possibly at 90-100. I about had heart failure at shut down, thinking NO NO its too early to shut me down! You have no idea how relieved I was when I learned that I passed!

Seems like there is quite the flow of NCLEX stress suddenly here! I don't know if I could help anyone, but I will tell you my plan, which worked for me. I studied Mon, Tues, and Wed before my test Thurs. I studied from the NCLEX CD, focused on rationales given for those answers, and did best with quiz rather than exam. The quiz section consists of 10 questions per subject. The exam section consists of about 100 questions per subject, causing the great brain shut down. The LPN boards seemed very comparitive to the ATI comprehensive that we took in class as a predictor, and I hated that test as well! I believe that the ATI comprehensive was a great indicator of how well we would do on boards. (Surprisingly, I received a 91 national percentile on the ATI comprehensive.) Some LPN board questions were easy enough, some were tricky, others were way off the wall about drugs that I have never heard of. There is a minimum of 75 questions and maximum of 201 questions (?) on the test, with a shut down of the test when there is a 95% accuracy of pass/fail. I was shut down at about 100 questions (which about put me in heart failure!), taking me 75-90 min for testing. I was on a horrible roller coaster of emotions all the way home from Boise that day. Remember, time of shut down does not indicate pass/fail! FYI- I took my test on Thurs, and was told at the center that results may be available online Fri, but most likely Mon (2 business days). I was told by a former student to check again on Sat (even tho it's not a week day) and my results were available. I passed Good luck to all of you out there

Ouch! This subject really hits a sore spot! I am a CNA (3 yr), and will be a nursing student this fall. I believe that it should be a requirement to become a CNA before becoming a nursing student. It gives one a whole different outlook on levels of nursing. I don't consider anything menial when it comes to patient care, and it consistently takes team work for patient care. Nothing is worse than having a RN take 10 min to track me down, just to get a patient to a BSC or toilet!!! Does this really happen? ..... YES!

My CNA clinicals were done in a LTCF also. It was very tough to keep up with getting residents to meals, to the toilet, diaper changes etc. Each CNA was assigned 10-15 residents, which I thought was ridiculous. As we were there for clinicals, we just followed and assisted an employed CNA. I already had a CNA job waiting for me at our small rural hospital in the same town, knowing I was going to have a much better CNA job than these under-staffed, under-paid, LTC CNA's. It pays to search around, talk to others, and learn what else is offered before getting into something that will turn you away from nursing :)

Well put Fun2Care!!

Hmm... I still wouldn't encourage taking 2 sciences at 1 time, unless school and science comes easy to you.

What is you Pt to nurse numbers? 1rn:5pt 1cna:5-10pt What state are you in? Idaho Hospital or ECF? 16 bed rural hospital

This just depends on how much of a load you are willing to take on and how well you do in sciences. Me, myself, and I took 1 science at a time with a PE or something light/non-science....call me wimpy!

I agree! All 3 classes were pretty involved for me. These 3 classes count for the most points towards the nursing program at our school, so I made the most of it by focusing on these 3 by seperating them into 3 quarters and taking another easy class with each.

LMAO! I get in lotsa trouble by complaining how quiet it is...especially on night shift where we are a limited staff of 2 RN's and 1 CNA in our local rural hospital. I am known for jinxing the shift, and they always (in manner of play) give me all the heavy duty work that comes out of the jinx! :chuckle

Good for you Samantha! I think it is a very good idea to become a CNA before going to nursing school. As for CNA requirements, I believe you need to be 16 or older with a clean record, not much anything else I don't think. I'm a CNA from Idaho (3 yrs) and going into the nursing program (in Washington) this fall. I've seen several go straight into the nursing program with great invisions of life saving which can't always be done and grand appraisal which doesn't always happen. Not only does CNA work give you great insight to nursing, but it will also give you comfort zone for the patient care that you will already know how to give during your 1st year nursing clinicals. :)

I have dealt with this as a CNA, and it is very frustrating! Several days ago, a family member came into the patient's room in a rush, took over feeding the patient, and then reported to the charge nurse that I was being "snotty" to her moments earlier, but says she wasn't surprised because I was just as snotty to her the day before....I hadn't even spoke to this family member the day before! The nurse just politely listened, apologized for any upset that it may have caused, and told her that it was okay to let us know how she was feeling during this emotional time. This didn't support my feelings much at all but it did calm the family member down. The family and patient is always to come first....but boy did I take that accusation personally!

Best thing I ever did is get my CNA before going back to school. This will help me in my comfort level as I do my clinicals in unfamiliar facility settings, but giving patient care that I already have been trained to do.

No commitment to anything else in life helps a whole lot on night shifts for me. I am working 2 12 hr days and 1 12 hr night per week until I go back to school. I have always been a sleeper so it is easy for me to take a 3-4 hr nap during the day before a night shift....ear plugs and eye mask required!

As a CNA at our local rural hospital, I 2nd this decision! ?