arnest

Personally, I feel it is easier returning to school as a "mature student." I feel because of my maturity instructors are much more respectful. I graduated with a BSN at 22yrs and had a horrible experience. I graduated with an MBA at 28 and had a wonderful experience. I have been an ICU nurse for 17 yrs and absolutely love it. However, I always had a part-time administrative position elsewhere to keep my MBA skills up. Now I am going for my Master's in Nursing because I want to become a professor. I will however remain in nursing in order to keep my skills. I felt my BSN professors did not have strong clinical skills and they were outdated because they left the profession 10-20 yrs ago. I am doing an on-line program through the University of Phoenix. I love the program. I only have to put up with the professor for 6 weeks. I can handle anything for six weeks--after 17 yrs in the ICU--I am virtually bomb proof. I think you will find a nursing career very rewarding because you can do so much with it. I have done home health, flight nursing, critical care transports with an ambulance company, I write policies, procedures and I have written several programs. Currently, I am implementing a PICC line program that I wrote several months ago. I also make more than most family physicians and I have a lot more variety.

I wear my 1/2 caret wedding ring to work and I never take it off because I simply can't get it off. The only way this ring will come off is literally cutting it off. I have had two children since this ring has been put on and the pounds never seemed to leave me. I have lost several pounds over the years but they seem to find me time and time again. So over the years I have adapted. I am careful with my hand placements and our gloves are powderless. My ring gets caught on gloves every;) now and then but for the most part I have no troubles. I work with another nurse whose ring is 1 caret and has had very little issue with it. I cultured my ring after washing my hands to see how much bacteria grew (I have friends who work in Micro) and it grew nothing--so I guess our soap is very effective. Tess