Should a new LVN grad go for excelsior LVN-RN

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Specializes in Home Health.

Hello,

I am new grad LVN working in home health (PT) LTC (PT) and hopfully a Med-Surg (PT). I wanted to know if a online LVN-RN would be a good choice:confused:. My fear is the lack of clinicals with excelsior. If you were a new grad LVN and have completed the LVN-RN excelsior program please tell me about your experince. Do you believe you were prepared for the clinical side of nursing.

Thanks!!! :D

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Nobody can be truly prepared for the CPNE. It is a unique experience. People have passed with no healthcare experience at all (in the past, when anyone could enroll), and people who have more than 20 years of bedside experience have failed and had to retest. So, the generic answer would be, you can do it if you make up your mind to do it. You have to learn to perform "the EC way" anyway, so a lack of bad habits from years of clinical experience is probably a better situation. However, you still should exhaust your available sources for a traditional program first. Save EC for plan B if possible.

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Specializes in Psych, LTC, Acute Care.

I started Excelsior 2 months after getting my LPN license. I finished the program the next year and passed the CPNE with no repeats. It can definetly be done and I found the nursing test to be review because I had been over all the material in LPN school. The CPNE is basic nursing assessment learned in LPN school. As long as you follow the study guide and practice, practice, practice, you should be able to pass. Good Luck!

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.
Nobody can be truly prepared for the CPNE. It is a unique experience. People have passed with no healthcare experience at all (in the past, when anyone could enroll), and people who have more than 20 years of bedside experience have failed and had to retest. So, the generic answer would be, you can do it if you make up your mind to do it. You have to learn to perform "the EC way" anyway, so a lack of bad habits from years of clinical experience is probably a better situation. However, you still should exhaust your available sources for a traditional program first. Save EC for plan B if possible.

Are you still an EC student? Did you ever get a CPNE date?

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Yes, my date is coming up soon, or rather kind of soon. So is my deadline, again. I have found that getting that kind of money can be impossible when there is no job for months at a time. I am trying to get money for the hotel and plane now. If I pass, I will let you know.

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Specializes in Home Health.

Thanks for the replies. I guess my real concern is will I truly be prepared to be a RN clinically if I dont have clinicals every week?

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I attended a traditional program with clinicals every week. Believe me, they are not what they are portrayed to be. I learned my clinical skills on the job. Too much was withheld from us as students, even in our final term, when we were supposed to be acting as graduate nurses would. What graduate nurse walks around with a list of things s/he is not allowed to do? However, the clinical experience is the easy way to get your ticket punched on your way through nursing school. All you have to do is show up, act interested, do your work, do not anger your clinical instructor and you have it made. The CPNE at the end of the EC program is not a walk in the park. You have only a very short time to demonstrate to the examiner that you are doing it "by the book". And it is as stressful an event as any you will experience.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.
Yes, my date is coming up soon, or rather kind of soon. So is my deadline, again. I have found that getting that kind of money can be impossible when there is no job for months at a time. I am trying to get money for the hotel and plane now. If I pass, I will let you know.

Yay!!! :) Good luck to you!!

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