Gem1984

The grass is not necessarily greener. For me its the entertainment that keeps me out here because the pay is pretty low compared to the West, where I'm from. Like you said the cost of living mess is bs unless you are purchasing a home. Northeast GA medical center seems to pay decently compared to some of the other hospital systems so you may be able to get $30-35hr based off of your experience, then there is Kaiser , they are unionized, so you should have a better shot at getting a pay rate, closer to what you're used to. Other than that the Northside Hospital Health system pays a little bit better than others as well. Good luck with wherever you all end up.

If you knew before you were hired, you should have discussed the time off with your employer when the offer of employment was made. If you didn't know when you were offered employment, you can ask but most likely you will not get the days off because you're so new, unless you work 12hr shifts and they just scheduled you around the days you needed off without a problem.

I believe CEfast either has some free ones or they offer a trial membership.

The PN program? Or the NCLEX-PN?

I hate to be mean but, I really hope, you're just making a bunch of typos, because, if you reading comprehension is as bad as your writing, thats probably why you cant pass the TEAS. I really cant understand what you were trying to say in your response. Good luck to you though.

You'd be better off, talking to nursing advisors for the programs, that you listed.

That can make things hard. I worked in a unit that used CNAs as secretaries but our primary role was as a secretary and the nurses and secretaries worked together on patient care tasks.

Wow that's quite harsh. I have worked as a unit secretary/clerk/HUC or whatever the hospital chooses to call them and I never behaved like I knew more than the nurse or as if I were their boss. Some secretaries have bad attitudes, but so do some nurses and many other employees! But considering that I have been in many "low level" positions, CNA,transporter, UC, and now LPN, I know from my own personal encounters with a lot of RNs that unless, one is an RN, they are viewed as know-nothing employees. Its nurses like you that I would leave high and dry when they needed help, because hey, I was just a dumb secretary what do I know!!

Check with your BON. In GA it's 30 credit hrs but I dont know if that's national. Also check with your employer to see if they have access to CEdirect and any other learning resources that include CE credits. Also join LPN organizations, they offer have conferences and other CE credit opportunities. Good luck to you.

Are you an LPN? I ask because as an LPN in my state, there are few positions for LPNs in EDs and hospitals period, so in a doctors office, or other "common LPN facility" its harder to get all those skills so quickly because you may be in a specialty for instance, where they want you to already know stuff well enough, for the times when you "may" have to start an IV or something. And there are also no residency programs, so it makes it a tad bit harder on the LPN who may have had lackluster clinicals during school. Thats awesome that you were able to build your skills up so fast though. Always nice to hear, positive stories from fellow nurses.

Im an LPN, but your program experience seems quite similar to mine.

Well, I don't think it was really an instructor issue as it was a program issue. Most of my instructors were great. The problem was, as others have stated, the actual clinical setting. We had lost a few clinical sites and had more students than some of the sites allowed at time, so that meant shorter days so that they could split the group, or more time at one clinical site that didn't really allow us to do much but allowed more students at a time. We had clinical days that we spent in the lab, or with other departments where we were pretty much just shadowing. I got to do more during leadership because I was at obe of our hospital sites but when I say, more it didn't really include more skilled work, it was just less shadowing. I passed meds and got vital signs, along with assessments. No IV starts, foley insertions, trach care, nothing. None of my patients had much going on. I wasn't allowed to chart much, and the things I did, was just point and click. Not much complete sentence style documentation. So with that being said now working as an LPN, I found it hard to chart, initially. In terms of skills, I feel really rusty, because I either only did things in lab or read about them. Just that overall comfortability, one gets when they have been able to "practice" something is not there, since I mostly shadowed nurses during clinicals. At the end of the day, I know with time I will strengthen my skills and become a better nurse but with the stress of having a new job, being a new nurse, and then not feeling prepared it makes sone days harder than others. So really I would say if you have good clinical sites that allow your students to take on more than one or two patients and to do more than just shadow, they should be fine. I would also suggest asking students reviewing common skills once per week, if the students have said they have had no chance to do certain things or only one chance, all the way up until graduation. There was so much learned in our fundamentals and first semester that we pretty much never looked back on, that I think would have helped. LPN school is just different in comparison to RN programs anyways because its typically a 12 month program compared to 2 or more years for RN.

Thank you so much. I have been studying things pertaining to my specialty along with nursing fundamentals, to give me a refresher. Its helped me out a lot. I have been taking every opportunity to learn things or do stuff that I either hadnt done or only did a few times in clinicals any time a chancr presents itself and it has helped alot, but I will admit that I still feel a bit out of place but I know I cant dwell on that. I can't wait until I get a few years under my belt and this feeling is a thing of the past!!! Thank you again for sending your positive words, they are appreciated.

Thank you. There is no one to mentor me. I have my preceptor and thats it.She's a nice person overall but she can get snippy at times and there is a big age gap, so we dont always see eye to eye on a lot(I don't say anything I just listen to her, but it does make it hard to learn at times). Hopefully Ill have my RN in 2yrs, so that I can have more opportunities especially more ops to work in the hospital.

My first CNA job was in 2004. I made $8.25 base but I took the no insurance option and made $9.50.