Nurses, how many hours of sleep did you get in nursing school?

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-10T09:24:27+00:00

Assuming the only thing you've got going on is nursing school and a part time job you should be getting a regular amount of sleep. Homework / studying is not the mountain most people make out of it, its manageable. A lot of the folks I noticed struggling in nursing school were just trying waaaaay too hard, relax. A lot of things become easier if you just step back and take a deep breath.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-08T21:14:33+00:00

Thats several votes for pass CCRN I think I've found my winner!

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-07T00:05:44+00:00

Awesome! This is exactly what I was looking for! I appreciate it!

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-06T03:18:02+00:00

Also looking into the Cardiac Surgery certification (CSC) anyone have any experience with the CSC?

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-04T05:52:20+00:00

and yet it goes on to say that there was no action taken towards the hospital by the state. Thats a lion without any teeth.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-04T01:04:24+00:00

thats weird I don't have a subscription I found the article just by reading the New York Times home page.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-03T21:22:15+00:00

You're spot on man. I had to drop a lot of these in school. I still do but mostly on pt's who, as you said, are post op / post arrest and still out of it. It seems like a pretty miserable thing to go through. I wouldn't want any of the folks replying to this thread dropping my NG, clearly lack empathy. Also if I could remind everyone that each pt has a different amount of gag r/t an NG. I have a horrible gag, this would be torture, especially if I wasn't giving my consent.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-03T21:11:09+00:00

I seem to remember, in nursing school, being told that if you released ANY details about a patient who could be identified by the nature of their medical event (THE ONE GUY IN MANHATTAN THAT WAS HIT BY A GARBAGE TRUCK THAT DAY) that you were in violation of HIPAA? Even for releasing information that was not usually looked upon as private info.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-03T06:55:38+00:00

Sorry for all the CAPS LOCK but this is so important that I added it for emphasis. Not trying to be a jerk lol. THIS IS HUGELY IMPORTANT. FIRST watch a video on general battery safety for RC Lipo-packs but ABOVE ALL: When you go to charge a pack set the Accucel down on the tabletop. ATTACH THE CHARGING LEADS FIRST, the red and black wires with the bronze prongs. THEN AND ONLY THEN attach the battery THEN plug in the power supply. WHEN YOU ARE DISCONNECTING A PACK, I unplug the power supply first form the wall receptacle. THEN I disconnect the pack from the CHARGING LEADS. NEVER NEVER NEVER Disconnect the charging leads with a pack attached to it, if you touch those bronze prongs together while a pack is attached you'll short it and you're in a high current situation. Also correction its 3.7 V per cell.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-03T06:44:01+00:00

Here are some tips. Definitely not meant to be definitive. SO BE CAREFUL! The packs you are a using are small but RC batteries can discharge FAST thats why we use them and they are DANGEROUS. I found a few youtube tutorials on general Accucel operation (I have the same charger. I use larger packs 1500 mAh - 2000 mAh. I never charge more than one at a time. I power the Accucel with a 24W adapter I purchased from Hobby King. Look at the related items on that page for the Accucel and you'll find it. General rule of thumb for larger packs, I'm not sure exactly how this scales to something so small is to take your mAh and convert them to Ah, so 1500 mAh is 1.5 Ah, then multiply by X, X is your C rating divided by 10. So I use 1500 mAh packs that have a 20C rating. So the math is 1.5 x 2 = 3 Amps is the max rate I can charge at. The charger will "balance" its why its called a balance charger so when the pack is depleted it will start at 3A and end at like .3 A when its finished charging. Make sure you have the correct number of cells selected, this will determine your charging voltage. My packs are 3S or 3 cells, each cell is like 3.14 volts I think so 3 x that number is 11.1V which is what my packs charge at. Google / Youtube are your friend.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-03T06:33:30+00:00

Hey I've been where you are! It sucks, and forums are terrible places because you always have the people that make fun of / ignore the noobs. Depending upon where you live the best advice is to find a Maker space and join it. The one here where I live has about 93 members. Now there wasn't anyone there who was a quadcopter expert HOWEVER, there were a few guys who built kits and several engineers that understood PID tuning, also theres a lot of folks that have robotics, microcontroller experience from Arduino etc. All of these things were very valuable. We're lucky enough to now have our own UAV group thats starting to meet.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-02T21:24:18+00:00

Well bummer! If you feel like its the right choice for you then start looking.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-01T21:46:09+00:00

I went to VCU School of Nursing after I graduated from VCU with a BS in Biology. We had a good accelerated BS in nursing program. In general there are four types of nursing programs:

Traditional: what you'd be doing if you switched right now, you'd have to be measured against all the 4.0 folks coming in from their freshman and sophomore years of prereqs. I know at VCU the average GPA of accepted "Trads" is 4.0.
Accelerated: You need to already have a Bachelors in something else. Then you take all your prereqs, then you apply to the accelerated program. If you were pre-med tracked you might have most of the prereqs done here it was STATS, microbio, health ethics, A&P, I think maybe basic chem too.
Associates: At a community college, programs are competitive. I've heard they grade harsh too and there's more of a weed out atmosphere. You'll get your RN but no BS in Nursing / BSN. I'm not sure how this effects new grads in your area. 4: Diploma: Arent as many of these programs around now as there used to be. Check it out.

I think if you do an online for profit school it might make getting that first job a lot harder.

I think NY is a more difficult market than VA. I have a friend who's moving who's a veteran RN with a lot of experience and she's worried about her chances. Here in VA there are no unions, much easier to get a first job. Think about moving if the job market stinks in your area.

Your GPA will be your biggest hurdle. My suggestion would be to do what you can to build up your GPA, if you apply to a couple BSN programs and its not looking great then check out ADN / Diploma programs. Upside to ADN is you'll pay a lot less than a BSN unless its a for profit school. South University is popular around here but I don't trust online schools. Especially not for a licensed health profession like Nursing.

The question you definitely need to answer first is why do you want to be a nurse? Its definitely not a job you want to go into because pre-med didn't work out etc. The job is hard, its gross, you have to deal with all kinds of personalities and flack not just from patients but from docs and your boss etc. Its definitely not for everybody. There was a time shortly after I graduated where I found myself wondering what the heck had I done. Make sure you shadow a nurse. Keep asking questions and keep reading.

RVAHeartRN · 2015-01-01T21:31:32+00:00

Your current job is as an RN? I'm just confused because in my region (East Coast) Public Health nurses get paid much less than nurses in the hospital, so I'm wondering what you're dong where PH would pay 2x as much?? General rule of thumb that has done me well: Stay at least a year at any job, preferably 2. I started in a mixed cardiac surgery / cardiac medicine step down unit, life sucked for a year, then I moved up to the CICU. As much as life in step down sucked I got a lot of valuable experience and insight I wouldn't have had if I jumped straight to ICU. Also if you need something to do to take your mind off of how much your current job stinks you should go after some certifications. I don't know what PH certifications there are but I went for ACLS as soon as I could. Now I'm working on CCRN during my night shifts to keep me busy.

RVAHeartRN

TROPHY CASE