golson

Being lucky enough to have co-workers that saw a shift as a team event, rather than a clear division of tasks. Getting introduced to relatively "safe" people with altered mental status helped a bit, too. I'm not sure how well I would've done with a really off the wall 1:1 right off the bat.

10 months on and things are going well. I'm bracing myself for the trauma patients to start coming in, since the weather has warmed up. They're a different stripe than my elderly falls and general surgery types I get in the winter. I'm just about a year away from graduation from my ADN program.

I just called Carol about this and she said the dates would be emailed out some time after school starts with orientation dates in October. She also said not to worry about doing the Metro State online orientation yet, as they don't have the list of us (and our STAR IDs). This will be covered at nursing orientation in October.

Really glad I haven't had to deal with anything this "feelings" intensive in the civilian workforce yet. The idea that somebody would correct me for toilet seat position (much less hunt me down to do so) or be so perturbed by somebody doing so that I felt the need to seek counsel on the internet is just mind blowing.

I always make it a point to get them to tell me what it is that they need. It took exactly one time for me to go get a nurse so the pt could ask for a cup of water to sear that into my memory. The nurse didn't give me a hard time, but I kinda felt like a jackass.

Old ladies that have issues with a guy toileting them or cleaning them up. Its really frustrating. *** am I supposed to do, let them lay in their own $#!% until the RN is done doing RN things? Sometimes I can trade tasks with female PCA, but that trade has got to get old for them, since its not usually a fair trade.

I'm in at ARCC.

#%@! Nothing in the mail again.

Yeah, seriously, why isn't this handled via email? What takes 6 weeks to figure out? As with most things, there is probably more to it than meets the eye, but all they're doing is verifying that you've taken the pre-reqs and then adding your GPA to your TEAS score. It isn't that hard.

Got the mail. Its not in there. I'm in Blaine, so it's not like it had far to go.

Mmm. Morning beers to take the edge off the anxiety. Don't look at me like that, I work nights and I'm still up.

OK, I've played it cool, calm, and collected until the last few hours of the wait. Mailman is usually here around 9.

Yes. I had a dream where I punched one of my patients in the face. Some backstory: they got drunk and wrecked their motorcycle, the only fluid they will now consume is ice cold ginger ale, they've been throwing a pity party for going on 3 days now, and continue small talk when you're trying to leave the room. They steer every conversation back to the fact they have amnesia, and it seems to be a defense mechanism to release them of guilt for riding drunk. Strange that I dream about this one, since I don't really dwell on it much when I'm awake.

Am I the only one not sweating this? If you've got the previous cut off scores, you have a pretty good idea if you'll make ut.

I put in for ARCC's program only. I had an 11.5 composite, so here's to hoping. One of the advisers there told me that the lowest score accepted for the last two semesters has been in the mid 10s.

What are good ratios in LTC? I was led to believe the place I did my CNA clinicals at was pretty good (10:1 CNA, 20:1 RN), but it just wasn't enough to answer call lights, toilet residents, or ambulate residents. We were barely holding it together even with the students there. Only one resident in 20 could walk without assistance, we had to use a lift for over half the residents to even get out of bed, and there would have been a line to help with feeding them had we not been there. There were ongoing infections on several incontinent residents, one of which I had to follow up on about 4 times throughout the day before one of the RNs could take a look at it (had to go to another unit to get one, eventually). Good on the folks that can do this for indefinite periods of time, but I think it would wear me down inside of a year.

>several replies early in the thread saying don't feed the troll >this is post 43

Up here in the twin cities, I was offered 11/hr at the LTC I did my CNA clinicals at, but just landed a hospital job for 15.80/hr plus 1.25 shift differential for nights.

I'm using my post 9-11 GI bill and it is a piece of cake to use. They even have an advisor set aside specifically for vets at the cc I go to.

BH patient was given a syringe by a visitor that he later filled up with his own blood and sprayed that blood at nurses in an escape attempt. He briefly held a visitor against their will. Man, 20, Accused Of Squirting His Blood On Nurses At Mercy Hospital « CBS Minnesota Just a few months ago, on the same floor, a BH patient managed to set off the fire sprinklers, flooding that floor as well as those below, leading to an evacuation of the ICU. Patient Accused of Breaking Sprinkler Head, Leading to Flood at Mercy Hospital | KSTP TV - Minneapolis and St. Paul

Not a nurse here, but just a general job searching tip: You might want to tailor your resume for each job opening, or at least job type. When I was on the hunt for a defense job a few years ago, I had separate resumes for targeting analyst, training, biometrics analyst, and HUMINT analyst positions. Its hard to set yourself apart from others when you all have the same or similar experience or education. It will take longer to tailor your resume, but it shows you are sincere and not just spamming your resume at every opening you find.

They've already got a bachelor's, so I think they'd just be directed to OCS/OTS. Now that I think about it, they might not be eligible for the GI bill either, if they accepted student loan repayment.

If you're an Army medic (68W), you can pick up an LPN certification as an ASI. If the OP is up in Alamogordo, they're probably a zoomy, though. I'm not sure if they have the same program.

I went the CNA route because I see it as a foot in the door at an organization that I could work as an RN at someday. I partially lucked out, and partially sacrificed by volunteering to work third shift and ended up with a job at a hospital. Its only 20 hours a week, but it comes with health insurance and is around 50% more pay than the nursing homes that had offered me jobs. Building a reputation with nurses and nursing leadership at this job will help me when I've got my associates degree in two years. If I can leverage that into a part time RN position at the hospital, I'll be light years ahead of my peers during and after my BSN program.

Back on topic. 3.4 is probably fine, but its going to depend on the school specific application/admission process. The CC I go to just divides your TEAS score by 10, adds that to your GPA from your first semester pre-reqs, and uses that number to rank all applicants. For me it was: 84/10=8.4 8.4+3.1=11.5 So even though I only had a GPA of 3.1, I got a composite score of 11.5. The lowest accepted composite the last three semesters at this school has been in the 10.5 range, so I should be good. I might still retake my TEAS, though, since I did horribly on my science sub score because I hadn't taken microbiology or A&P yet. Unfortunately, the science sub score is the tie breaker. I'd hate to get pushed off a semester on the off chance that last year's HS grads were better students than normal.