Patient, Nurse, and Technology Advocate.
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My mother taught me many lessons in life, but most of them I didn’t even realize I had learned until after she passed aware. I’m going to talk about just a few of these lessons. If she were sitting right next to me now, I would love to hear the words “I told you so,” come out of her mouth. She’s earned it.
Choosing the right nursing school is one of the most important decisions you will make regarding your career. Potential employers want to ensure that you are qualified to properly care for clients, so you will want to choose a program that offers quality education in current nursing practices. When making your decision, here are some things to look for.
Although it’s generally never been uncommon for many to enter into the profession of nursing after receiving post-secondary educations and degrees in other fields, the number of middle-age nursing students appears to be on the significant rise lately. In fact, the number of people pursuing later careers in life sciences in general today appears to be increasing. But as a direct case in point for nursing, the next graduating class of 40 from Heartland Community College’s two-year nursing program in Normal, Illinois, has zero “traditional” students scheduled to become RNs on May 18th.
In my years of bedside care I often had to go outside of the 30 minute window for timed medications for the benefit of the patient. Most of the times these times are arbitrary anyhow. If a medication is ordered once per day it doesn’t really matter what time of day the patient gets it. It should fit within their normal routine not within what the pharmacy schedules it. I never once received any sort of reprimand for my medication timing. I often had to request the scheduled times for medications be changed by the pharmacy, but many times I had to give the medication at a different time and documented the reason why.
All kinds of people become nurses, but those with a technical mind and an eye for technology can really make the best kind of nurse. In addition, being a science geek certainly pays off, particularly if you enjoy chemistry, since you’ll have to take about two years of chemistry to get a bachelor’s of science in nursing. The best nurses have a bit of nerd and a lot of good communication skills. Since you have to work in a team, it’s good if you can talk to other people, including patients and doctors. So what other things do nerds have those typical nursing students don’t? Read on.
When I was decided to become a nurse, one of the most appealing aspects of the career was the stability. Unless there is a Zombie Apocalypse, as a nurse you should pretty well be able to find a job somewhere. (And even in a Zombie Apocalypse, you’re gonna have one for a while… you know until they kill off most of society and you have to make a run for it) If nurses start becoming unemployed in large numbers that would certain be a scary scenario, with or without Zombie involvement.
There are several ways to start out on your journey depending upon your academic and financial standing right now. If you’re not sure if you’re ready to jump right into a traditional 4-year Registered Nurse (RN) program you can get an Associates Degree in Nursing (ARN) at a Community College, which takes about 2 years, or start out as a Licensed Practical Nurse (or Licensed Vocational Nurse in California and Texas). LPN programs can run as short as 12 months and make a great place to get your feet wet and possibly work while you go back to school to get a higher degree. To be honest, with the high interest rates of student loans and tough admission standards, starting out by getting your LPN or ARN is a good way to see whether or not you truly want to be a nurse, make a little money while you’re going to school, or even get your job to help subsidize your tuition for further education.
The following infographic does a great job of illustrating the cost of various surgeries as well as detailing how many of that operations are performed in a year.
IT’s worth noting that cost for these procedures vary by region and also from facility to facility. What would be ideal was if a surgery cost $x.xx amount no matter where you had it or who performed it. But unfortunately that is just not so. Hospitals and insurance companies are constantly renegotiating their agreed upon allowances and changing what they determine is “reasonable and customary.”
The executive director of the Iowa Nurses Association made a comment on the American Nurses Association’s facebook page in response to other comments made on a wall post by Terri Polick questioning the censorship of the ANA. This representative of the Iowa chapter of the ANA essentially called Vernon Dutton (a nurse advocate and social media enthusiast) an ass and questions his credibility and motives.
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