SnowballDVM

I did and it was really helpful. You should check out her website, she is offering workshops in PA now on a more regular basis I think and she herself is moving to Tennessee this fall, so her workshop will be there from now on.

Oh, wow, what a ripoff! What would have happened if you'd refused to buy the ATI? My college offered it free and I never used it. I just never got around to it and then when I found out from another student that there was an actual coach who was supposed to approve things and guide me I just said no way, I don't need or want that kind of help. Congrats on your pass!

I had a few review books I'd picked up at a used bookstore, and I initially started by doing some of their questions. But once I started UWorld I stopped using the books. The UWorld screen setup is very similar to NCLEX and there are lots of SATA questions, and with 1600 questions there is plenty to keep you busy.

UWorld! I passed first try with 75 questions in 40 minutes. I did the entire QBank once and then reviewed the ones I missed. Their rationales are good and some of their charts are excellent. I never really bothered with what percent I got right, just focussed on the rationales.

I took them both separately. That wasn't very smart of me. Take them both together.

LOL @ "SATAN questions". Such an apt description! I'd be careful discussing ANYTHING about the content of the exam, that release we had to sign was pretty thorough and strict.

Legally this could potentially be considered a battery since the patient or a POA or a family member did not consent, IF it was not medically necessary to cut the patient's hair. This wasn't an occasion where the patient's head needed to be shaved for some kind of emergency procedure. I also wonder if the instructor consulted the patient's RN before doing this.

I think you are being overly optimistic about your timeline, unless you get insanely lucky with a cancellation date. It's certainly possible to learn all of the CPNE material well enough to pass in three months, but even if you get a July test date, you won't be graduating until late August at the earliest. For 2015, if you finished your CPNE AND all other graduation requirements by July 5th, your graduation date was August 21st. If you finished by August 2nd, graduation was September 18th. I expect the timeline is similar for 2016. Your state may or may not allow you to work as a graduate nurse before you actually graduate. Will your job wait for you if you haven't actually graduated by August? And all of that, of course, assumes you can get a cancellation date.

No, I tested in Wisconsin before they closed both test sites.

I was at the same workshop as MedicFireRN and tested and passed about six weeks after she did, so about four months after the workshop. I agree with her that you shouldn't take a workshop the weekend before you test. I'd say a month or two ahead of time is better, since then you have plenty of time to practice things you learned at the workshop, but not so much time that you start forgetting what you learned. Good luck!

Oh, wow, you are about as far from a loser as there is! Think of what you have gone through and accomplished already. There is absolutely NOTHING shameful about living with your parents like you are. You are saving money, and helping them out, and spending time with them, and going to school for what will, I hope, be a great career. You are not lying around in your bedroom expecting your parents to wait on you. If any of your classmates think you are a loser because you are living with your parents, well, to heck with them and what they think. And whatever happens with nursing school, you are still not a loser. Hang in there and hope you are doing well on your finals.

A close friend related this to me about a close friend of hers. His widowed mother was in the hospital, at the end stage of some chronic illness I can't recall right now. His brother was at her bedside when he noticed her looking past the foot of the bed very intently. She just stared and stared, there was nothing there, no TV, no paintings on the wall, no window, no nothing. Finally he asked her, "Mom, what are you looking at?" And she answered in that maternal tone that brooks no argument, "Why, your father, of course, who has come to get me". She died a few minutes later. Now whether that was a hallucination caused by the last firings of her brain, or her late husband truly had come to get her, I don't know. I hope it was the latter.

You won't be done with the entire program by December. If you finish all of the exams by the end of August, you still have to take the FCCAs, which will take at least eight weeks, assuming you take both courses at the same time and pass both of them. Then you will have to get your CPNE application in, and then wait for a test date. Currently the wait to get a CPNE date, unless you call for cancellations and get lucky, is about three months, with an actual test date several months after that. Don't underestimate the CPNE; the study guide itself is over 500 pages long and you will need to know it very well, plus probably do some outside workshops and a LOT of memorizing, before you are ready for the CPNE. I wouldn't rush the LS exams either. They are probably the toughest exams EC has, apart from the CPNE. I'd recommend reading the textbooks and following the syllabus. Good luck.

Thank you for the great article. I am very grateful to those who work on holidays, no matter what their jobs are, but especially those in the medical field. Yesterday I took my little therapy dog to the hospice where we volunteer; Thursday is our normal day anyway, but we also went on Tuesday this week. I think he brought comfort and entertainment to a lot of people. Of course the fact that I put this outfit on him contributed to the entertainment value! Poor dog.

Nice article, Lynda! I am a big WWII geek, especially DDay, Midway, and Pearl Harbor. One of my parents' friends is a DDay vet and I finally got to hear his story last summer when my mom and I bumped into him and his wife at the hairdresser. I was in Normandy last summer and sent him a couple of postcards, a magnet, and a commemorative coin, and he was just so pleased by those small gestures. Very modest man and very humble about his service. I volunteer at a hospice and my favorite patient so far was a WWII vet. We both loved the same NFL team and the same airshow, and I spent hours talking with him. What a great guy. Whenever I see that a patient/resident is a veteran I ask about their service; some will talk about it, some will not. As an aside...while in Normandy I met a nice family from Belgium. The father said, "Well, if it weren't for you Americans, we wouldn't be free today. So thank you." And the people of Normandy, for the most part, love Americans. Nice to know that the incredible sacrifices our military members made have not been forgotten there.

Do you want to be a nurse in the military, or do you want to be a Marine? I'd do the military service first while you are younger. You can always become a nurse after you've served. If the school of your choice won't defer your admission so you can serve, re-apply after you have finished, or apply to a different school. With Veterans' Day just around the corner, I want to say thank you for thinking of joining the Marines, and thanks to your dad for his service.

I saw that too. The nurses and staff have arranged things like that at the hospice where I volunteer. One lady had her horse come to visit; they brought the horse around the back of the building and rolled the bed out onto the patio. They did something similar for a police officer; it was too cold to take her outside so a mounted officer rode the horse around back and in through the patio door. Just so special and meaningful to the patients...and the staff, too!

Dogs can be amazingly comforting. Whether or not they are acting on someone's behalf! I'm glad your mom had you and Prissy and your dad's spirit to comfort her at such a difficult time. My beagle left the bed last night, unbeknownst to me, and went downstairs, where he pulled a box of cookies out of the grocery bag...typical beagle!

Well, that's great news! Providing more options is a good thing.

Wow, Missy, that is an amazing story! All my dogs do is hog the bed...

That's awesome! Very clever use of color. I just used one color, my absolute favorite (teal)...I couldn't find the highlighters in stores any more, but I got a box of a dozen online. Phew! :) I'm old and crotchety, but I also worry about looking for too many shortcuts. I think the Excelsior program has worked pretty well for me, but I DO miss the in-class interaction of traditional schools. I worry if people take TOO many shortcuts to get to the exam, when we're already not having a lot of personal interaction with instructors and fellow students, that, while someone might be able to pass the multiple-choice exams with decent grades, how well are they really learning the material, and how well will they be able to apply it?

I LOVE chatting with seniors; they have so much to share. Being very interested in WWII, I especially enjoy talking to veterans of that war. One of my parents' friends (not a patient) is a D-Day vet and has always been embarrassed that he was in the fourth wave, not the first. When they got to Paris, he bought a sampler of French perfumes for his girlfriend (who's been his wife now for almost 70 years). We're so spoiled today, that we can travel so freely and buy almost anything we want online, so I just LOVE thinking of how surprised she must have been to get such an exotic gift from the middle of a war.

I volunteer at a hospice. They have a little hair salon there and once a week some ladies come in from a local salon and do hair. It's all volunteer and all free for the residents. A non-nursing way to make ill people feel a bit better, so if you are interested in interacting with a patient population to some extent, that might be an option once you get your business up and running.

I volunteer at a hospice with my therapy dog. A couple of weeks ago we went into the room of a very elderly lady who'd had a CVA and had been pretty much unresponsive since. Her daughter-in-law was there and we put my little doggie on the bed. The lady's arm went around him and she started petting him and opened her eyes. She was looking right through me, into a corner of the room where there wasn't anything interesting to look at. Her DIL said she'd been doing that constantly whenever she was awake, and the family was thinking she was just looking that way, but then they started thinking that maybe she was seeing her deceased husband of many decades, and that he was waiting for her. I don't KNOW for sure (and neither does anyone else) whether there are really ghosts, demons, angels, or gods, and I don't think any of the stories here are blunt lies or exaggerations, and I certainly don't feel the need to belittle others' beliefs. IDK if this woman's looking into the corner was just caused by the actions of an elderly, damaged brain, or whether she was hallucinating, or what. I prefer to think that her husband WAS waiting for her, and that she could see him. She died a few days ago, and I hope they have been reunited, wherever they are.

That's weird, I thought the website said that you could usually register for a few days after the course started, but that wouldn't extend the deadline to get the work done. I hope they'll let you join the current session.