St. Joseph School of Nursing in RI. Fall 2013

[Pink777]

Is anyone else going to St. Joes this fall or anyone have any information about the program, what worked, what didn't?

[nursehannah]

Hi! I will be a junior at St. Joe's in the Fall! If you have any questions etc feel free to message me or you can just email me, PM for my email :) Congrats and welcome!

[Pink777]

Thank you for replying! I'm looking for any information you can give. Days, times, dosage testing, my first year, best way to study...reading, PowerPoint...what worked, what didn't. Is working okay while in school. Any information will be greatly appreciated.

[Michk610]

Hi, I am also attending St Joes in the fall of 2013... Have you received ANY info since your acceptance letter and the bridge program info that came in the mail recently? It's making me very nervous that nothing is done, I like to plan ahead! If you find anything out, could you please forward to me? I called 2-3 times and left messages, but nothing yet!!

[prancergirl]

Hi all,

I just graduated from St. Joe's on Friday night. You could not have picked a better program if you want to leave school as a well educated, well prepared graduate nurse. Faculty is awesome and you have the most clinical of any program. Feel free to message me for any comments or questions. Don't be worried if you haven't heard from them yet. This end of year time is very busy for them and they have a new financial aid counselor. It will all work out and you will be happy you went there. Be prepared to work hard though.

[prancergirl]

Hi Pink 777,

congrats on your acceptance to St. Joe's. Read my comment below for more info. As far as working goes, you can work but I would not advise any more than 20 to 24 hours per week. Hopefully you have some of your classes done already so you won't have a full plate. Feel free to message me for any help you need or any questions. I am proud to be a new grad of St. Joe's.

[nursehannah]

lol your welcome! Trust me I remember how nervous I was! The schedule was pretty much Nursing 100 on Monday 8:30-12, Nutrition was Tuesdays 1-3:00 I believe and then once clinicals start (around the end of October) you would have assignment pick up on Wednesday and clinicals either Thursday or Friday (whichever you dont have clinical you are pretty much off) all weeks weren't like this which made making a work schedule hard some weekswithout clinical had extra lab days where you are assigned a lab time of about 1 hour (I requested to have lab times from 8:15-9:15am the first group) but there were 4 other groups after also. I did work throughout the semester about 25-30 hours a week but my work allowed me to literally make my own schedule and were great about working with me, I know some classmates were not as lucky and were not allowed to have a super flexible work schedule, many people worked weekend shifts and alot of people were CNA's which definitely gave them some great experience and knowledge because alot the lab/clinical work we do is CNA type stuff. There wasn't any extra dosage testing besides each nursing exam has 5 dosage calculations questions on it, I don't know if they planned on doing a dosage test aside from that though. The best adivce I can give you as far as studying is to keep on top of it and don't fall behind. The absolute best thing you can do for yourself is to find out exactly what your study style is whether you need to make charts and pictures or you need to read your notes outloud etc. This will save you alot of wasted time in using a study strategy that doesn't even work for you. Personally, I would read the chapters before lecture then write down notes from lecture onto my powerpoint slides (which they hand out to you so don't worry about printing them) then I would go back to my book and reread anything I didn't understand and put more notes from the book onto my powerpoint, the week before the exam I would take all those notes on the powerpoints and make index cards to study from. Of course, throughout the semester my study strategies sort of got less and less to where I would just read over the powerpoints before an exam and was still able to do well, I don't recommend this but towards the end I was just ready for the semester to be over lol! Clinical is sort of a whole different part of nursing, the dreaded AM report is what will take up alot of your weekend time, its the report we have to write up on our patient from clinical and pass in at 8:30 on Monday morning, once you get the hang of it, it isn't that hard just very time consuming. They will explain all that to you at clinical orientation. And to the other poster, don't freak out about the bridge program thing yet, it is very very new and in the preliminary stages we will all get more information as it comes but I do know how frustrating it is! Take it one step at a time with everything and don't stress yourself out too much it won't help you do better or lessen your workload. Thankfully the group of students in my class are great, we all get along really well and everyone helps each other out. Last year they did a "Big Brother" thing were a freshman was paired with a junior to kind of contact whenever they needed help or had a question, maybe they will do the same thing this year. I'm on facebook also if you want to private message me I can try to find you on there if you have more questions, I check that more than I go on allnurses. Hope I answered some of your questions and if you have more or want to know more about anything just ask I am more than happy to answer what I can!

[nursehannah]

sorry for any spelling errors, I'm typing quick at work!

[Pink777]

Congratulations! So happy I fould some people. lol

Thank you so much for all your information! I greatly appreciated it! Makes me feel a lot better.

I finally got word today about financial aid, no word yet about orientation. I do know they need a copy of my CPR card and insurance.

What books do you use? Also do you only use the "nursing bible" for nursing 100?

[nursehannah]

The book we use the most for nursing is the potter and perry fundamentals book, for clinical you will use your lab book, the doenges book, the med surg book, potter and perry and the physical assessment book you use a little for nursing arts lab. The medical terminology book and the test taking skills book I didn't use at all. But the potter and perry is the "bible" for the year lol!

[prancergirl]

Traditionally they have used Potter and Perry Fundamentals of Nursing, Smelter's Med Surg package, Doenges Nursing Diagnosis book, plus Tabor's cyclopedic, a lab book, drug book, etc. They will give you the list at orientation or mail it to you. There is a pharm book for second session freshman year, as well as a nutrition package for first session. Expensive, but so, so worth it in the end. I cannot even describe how great it feels to have graduated the other night. It was magical!

[Pink777]

Thank you. :)