LanaWRN

Thank you! And ironically, just a few days after asking a friend who was a nurse with me there if she remembered this experience she ran into the patient's wife after all these years and they talked about this!

15 years ago, I was working every weekend in a large hospital as a Certified Nurse Aide while going to nursing school through the week. In December, my first year working there I met Mr. C. Mr. C was young, energetic, and seemingly healthy when he was admitted to the hospital. He was quite sure he would only be in the hospital a day or 2 to determine the cause of his cardiac and respiratory symptoms. Mr. C was a very active man, used to being in control of situations and always on the go. Those first few days it wasn’t uncommon to find him pacing or walking circles around his room. He was often checking his work schedule, preparing to get back to the job he loved. Unfortunately, Mr. C. was quickly diagnosed with an aggressive lung cancer that required immediately starting chemotherapy and the beginning of a long hospital stay. He kept a positive attitude and always had the spirit of a fighter, but the sudden transition from being in control of everything to needing to ask for help with even the simple things was hard. I worked every Friday, Saturday and Sunday so when I would return each Friday the physical changes in him from the effects of the aggressive chemotherapy were pretty drastic. He was thinner and weaker. His thick, black hair fell out and at some point, he shaved his head. And then, to add insult to injury, he developed a debilitating gastrointestinal infection which caused him to be even weaker. Mr. C didn’t like to ask for help but now he had to. It was Christmas and, despite his best efforts, Mr. C wouldn’t be going home. His wife and kids were coming to visit for the day and he asked for help making it special. I think we all realized this would likely be his last Christmas with his kids and we didn’t want their memories of that to be in his hospital room, so the nursing staff of 8 West did what we did best – we took care of our patient! Sometimes taking care of a patient involves pills, wound care or surgery. Sometimes it’s holding a hand, singing a song or saying a prayer. This time, taking care of our patient meant making sure Mr. C and his family got to spend some fun time together, away from his hospital bed, IV pole and bedside commode and away from the harsh reality of his illness. The elves of 8 West got to work! We had an empty room at the end of the hall, not currently used as a patient room. It was being used for storage and full of extra furniture and equipment that needed to be relocated. We moved our Christmas tree from the nurse’s station into the room, borrowed furniture from other areas of the unit, hung sparkly garland and miscellaneous decorations from around the unit, found a radio to tune to some quiet Christmas music, and ordered a tray of cookies and drinks from the cafeteria. That day our nursing staff on 8 West managed to change a crowded storage room into a private Christmas visitation room – a fun, happier place fit to make lasting family memories! Mr. C and his family were so appreciative of this gesture. He couldn’t believe we would do so much. But like I said, taking care of our patients was the specialty of the nursing staff on 8 West! That was Mr. C’s last Christmas, and he spent it in the last place anyone ever wants to spend a holiday. As a nurse, we don’t usually want to spend the holiday at the hospital. But illness doesn’t go away, and hospitals don’t close just because it’s Christmas! As a nurse, working the holidays means you are away from your own family. You are away from the memories they are creating with the hope of keeping our patients alive to make more memories with their own families. We report for duty – Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and Easter - ready to impact lives in whatever way we can. Sometimes the impact we make is physical and maybe we save a life. Sometimes the impact is emotional or spiritual and we can provide care, comfort or memories to last a lifetime. It’s been 15 years since that memorable Christmas experience with Mr. C. I’ve worked many more holidays since then and always tried to find a way to make the day seem a little more pleasant for each patient I was caring for on those days. I’ve added a few degrees and fancy letters after my name since that Christmas, but the memory is still vivid. Although I hope we made those Christmas memories a little more pleasant for a family going through the unimaginable, I think it’s safe to say that one of the lives impacted that Christmas was my own. It’s a memory that will last ME a lifetime.

So you're considering applying to a nursing program? Or you just got accepted? Congratulations! Now what? How do you prepare yourself and your family for the major time commitment you are about to tackle? Many students are already entrenched in their nursing education by the time the reality of the time needs, and other demands, hits them. More than half of nursing students continue to work during their education. While working is often necessary to pay the bills, and a job in the healthcare industry is great experience for nursing students, students often do not fully realize the effect their work hours have on their education. Many are unprepared for the time commitment of a nursing program until they reach a crisis point with their grades. Once a student begins their nursing program, it is often difficult for them to make adjustments to work and family commitments, so they are trying to just keep their head above water during their first semesters. One of the major aspects students underestimate is the extra studying required for the nursing courses that have lab and clinical components because they have been able to manage with good grades during their prerequisite courses. Did you know that at most colleges and universities, for each hour of credit in a lecture course there are 10 hours required in the classroom. By comparison, for each hour of credit that is lab- or clinical-based, 30 hours are required. In addition to those 30 hours of in-person contact hours, studying is more intense and time-consuming than it was for pre-requisite courses and out of class preparatory work is often required for nursing clinical pre-assessment. Research and studying that is required to be prepared for clinical days can take several extra hours each week. Evaluate Let's look at a few ways for you to prepare your life for your future in a nursing program. Time management is simply optimally using the time available by planning and prioritizing. There is a positive correlation between effective time management skills and academic achievement, stress reduction, and student satisfaction with their nursing program, whereas, poor time management can reduce motivation, lead to academic failure and ultimately dropping out. First, evaluate everything in your life that sucks time from your life, this is all your current time commitments and responsibilities. There are plenty of free Time Management Worksheets available to download and print online that will allow you to track every activity you do. I suggest you track activities for 1 to 2 weeks to get a good sense of where you might be routinely wasting time. You will probably be surprised at how much those little times of watching your favorite TV show (or binge-watching...hey, nobody's judging you for that!) can add up to be a major time waster throughout the week. Plan Now that you've evaluated where all your time is going and know how many hours are required a week for each activity in your life, it's time to map out your time plan! Use a similar hourly planer as you used for evaluating, but this time we're going to designate class and study time. Use a printable one like this to get started, and then go buy a good planner for school! Map out all of your firm commitments such as work, class, clinicals (don't forget to include the hours for clinical pre-assessment if required), study time, family time, kids activities, church, etc. Remember that you are still human and still need to eat and sleep! Don't forget to include a little time each week to take care of yourself – get out and enjoy nature, hang out with friends, play a video game, watch a movie, get a massage, etc. (If you don't take care of yourself now, you won't be able to take care of others later!) Once you've mapped out your time commitments do you still have a solid 8 hours each night for sleep? Do you have time needed to spend with your family? If not, it's time to evaluate all the activities you looked at before during the evaluation phase and decide what can be sacrificed for the next 2 years. If one of your activities is a 2 hour a week book club, poetry reading at a coffee shop, boxing class at the gym, or being a scout leader, you might need to put those on hold for now in order to have the appropriate amount of time to study each week. Celebrate What's important to remember when you evaluate and prioritize each of your activities is that making something a lower priority for now is not permanent! Once you graduate and have that first nursing job, all of the sacrifices you've made along the way will be worth it! And, then you can celebrate and add back some of those things you've been missing in your life! References Ghiasvand, A., Naderi, M., Tafreshi, M., Ahmadi, F., & Hosseini, M. (2017). Relationship between time management skills and anxiety and academic motivation of nursing students in Tehran. Electronic physician, 9(1), 3678-3684. doi:10.19082/3678 Hamshire, C., Willgoss, T. G., & Wibberley, C. (2013). Should I stay or should I go? A study exploring why healthcare students consider leaving their programme. Nurse Education Today, 33(8), 889-895. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2012.08.013 Reyes, H., Hartin, V., Loftin, C., Davenport, D., & Carter, V. (2012). The impact of employment on nursing students' academic performance. Nurse Educator, 37(5), 218-221. doi:10.1097/nne.0b013e318262abc9

I'm an adjunct faculty member with MSN-Ed. Are there any online continuing ed courses I can take related to education? I try to do a lot of general topics and med-surg (my specialty) but would love to keep up with the world of education.

Requirements in most places to be an adjunct: have a BSN or MSN, experience in the setting the clinical is taking place or in the course being taught, be hired. CNE is a certification that is not required, perhaps you're talking about a post-masters certificate in education? If you already have a MSN as well as a masters in education, this shouldn't be required, especially as just and adjunct.

Were you grandfathered in for the capstone to be able to complete it outside of an educational setting per the new March requirement? The capstone should be facility specific, so how did you write it without facility information? Without using some sort of facility specific information I can't imagine it would pass so you will need some information and cooperation from whoever agrees to precept and host you besides just a signature. This is to count as clinical hours so that you've actually participated in an education setting prior to getting an education degree. Finding someone who will "just sign a paper" sounds cheap, although I do understand how it could feel that way. But I would not approach anyone with a MSN using that approach. Sorry.

I'm not saying there is a difference, however my personal experience was that there wasn't a great focus on transitioning the clinical thought process to higher level. I was still thinking as a nurse, but not to see the picture through a BSN lense, this did come through observation in my workplace of who I wanted to emulate in my nursing practice. But all programs have a different philosophy and style so I'm not saying this is always the case. And yes, I'm just looking for personal observations, not trying to criticize.

If you graduated from a LPN-BSN or RN-BSN what do you feel was lacking in your program? What did you feel unprepared for after graduation and entering the workforce as a BSN? I've talked to a couple of nurses who transitioned from LPN-RN/BSN who felt unprepared to take RN boards and/or transition from the LPN thought process to the RN process. I'm thinking through a paper on how to address this but wondering what else might be missing in bridge programs? I'm a bridge graduate of both LPN-RN and RN-BSN so I love bridge programs, just wondering what could be improved!

I'm currently in a MSN-Ed program but still in core classes so no education specialty ones yet. I stared panicking a little this week wondering if I'm in the right track. I want to teach at one of our local universities so started looking at DNP options. Most of the ones I looked at specified either MSN-NP or administration or such speciality, they didn't mention education. Has anyone had experience with their MSN-Ed not being acceptable for application to DNP? I'm trying to decide if I should switch to Leadership/Admin and then pursue DNP-Ed or a post-masters certificate. Thoughts? Or should I just chill out and complete the track I'm in and not worry about it?

I'm new to HH so the whole aspect of coding/dx codes is new to me. We have coders who review our charts but have to enter something relevant in our initial soc in order to submit it to be reviewed. Everyone tells me I'll quickly start remembering the common codes but my brain is on overload from Oasis already so I don't know about that! Anyone have a cheat sheet they use for codes? I know there's got to be something out there, I just need to find it or get my butt in gear and make my own! thanks!