What is your LVN program like?

Workitout · Jun 7, 2011

Oh dear Lord. I usually hate complainers, but that is all I can think to do about my school. I go to a tiny little career college in Texas. Our first semester we took pharm, A&P and mental health. Not too bad there, except for A&P. Our instructor often taught things that were incorrect, but got upset if her mistake was pointed out (even if you could back it up in the text book). She also played clear favorites which was frustrating. Our pharm teacher was very lenient towards females and extra hard on males. It was even easier for the females who wore low cut shirts to his class.

Second semester, fundamentals, teacher was great, lab assistant not so much. She taught an incorrect way of mixing insulin, when it was pointed out that the book contradicted her, she said it was a misprint and "I have been doing it this way for twelve years, if I am wrong, I have been wrong for twelve years and no one has corrected me". So we did it her way and everyone who checked off competencies with an instructor other than her failed that skill and had to retrain/retest. She made many errors that were similar to this one.

Third semester, pediatrics and maternal/newborn. Sweetest instructor in the world, but way too much personal opinion. Said we should always try to deter our patients from looking into unconventional birthing methods (midwife/water birth/ home birth) as it is just not safe. Believed in C-sections for non-emergent reasons (just to be safe cuz you never know) and taught that we should be teaching this to our patients (that c-sections are safest). Taught to always discourage thoughts of VBAC- all around, I felt put way too much of her personal opinion into teaching instead of teaching us what our legal duties and responsibilities are. All that being said, I learned a ton from her and she was the sweetest woman in the world.

This semester? Adult nursing. Teacher is great, scheduling and administration- not so much. Four days before start of semester email all students to say our 'day time schedule' has been changed to 1p-10p. Didn't even call the class reps to inform them. Come to find out, they couldn't find an instructor to teach our class in the morning and had been looking for several months- but didn't make any of the students aware of it so many of us had to struggle to rearrange daycare and other family responsibilities to accommodate new schedule on such short notice. Scheduled us for a 6a orientation and the guy running it never showed up. Clinical director gave us permission to leave at 7:30. Scheduled some of the 'day time' students (we have two classes, day time and night time) for overnight clinicals because they did not have enough day time slots.

All this is really just some of the crappy things. Overall, most of our teachers have been great, but administration has been really crappy. I am not in my last semester and would love to go somewhere else, but because it is a career college, most of my credits would not transfer so it would be a complete waste of the last 13 months. I will be glad to be done with it.

GoodtimeRN · Jun 8, 2011

Txhat,

Your program sounds pretty standard. I'm in NJ and ours is pretty much the same, except we are in school Monday-Friday 7:30am-2:30pm, with clinicals 4 days a week (half days, 16hrs a week). We've been going to the hospitals since 6 weeks into the program. If you get under 75 for any subject, you fail. You can only miss one clinical per rotation, I think it's 7 days for the entire program. We are in the final semester doing med surg I and II, OB, and pedi. We've been doing drug cards (with side effects, dosage, etc), care plans, all that good stuff. If you want to succeed you have to READ everything on your own time before class, then look at the lecture as a review and a way to clarify any points that you may have missed. It's a lot of information and it's tough; we started with 32 and we'll be graduating with 11.

Hang in there and good luck to you!:heartbeat

What is your VN program like? I just started my second semester. First semester we went to class Monday - Friday. We had dosage calculations on Wednesdays and spent Thursdays and Fridays in a lab. The last 4 weeks we had 2 days a week in clinicals which were spent in the nursing home. Our teachers can be real nightmares, and we are treated like childen. Our college has 3 different campus' and so we watch all of our lectures on iTV. Our teachers are on the other campus' even though we are the main campus. Apparently the school can't find enough teachers. We never know what time class will end. I think they like to keep us in the dark to see if we will "go with the flow". We are 4 weeks into 2nd semester and are just about to go to the hospital for the first time. Several classes are online. We have Fridays off, but go to school Monday and Tuesday all day and clinicals Wednesday and Thursday. Our classes this semester are med surg, OB, Growth and Development and Pharm. We already took our 2nd semester Dosage Cal final. So far everyone is struggling this semester. It's kind of hard learning from an instructor that is in another town. Also our campus is under construction so we are shuffling around campus and our new classroom is TINY. If we make less than a 75 on any exam we are given a lot of time consuming remediation that must be complete before we can take the next exam. We are allowed only 2 clinical absences each semester. 5 total absences and we are kicked out of the program. In clinicals we must complete drugcards for every drug ordered and 3 care plans for each patient. Is this the standard for all programs? Just wondering what it is like out there for everyone else.

skim11 · Jun 8, 2011

Hey goodtimegirl,

I'm also in NJ. What school are you in? if you don't mind answering...

I applied at Essex and Union county lpn program and waiting for the result...:)

txhat · Jun 9, 2011

Txhat,
Your program sounds pretty standard. I'm in NJ and ours is pretty much the same, except we are in school Monday-Friday 7:30am-2:30pm, with clinicals 4 days a week (half days, 16hrs a week). We've been going to the hospitals since 6 weeks into the program. If you get under 75 for any subject, you fail. You can only miss one clinical per rotation, I think it's 7 days for the entire program. We are in the final semester doing med surg I and II, OB, and pedi. We've been doing drug cards (with side effects, dosage, etc), care plans, all that good stuff. If you want to succeed you have to READ everything on your own time before class, then look at the lecture as a review and a way to clarify any points that you may have missed. It's a lot of information and it's tough; we started with 32 and we'll be graduating with 11.
Hang in there and good luck to you!:heartbeat

wow 32 to 11.. survival of the fittest! We started with 36 originally. We lost our first girl on day 2. Day 2 was the day of death, we talked about postmortum care and the dying patient. I guess she changed her mind after the first half of that lecture because she left at lunch. After the first semester we were down to 30. My college filters the RNs that failed their semester into our program, so now we are back up to 40. The only instructor recently left the 40 of us to go to the campus that has like 8 students. I do fine teaching myself so my grades were good last semester and so far they're still looking pretty good. I just went to the hospital for the first time today. It was really fun, but I didnt get to get my hands dirty.. I'm in labor and delivery (no babies today.) I can't wait to see what the morning brings :)

PortlandOR, RN · Jun 9, 2011

Wow! Hearing about your program makes the one I'm in sound stellar! There is definitely a shortage of qualified instructors, no doubt about that. Our first semester was definitely overkill at my college. Classes were Lectures were Tues & Thurs; clinicals were Mon & Wed. We started our clinicals the 7th week of our first semester. Our skills were basic CNA skills all the way up to but not including IVs....those started in 2nd semester. Our first semester instructors were really, really hard on us.....I think to weed out the less than serious students. Lecture days were really long, 8 - 4:30 some days and clinical days were 6:45 a.m.- whenever, sometimes 11:00 a.m. sometimes 2:00 p.m. depending on what was happening on the floor that day.

I know some of my fellow students have voiced their desire to find other nursing schools to continue their education but after reading your post & some of the others, I feel extremely fortunate to be in this college's program! There were 160 applicants for the Fall 2010 LVN class & 29 students were accepted. Thanks for sharing all of your info it really makes me appreciate where I'm at. :)

txhat · Jun 9, 2011

Yeah our skills first semester skill checkoffs were basic skills too the most advanced it got was foleys and suctioning, tube feedings and stuff like that, we learned IVs the first week of this (2nd) semester. First semester we had basic skills class, gerontology, foundations of nursing, dosage calculations, and health science classes. Mondays we got out at noon, Tuesdays we were suppose to get out at noon but our Health Science teacher lectured literally from 0830-1730. She's in another down so its broadcasted on a Tv in front of the room. She's really awful, its not uncommon for her to lecture 2 pages in 2 hours. And now she's our OB teacher :eek: . Wed Thurs and Fri were 8:30 to 5:30 in a lab for the first 10 weeks. Then nursing homes 0530-1430 for the last four weeks. Our clinicals for summer are Wed and Thurs 0630 - 1630. Thank goodness we have Fridays "off" now. We have OB, Medsurg, Lifespan, Mental Health and Pharm to study for! Does anyone else have their lectures broadcasted from other campus'? In all reality, thats the worst part of school for me. I thought I would have real classes, and its really hard to pay attention to lecture when the teachers aren't even really in the classroom.

GoodtimeRN · Jun 12, 2011

Skim11,

Monmouth County Vocational School in Long Branch, NJ. http://www.mcvsd.org

They only have 15 people so far for the September class; they need double that! I think they are doing an entrance exam sometime this summer. You should go on their website!

geekchic · Jun 12, 2011

Skim11,
Monmouth County Vocational School in Long Branch, NJ. www.mcvsd.org
They only have 15 people so far for the September class; they need double that! I think they are doing an entrance exam sometime this summer. You should go on their website!

Hey! I start in next september class at Monmouth County Vocational!!!!! Do you like it?? How are the teachers? Oh my I have a million questions! :yeah:

GoodtimeRN · Jun 13, 2011

Yes, I love it! It's the hardest work I've ever done but so worth it!!!

Hey! I start in next september class at Monmouth County Vocational!!!!! Do you like it?? How are the teachers? Oh my I have a million questions!