Online classes; no stranger.

I've taken a disproportionate amount of online classes. My first BS and MS degrees (bs...ha!) were from the best online college, Western Governors University.  (they really are the best; they keep winning awards to substantiate that claim.)

So I knew that these classes, Health Care Admin and Research, had great potential to be huge pains the ass.

Well, they are. :-)

You really end up doing a LOT more work in most online classes. Where an in class discussion would suffice in the brick-&-mortar world, online you get a project.
X 5 days a week (seriously) & then X 2 classes. A lot of it is busy work, too.

But I do like Health Care Admin because it is the business side and, well, up until this year, I've known nothing but business.

I was asked to take the Myers-Briggs personality test. (its a Carl Jung test, really.)

I LOVE stuff like this, and I've taken it before, so I couldn't wait to see who I was NOW.

I took it twice. *blush
I was ENTJ and then ENFJ. ENFJ is what I was the last time I took it. I feel like that is probably me.

I'll post info on what that means next. I'll post a link to the test, too.  REALLY cool for self discovery and for understanding others. I really believe in the stuff.

Well, I'm off for now to look up a clinical research article, write a paper on the ORID method, and join discussion board debate on delegation of an LPN.

Not-So-High-Acuity

Double yay for the last day of High Acuity. My final exam didn't go as well as I would have liked it to. *sigh    
But at least I am done.

I will unfortunately have a B for the course.

And with the closing of one door, comes the opening of another door. We started orientation to our next class; Research. Done it. *snore

There has been much hope that there will be much beer at the end of today...Celebratory beer.

So I might have texted my good friend in class today. I might've said something like "my liver is growling".

And my friend, well, I heard him silently panicking about how he was uncontrollably laughing. And then he might've proceeded to text me back, "oh my, I think I may snort."

Dear reader, a coughing fit could *not* cover up how hard I was laughing.  I had to run out of the room, coughing and pretending to be choked.
Good times!
So a bunch of us are going to our local pub later, to have a *really* good time; well deserved.

And then I have a rehearsal with the community choir that I'm in. So I may go a little drunk tonight, LOL. Brahms Requiem will never have sounded so good!

"C'mon Mom, you can't be sad around me." Lolli

Bored.

So as predicted, after a few days of luxurious NOTHING TO DO, I'm bored/depressed. Boo. Class, albeit ONLINE, begins again tomorrow.

So posted next will be a photo of my rescue doggie, LoLLie the Bichon, wishing me a Happy Mother's Day and trying to cheer me up.

Grad degrees: NP or CNS?

Oh, it's exciting to even be able to have this to fret over. What to choose, NP or CNS? (Nurse Practitioner or Clinical Nurse Specialist) Only 3 months from graduation...it's time to buckle down and start ta' plannin'!

I had a great chat with the dean of graduate nursing (at my current university) today.

She really made me feel more comfortable about the CNS role.

An NP, as many now know, is a primary care provider. Picture You (as an NP), a nurse, and a patient, in the clinic setting exam room, day in, day out. Assessment, diagnosis & ordering diagnostics. Prescriptions. Consulting with collaborative physician when needed. Developing long-term relationships with many patients--a must have for me. So all that sounds good.

The CNS?  A hospital setting, ALSO advanced practice, with ability to prescribe. The difference lies in what I'd basically call teaching. Not like at school, but teaching patients management of a particular condition (like Diabetes) and seeing those patients...but also creating training programs and materials...*Training*. Lol, well it is kinda, but what I mean is educational materials and programs. So I could have a mix of seeing patients with a particular problem subset, creating material to help them get better or manage it, and also teach the staff at the hospital about that health prob. Oh yeah, & conduct research on it, too, if I wanted.

Well good grief, the CNS gets to do it all then. And since I get bored easily, this is looking pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, there's a lotta gray areas. Both specialties can really do both types of care. But I want to get my grad degree 'on purpose;' To set out to do what it is that I want, with a clearly defined mission.

CNS?  Sign me up. I'm applying to (hopefully) start grad school in January 2012. I'll have the clinical hours as a RN by the time I get done with all the 'book' classes, and would start CNS Clinicals in Jan 2013.

Mini Break!

No class until Monday! And then no GOING to class for a month; two online courses for May Interim.

*Exceptionally happy at the moment.
In a couple weeks I may be depressed from not seeing my nursing buddies, but today I am super happy to be downloading wonderful World music, drinking Diet Mr Dew, and re-polishing my "now-that-I'm-a-nurse" resume.

I've had a low-lying headache for the last 3 days (I get one every month, mid-month.) I wouldn't categorize it as migraine, because I get those, too, complete with photophobia and phonophobia (light & sound sensitivity) for you non-medical types put there. But lasting headache it is, and Imitrex (migraine med) usually fixes it. It just exhausts me to take it. Yay for days off!

I have an appointment with the Dean o' Masters level nursing at my local university tomorrow. I really want to go straight through to grad school. To be completely honest, I want to do the very minimum of beside nursing possible. (subject to change this summer...when I actually get to act like a nurse instead of a patient care tech. PCTs are fab in their own right, but that's another post. ;-)

I could totally do clinic nursing, though...I'd love that as an RN. But what I *really* want to be is an advanced practice nurse...& I'm seeing Dr. Schmidt to figure out if it would be best for me to be a Nurse Practitioner or a Clinical Nurse Specialist.

See my next post for an examination of the two roles. :-)

Finally, justice.

Osama Bin Laden, dead. Wowza.


Wonder what the repercussions for the American dollar and the price of oil will be?

I wonder what the repercussions are for our troops that are still over there?

A good way to finish 13 hrs of studying, eh?

Entry the first...from another blog I'm importing

I'm 3 months from becoming an RN. I might import my old entries from my old blog, and I'll definitely start chronicling the new...HERE!
Here's the skinny: I just came off an 11 year run in banking. I was moderately successful and got to try everything I wanted & applied for. I got to try some stuff that I didn't want to try, too, LOL.

I ended my career as a Asst. Trainer. If I had stayed in my industry, that would've been the job I'd kept for the rest of my life (well minus the 'co' title I shared with 2 other people who were over the other two regions of the state. I'd rather have managed the dept, but I digress. :-)

So why quit now? Why quit when I had a descent salary, benefits, & paid travel expenses?  Well, the reasons are several...

I have always adored health. I was a fat kid growing up. When I did my own health and nutrition research and followed it, I lost weight. So that was pretty rewarding! It has always been a passion of mine, health.

I became disjointed with the banking industry. Well, maybe not so much with banking. Maybe more with 'girls can work the teller line and boys can be loan officers.'.  Yes, I know plenty of people who have broken the stereotype. I did. But for me, becoming dissatisfied helped put me on this path, so it had to happen.

I enrolled in a Masters degree program in 2007 for Health Education / Promotion. I graduated in 2009. Pretty awesome...but with no medical background, I was left with either low-paying work or jobs I couldn't apply for because I didn't have the right alphabet soup after my name.

And the final reason?  My brother died. We were all in the ER for hours. They tried to resuscitate him for WAY longer than they had to or even should have, but they did it for my family. And then nurses allowed us to stay with his body for what seemed like forever afterwards. We oscillated between crying / disbelief to (strangely) laughing about the wonderful and funny moments. The nurses took turns wiping his bleeding nose so we wouldn't have to see it and gave us no time limits.

So that's my story, and that's why I'm becoming a nurse.

High Acuity Final. TOMORROW

It's a good thing I've waited until now to get a bad case if the "I don't wannas" because this is my last bricks-and-mortar class final.

(I have a couple of online classes to contend with, but that's somehow different in my mind.)

My instructor sent us the blueprint, so I at least will know where to focus my energy:

"The breakdown of questions for the final exam will be as follows:

Number of questions / Topic
17/Neonatal material
41/ ECG (Multiple choice-there will be strips on this portion also)
7/ Sepsis
9/ pacemaker
5/hemodynamics
3 /Heart surgery (CABG)
3 /Heart Surgery (valves)
3 /IABP
3 /Transplantation
5 /Mechanical ventilation
3 /ARDS
3 /Shock

Have a good weekend and I will see you on Monday at 9 am. Mrs. X"

So now you know what I'll be doing today (/have been doing for the last few days). :-)

How to Become a Nurse in One Year.

I'm still figuring that one out, actually.

My local University has a one year Accelerated program for people who have a bachelor's degree already. Pretty competitive, so imagine how excited I was to find out last summer (Memorial Day weekend 2010) that I had  indeed made the cut!

Twenty-four people out of 80-something applicants got that happy little letter. :-)

It's pretty tough at times. So tough, we lost 2 people in the first 2 semesters; Summer and Fall I. (oh yeah, I should mention, it's year-round school, too).

So as long as I pass my final in High Acuity Monday, I've about got it "whooped."
(no worries, I'm a big study geek. Well, some worries, this crap REALLY sucks. The sickest of patients and a whole semester of learning in 3 weeks...!)

May is two online classes, and June and July are 3, 12 hr workdays ea. week with a preceptorship squeezed in somewhere. They transition us into the workforce; my fav part of this program. I'll be managing 5-6 patients a day after the first couple weeks, so I'll be ready for the real world!
Clinicals up until this point have been 2 patients, max.

I am almost an RN. Wowza.

Oh yeah, did I tell you I want to be a Nurse Practitioner? ;-)

Tater has claimed my temp storage solution.

Recent Honors

I was invited to Phi Kappa Phi, the oldest academic honor society (non-departmental).  Pretty cool.

But *GIRL SQUEEEE!*   I was invited to Sigma Theta Tau, the “International Honor Society of Nursing!”  (STTI) YAY-YAY-YAY!  I have worked SO hard this year towards that goal.  And I thought having that one ‘B’ in nursing would exclude me, so when I was notified…wow.

The way that all happened, though, was a bit sad. Several of us were sitting at a Filipino restaurant in another town after the first part of a Nursing Research Day at Private-Beautiful-though-Church-affiliated University.   Each one of us around the table got an email…except one. *sigh.  We graciously put off the celebration until we were not with that person, but, STILL.  How on earth the stars line up for us to all get in but her?

Anyway, it is the top third of the class, and in a class of only 22, the spots are pretty limited…and coveted.

Induction into the societies are the next two Monday nights…yay!  I could not be more excited and humbled to be a part of them.

Musical Honor:

 I have been a guest singer with a band as of late.  As kind of a long story, one of my dear friends who is a Psych Nurse Professor at my Podunk U is married to the lead singer/bassist.  (She isn’t one of my teachers, so we get to be friends.  Can’t wait for a few more of my teachers to get to be friends, too, but I digress).  Anyway, the band was doing a wedding, the bride wanted Carrie Underwood’s “Mama’s Song,” and the band wanted a chick singer.  We had all hung out one night, they heard me sing a couple of bars to the Enzyte commercial (lol, another story) and I was asked!  I was really nervous, but now I LOVE it.  It went really well, and I was even tipped $100 to sing it again at the end of the reception night.  I sang it with them at a bar again the other night.

They guys gave me an open invitation to learn some more of their stuff.  FUN.

And I’ve joined a community choir that is working on the Brahms Requiem in English.  Quite a contrast from country music, huh? (that is the ONLY country music that both I sing or the guys in the band perform, btw.)  It is weird to be back in the professionally trained singer world, too.  But it is challenging, and it is good for me to work on something besides nursing all the time.

What an Accelerated Program is.

Just what exactly is an Accelerated Program, you ask?

A program in which:

• People who were brilliant enough to get in, can't hack it and get kicked out.
• People who don't make anything but 'A's now make 'B's.
• People who have never quit anything in their lives have to discontinue.
• People who have never had mental illness find themselves dealing with depression and anxiety.
• People go on Paxil and Xanax to make it through.
• People get divorced. Or hopefully just have to start marriage counseling.
• People struggle with tiptoeing around 'too much' alcohol.
• Sleep deprivation is the rule.

Because it is a whole year of crisis. And mental health is Never challenged more fully than in a crisis-state.
I had the ego to think when I joined, "*I* won't feel that way. Maybe THEY just didn't know what they were getting into."
Nope, they were right, and I hadn't a clue as to what *I* was getting myself into. ;-)

Dear reader, I'm still hacking it. Proudly. I haven't made all A's. My marriage has come out of a dark November-December. Some of my dearest friends in the world (dearest as a result of this program) are having some of the other points stated here.
I think it is the bootcamp of nurses, an Accelerated program. And this one is just a year, so it's just that much more tight.
Any other program, especially a 4 year program, though, would be exceedingly boring.

My Back and Almost Finals Again

Back - I swung my backpack around and under some stairs.  Small strain from bad body mechanics, is all.  A little less pain today, and probably better tomorrow.

Hurts right over my mid-to-low ribs on my Right back. 

Studying now for an EXAM tomorrow, can you believe that?  They are making our last clinical day for this semester a 1/2 day and then giving an exam.  Pooh.

So I still have all the night-before planning at the hospital and the diagrams to draw (CONCEPT MAP) before being there tomorrow, and a test! Thank God it turns out I am very, very good at concept mapping. 

Oh, well, that's just this program  And I seem to adapt pretty well to whatever they throw.  For the next 3-4 days, it will be all about finals.

Sent from my iPhone

Here's a lady like me! (Note to Mom)

She thinks like you, totally absorbed in it.  Only Thing different is her family, that is unless you include your furbabies☺☺☺

How is your back today? and what did you do??????

Love you, MOM

----- Original Message -----

From: Me

To: Mom 

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 12:37 PM

Subject: here's a lady like me! Really MORE of a go-getter!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDbnk5mIR3A 

Sent from my iPhone