Shifts 2-4

What can I say about Preceptorship? It has been a lot better than I had anticipated, I like it and can see myself doing it, working in a hospital on my own and all, but of course it's not exactly what I really want to do. Not that there are any openings or anything. 1st they are really pushing magnet status ie... BSN need only apply. 2nd they have too many nurses already and most days have RNs working as techs!

So one problem that I have is that despite my preceptor being awesome, because she is, she is a bit chatty with other staff members during times that I think would be better spent with getting the time management under control a bit better.

One of my skills is time management,since working in LTC and having 30 residents to get meds to, chart on, skin assess and manage 2 meals for, along with problems that arise, I became a master at priority and managing my time effectively. Heck even in my customer service job, I excelled at time management and priority. So anyway, because of the chatty, and the fact that I have to be supervised for more of the care on this floor ie- most things are IV push...I have to wait around for her to finish many off topic conversations (complaining about something usually), in order to get started with something or to attend to someone's needs.

I am pretty much a get what needs to be completed via clustering care type of person, she has a totally different method, which usually results in lunch around 1500... and a last minute rush around 1830 that will ultimately result in a bunch more things to do, last minute IV start, pain medication or whatever.

Report takes forever there too, which means I get home well after 9pm some days... needless to say the shifts had made it impossible to go to my actual paying job this week! (Updated: Which the scheduler B at the office tried to give me crap over. Needless to say I reminded her that our Company has a policy that some school hours count as "work" hours, and I could have made them pay me for them without having to cram the hours into the end of a week. This last week I just took a sick day to make my ours remain fulltime.)

Anyway... I am hoping to be let off the leash a little bit more today, like with the dressing changes that I would like to accomplish first thing instead of last thing in the day.

Oh and I realized one other thing... I need a freaking new stethascope... this one SUCKS!!!

Ok well off to shift number 4 out of 7...last one for the week. Debating on if I can manage to get to my actual job today after this shift... perhaps I can fit in at least 10 hours and a 14 tomorrow... perhaps a few on Saturday... though my next shift for preceptorship #5 is on Sunday.

Not enough of time in the week to make this possible

I need to figure out a way to fit in working 3 12-14 hour shifts at the hospital, 3 12 hour shifts at my actual paying jobs, and 5 8 hour sessions of training for new job.

Yeah so is not going to happen!

Decision Tree

This method really would have been helpful during nursing school... why do we wait until NCLEX prepping to learn how to solve NCLEX questions?

Not that I didn't know how to during nursing school, but the breakdown of the questions with this method, could have come in pretty handy when I had questions where I was not sure what the heck they were asking.

So far I like Kaplan.

Gobble Gobble

Best wishes to all for a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving!!

Shifts 1 - 7

Preceptorship Day 1 over! Only 6 more to go. What did I learn today? Great people, preceptor is awesome... however, yeah I was right NOT a floor I would ever work on.

Complete double shift today... 1 for free now on to my other 12 hour shift. Wow this sucks!

Happy Turkey Day all!

NCLEX Preppin'

So we had Kaplan come to our school and give us a presentation about their review program. Today my course was loaded onto my computer.

So I have started officially studying for NCLEX. Tomorrow I will be sending off my application to the board. My goal is to get a first available testing date for the NCLEX after pinning. Of course I am well aware that will probably still be some time in January.

I will keep everyone posted on what I personally think of this program. Also we have a 3 day in person review that is given by Elsiver the week after pinning too.

I should be doing something

But currently I am not! This is crazy! I am still waiting to hear back from my Preceptor. I spoke with our faculty today and she said to try and email her and go down at least now and get my ID. So I emailed her today, after leaving 4 messages mind you. I mean come on... this does NOT sound like it is going to go over well.

What happens if I can't get my Preceptorship hours in before Pinning? Look this is NO fault of mine... I did EVERYTHING I was supposed to do.


URGH!!

Breaking Dawn Part 2

I have read this book 4 times... seriously it is actually the only one I have reread at all. I especially like the parts after she turns into the vampire... I can not wait to see the movie.



Tickets and time! Yeah what a novel concept!

PS... it is so WEIRD to not have anything to "really" study for right now!

Up my sleeve...

*** Updated***
Hubby kiboshed the whole thing! He does not want anymore kids no way no how. Hummm... I wonder how this will all pan out in the end?
*****************

I have a few things in the works starting in June.

Why yes it does include a move to a new house. No not one out of state or for that matter out of my current town.. it does however come with a few extra bedrooms to fill up.

Ortho... you gotta be kidding me

Med/Surg Ortho... is that like the pits or what? Who in their right mind would really choose this? Not only is it a heavy floor, but you spend all day chasing pain!

I will suck it up and learn as much as I can, but damn this is NOT a floor I ever want to end up on... which with my luck is probably where I will end up.


Oh and from Block 4 we lost 5 at the final.

Preceptorship Starts Today

Two days of classroom Professional Development and welcome to Capstone College. The most important thing is we get free stuff today! LOL Oh and recognition for all of our hard work thus far.

I will also hopefully get the contact information for my specific Preceptor so that I can get these "working for free" hours over and get my schedule for my other PAYING job set up.

I had decided that once I got my RN I would work two full-time jobs for a few years to get debt free and to stash away some cash for a change a la Dave Ramsey

I figured the RN pay grade would supply a big enough boost toward this goal. My plan, fit by 40... Financially and Physically.

Both of those easier said than done, I love food, hate exercise and like to spend money.

I also have this huge procrastination problem, but if I can get out of my own head I think I can do this! Or I sure as hell am going to try... I mean if I can work full time and go to school full time and do well... I can do this! Mainly because I chose jobs where each has a lot of down time :-)

First RN Interview

Today I had my first interview for an RN position. I am not exactly ready for interviews yet... I hate the questions...



Why should we pick you above all the other qualified candidates? "Because everyone I work with loves me?"

What are your strengths? "Not killing my coworkers or patients?"

What will you be doing over your first 90 days as a new hire? "Trying not to get fired?"

Hummm... But seriously, despite this not being for an acute care position, it actually is one of the options I have considered, while I work on my BSN. So yeah... $ year doesn't hurt either.

Mind you this is in addition to the $ that I will be making as I transition to RN in my current position.

So we shall see I guess... I almost talked myself out of it, when I was trying to get my hair to do something this morning, and then again while driving around lost... but overall the company seemed pretty put together and had a few other perks that appeared to be worth it.

We shall see I guess... there are many many more to look forward to in the coming year... I hope!

Follow me Fridays

New addition to my blog. Do you have a blog you want some action on? Have you felt like you just write away and no one looks at? Do you want some followers and don't know now to attract attention?


Well Follow me Fridays are here.... pick a blog and post it to your site that you think needs some attention. If your blog needs attention then request someone else link your site.

Got it?


So if you have a blog you want me to link, drop me a message on Thursday.


So today's Follow me find is...


http://calmehcrazy.blogspot.com/

Head on over and give this girl some love. She's a new blogger and just getting started out there in blogland and in life. Ah... remember your youth?


Nepotism at it's best... but yours could be next :-)

PASSED!!

Next week starts Preceptorship... but NO MORE TESTING!!! Well until NCLEX!!

Win or Lose... today is the day....

The third and final test of this week. Win or lose it all comes down to the final. Will I graduate? Will I become a "Super-Senior" as my kids call it? Well it won't be for lack of studying... because despite my anxiety about all of this I studied the best that I know how... including not staying at home the other night so that I had fewer distractions. I will review a few numbers for values before going in and look over a small table on vents... but other than that... there is nothing else going to go in this head-o-mine.

I just hope this stuff doesn't fly outta my head when that scantron is sitting in front of me.

So here we go...

HESI is my beeotch...

When going over the HESI scores of my past... I have noticed an increase in scores every semester.

This is an increase in "working" knowledge if nothing else. What I do best are the Analysis questions, which is a good thing since those are so very highly scored. Apparently my critical thinking skills are pretty strong, whereas my base knowledge- aka spew out facts, well that is a little lacking.


Why? Because I OVER THINK... yup you guessed it, where critical thinking and analysis are great in some aspects, they are not so great in others. I have issues with excepting base facts without knowing more information and debating the what ifs.


Well good news for me... NCLEX thinks the way I do right :-) Ok back to your regularly scheduled studying.



So here is a question for ya:

What would you do first? You observe your s/p 4 hour thorocotomy pt and noticed there is no evidence of tideling in the water seal chamber on a chest tube drainage system. Check for kinks or assess the insertion site?

At first I put check for kinks... yup that's an intervention, heck its the most common reason right. But then I was like, no wait a minute, what if the connection at the insertion site has come out of the pt for some reason? Checking the tube first would use up valuable time if the tube wasn't even in the patient to begin with. Then I think, well yeah... assess the pt first then the equipment next. So I changed my answer... Yeah I was wrong.

Y?

Part Deux

And with that... bring on HESI RN EXIT. I found a site yesterday called Prep-U, which is powered by the Lippincott people, who make an adaptive test quiz program, it helps you determine strengths and weaknesses and then creates a quiz for you to study from, scoring your mastery of the topics as it goes. I wish it were as hard as the tests that I take in my program, which it is not, but it is helping me gain back my confidence for today.

T-minus 3 hours...



****UPDATED*****

1147 = 99.99% = ALL of the available proctored points. But heck yeah I will take that I need all of the points and positive energy I can get!

And so it begins....

Yeah that didn't go too well at ALL. I accidentally forgot to study a whole section that was on the test, because it was left over from the unit previously tested on. FAIL!!

Once again, simple mistakes and I have left myself a slim margin of error. This is a first for me and I am not liking it one little bit.

SO... still passing, but JUST!


HESI tomorrow.


PS There are a million distractions going on in my life right now, not to mention my husband who thinks I give a shit currently about ANYTHING other than school. Why oh why can't he get it through his fucking skull that I need him to just DO things and not have me have to remind him, or direct him, or listen to his ass complain about doing them. Doesn't he have fucking eyes to see the mess, a stomach that needs food?



URGH!!!! FML!!

Studying Methods

Which do you prefer? I personally like to do MANY different things to study. I listen to lectures from youtube and also listen to my "Natural Reader" program read my lecture notes to me. I also read my notes myself while reciting the lists of things or quizzing myself. I read and reread Powerpoints, and let's not forget NCLEX style questions a plenty. I do the NCLEX questions on the Evolve website, in NCLEX books at the local B&N, and of course in the back of text chapters.

I don't however, spend much time reading the textbook pages. I try and look at the boxes or tables in the text, but sometimes I don't even do that. The abundance of information and filling in there is just too daunting, when what I really need are the bullets.

Does this work for me? Well most times it does, as long as I spend enough time doing it. I am not a crammer... my short term memory sucks, so I really have to start early now and continue daily.

Whereas, I used to have to only study for about 3 days for the tests, but that has changed a bit as my anxiety has increased... I think it may have to do with the lack of sleep and just ultimately that I am not really dealing with my stress effectively right now.

This weekend the boy was home and he helped me a lot with quizzing me on my notes and studying with me at the store. We took turns asking each other questions out of our respective study guides (his for the ASVAB). It was some nice PRODUCTIVE bonding time. I really miss him not being home this semester. I can't wait for May for him to move back home. Of course that is until he leaves for Basic Training, sometime in the late summer early fall, I am not looking forward to that AT ALL!

Anyways.... back to my notes... exam tomorrow, HESI on Tuesday and Final on Thursday. Did this program fly by or what?