Extra Pickles

You asked for some really good advice. I'm going to give you some excellent advice. If you want to be a nurse at this point go back to a nursing school. Start over, do it again. Seriously, 23 years have passed since you graduated?? You have attempted the NCLEX 5 times?? It's time to stop and learn again. I can't even imagine the changes in nursing from the time you received your education to now. It is unfathomable to me that anyone can expect you to now enter the field of Nursing after 23 years, zero experience, it's just absurd in my opinion. If you still wish to be a nurse, go to school to be one. Don't try to keep passing an exam for which you are so very unprepared.

My first suggestion would be to edit your post and change your user name, you might find that having your full name known on a website as large as this isn't a good idea. Just a word of caution. Next suggestion is to let go thinking about specializing for now. There is SO much to learn and do between the start of nursing school---which for you is still 5-7 months away!--and the end. Even those who are 100% sure what it is they want to do when they graduate will frequently find they change their minds a couple of times. Be open to those changes, you might be a great fit for what you are interested in now and you might not. Or what interests you now might NOT interest you later once you get down to the nitty-gritty of what the job actually entails. And with that said you've managed to name two areas of nursing that are usually very competitive as far as getting a foot in the door. Many places will want to see a year, two or three years of experience in med-surg before giving you a shot in a Maternity unit. Not always, but you should expect that to be likely. For now your focus is on school and all that it entails. After all if you don't successfully navigate that, the rest is moot :) Good luck!

Online programs are for people who already hold nursing licenses and wish to get a higher degree. You cannot attend nursing school online to become a nurse in the first place. Hands-On is necessary but it is required, not as a matter of preference but as mandatory for the clinical component of your nursing education. That said, you have received some very good advice. Final thought might be whether you are willing to relocate? Are your ties so great to your current community that you can't consider moving to a less impacted area? It's worth mentioning that even if you get accepted to a nursing program finding a job in California upon graduation is more like locating the Holy Grail than not. Just something to think about.

Don't sell yourself short. Like the others here said, you're predicting a dismal outcome based on nothing at all. Some of the very students you admire as having all the answers might turn out to be the ones who freeze in an emergency/panicked moment, it's too early to predict for them and it's too early to predict for you. Give yourself a chance! I personally would be hard-pressed to come up with every answer to every question now that I've been many years out of nursing school but what IS important is that I know what to DO when situations arise. I learned that by finishing school and spending years honing the skills needed to be a good nurse. NO ONE in your student classes is anywhere near that, please believe me. You are most likely voicing the same concerns at least half of the students in your classes is also feeling. And then there are those students who are too foolish or full of themselves to know when they should be questioning themselves. One day at a time. Talk with your advisor about your concerns if you need feedback one-on-one but honestly I believe you are overthinking your prognosis. You'll get there :)

Hello! I think you'd probably get the most useful information if you posted these questions in the World Nursing forum, this one tends to be very USA-centric. A consideration to mention before I go is that you should be careful about requirements for licensing in whatever country you wish to practice nursing. Are you certain that an education in Spain allows you to get a license in Ireland, and vice-versa? Neither of those routes will allow you to practice in the US without jumping through many hoops, which is of course possible but often proves costly and time absorbing. Just something to think about while you're researching your options. Good luck.

So OP, what do you think of all this? Since now you know you can get tested upon acceptance and/or at the start of a semester and/or at the start of a new clinical placement and/or at the end and/or randomly and/or never, LOL, what's your next move?

In my opinion anyone who has a brand new license and on their first job who doesn't have that fear is a walking danger zone. Of course you are afraid of what you don't know. You don't know much yet, LOL, and that's where the learning begins, after the NCLEX :-) Not much scarier than a brand new nurse who feels super confident in his abilities because he passed a minimum competency exam but hasn't yet learned what comes after. You'll be fine í ½í¸Š

To the OP since you started this thread with the intention of finding out if anyone has ever heard of a nursing student successfully avoiding mandatory vaccinations I will answer no to that. I have worked in a variety of healthcare settings, have had many interactions with many students from many schools over many years. And the answer is very simple and straightforward: the reason the word mandatory is used for those vaccinations is because they are not, in fact, optional. They are not to be waived. You could get titers drawn to check for immunity that exists already. Obviously no one is going to insist on giving you a vaccination against a disease for which you are already immune. But if your titers show that you have no immunity and the vaccinations are required, you should be prepared to get them, period. This is a discussion that goes on and on and on and on, every year around flu season, ad nauseum. I am not going to debate with you the merits of vaccination, I always thought it was pretty clear from the huge mountain of scientific data on the topic. You have every right to refute that for yourself, you do not have the right to expect others to waive these requirements because of "sincerely held" beliefs or for any other reason. You may find a school somewhere that lets something go. You may find a clinical site that does that. But to expect the ability to complete your nursing education in its entirety without receiving mandatory vaccinations at some point is honestly just naive and overly idealistic. I do wish you good look in whatever other avenue you pursue outside of healthcare. Someone here mentioned your interest in Midwifery, have you considered becoming a doula? Someone who is not a medical professional, not a nursing professional, but just a lay person who is helpful at births? Not going to get into all aspects of that, LOL, I just know that doulas exist, no nursing license required. Just a thought anyway. Good luck.

Maybe a better question than when they do drug testing is when are you planning to quit using drugs? Based on this thread, you could get tested at the beginning, part way through, the middle, the end, never, or randomly. Doesn't seem to be of much help. What Would be helpful is to avoid the issue in the first place!

So many differences in nursing! Although I would have expected significant differences between the US and some other country's, I had no idea that the UK would be so very different from us. Interesting indeed!

It's a horrible spot to be in but all you can do now is wait. Hang in there!

whatever you did the first two times didn't work so you now need to go a different direction. I would think that the desire to pass the exam and become a nurse would be enough motivation, if it isn't I'd have to wonder why not. The candidate performance report that you received after each failure would tell you what areas you need to work on in order to pass. In order to pass you have to know WHAT it is that went wrong before and change it. If it's just increasing study time then that's easy, if it's learning content then that's a bit more involved and if it's learning to think critically as the exam expects then that would be the most difficult. Maybe meet with a tutor to see where your weaknesses are and go over a study plan? Good luck.

265 questions means that you were inconsistently above and below the passing standard the entire test, determination couldn't be made before that point. People pass and people fail having taken the maximum number of questions, means nothing. Not having a good pop up on the PVT either means that you didn't do it right as is the case a lot of the time when people talk about this, or you did do it right and you failed. If you paid $200 it's likely you failed. If you did the game any other way then it's possible you failed and possible you passed. People have used valid or invalid card numbers, valid or invalid expiration dates and all kinds of other gimmicks and it doesn't mean much, can't know if you passed or failed for sure until the BON tells you. If you have a criminal record that has nothing to do with whether you passed or failed the exam. Getting a license, though, will be determined by your BON. If your conviction is one that prevents you from getting a license then it doesn't matter if you passed. If you're already discussed this with the BON and it's not a problem then it won't matter either. Good luck.

Grumpy I am personally not looking to be a nurse in the UK but I found this a very interesting and informative read! Thank you for posting it.

I wonder what pop up it is you were waiting for? You said you got a message that it wanted to take your payment, that is the message everyone gets and you are supposed to try to submit payment. The pop-up you should have been looking for would have been AFTER you pressed submit and all of your credit card information was sent to Pearson VUE. Sounds like you didn't do any of that.

I'm sure you're looking for more than "study hard and answer the questions correctly" so help us to help you. What's the problem?

The person who started this thread, the one you just posted too, has not been on here since November of 2014. I don't think I would wait around for an answer. Good luck!

Foreign students often say "write the exam" when a native would say "take the exam" or "sit for the exam". A whole lotta verbs to equate with answering questions

I love Bare Minerals!! I know you didn't ask me lol but I figured I'd give them a plug since it's a makeup that doesn't melt off my face and just a light powdering is all you need to even skin tone unless you've got serious corrections to do :)

Most non-caring branch of nursing? The ranks of the retired. Or did you have someone specifically in mind who we shouldn't care about?

Is what draws you to nursing all the makeup and fashions? Are you worried you are not shallow enough to fit in?

When I use the word "care" in the context of patient care, I always mean in the nursing sense not in the emotional sense, and that is what EVERY good nurse should be striving for. One can emotionally care about another person and yet do them absolutely no good, even harm them, because they are not providing good nursing care. For instance, I had a patient whose daughter was there all the time at the bedside, sitting there when her mother was sleeping and watching tv with her when she was awake. I had no doubt that the daughter cared about her mother very much but I also know that the main reason that the mother was in that hospital bed was because her very loving daughter did not want to place her in a nursing home where she COULD get the right kind of care that was needed, physically. Emotionally, the daughter was wonderful. But caring about someone and giving good care aren't the same thing. The mother arrived to my unit with pressure ulcers and dehydrated, with her meds all screwed up because the daughter should have hired help and didn't. Tell me, is this how she should care for her mother? She can love her but should delegate the care of her physical body to those who can do it best. In this case, ME! I care that my patients get better and leave to go back to their homes. I take pleasure in knowing that I have helped people to feel better and sometimes regain some independence. I am not a mean ogre who doesn't care if people live or die, of course I care about that, but you need to be remember that good nursing isn't about emotional attachment, caring about someone with the kind of depth you would for your own family. I think that being attached to patients is what burns out too many new nurses honestly, they try to become some kind of personal angel to people who will use them up and then they have nothing left to give. ME, I can give great care and still go home to love my family because they aren't drawing from the same well.

Underwear, same as in summer! I move around so fast I can't imagine getting cold, the facility keeps the rooms like 78° anyway!

I PROVIDE them with good care, even excellent care. I do not get emotionally attached which is what is implied when you say "care about your patients". I care that they get better, I am invested in TAKING care of them to the best of my ability. But care about them the way I do my friends and family? No. Think about it this way, do you honestly expect a doctor to care about his or het patients at that level? He or she should take excellent care of them. He or she should provide the best treatment plan. He or she should care that the patient's health improves. But care about them like loved ones? No, they don't. And shouldn't.