…so here is one my favorite resources, a place called the Flashcard Exchange where you can create flashcard sets or study from ones already created by another student. This isn’t just a health sciences related site, although most of their flashcards have to do with academic disciplines (conversational language study being the notable exception). Nursing is included under the general medicine category and there are over 100 sets of nursing cards including NCLEX review, maternal child health, electrolyte balance, acid/base balances, pediatrics, basic nursing concepts etc. There are also some useful cards in the general science area, specifically the cards developed to lend a hand in anatomy and physiology. You do have to register to use most of the functions of the site, but’s mostly free. If you want to use the advanced features (like exporting cards into a microsoft word document) you have to become a premium member (around 19 bucks for a LIFETIME membership) but you can still make your own flashcards and use them to test yourself or your friends online without giving up anything but your email address.

Evidence has been mounting around the phenomenon of learning losses during the summer, and a recent study even demonstrated that some students may lose as much as two months of their hard won knowledge and academic skills during the summer.

Little of the research has focused on adult learners (since it’s mostly funded by academic enrichment centers) but it’s not too much of a jump to surmise that a break from nursing school has to have some kind of negative impact on the freshness of one’s skills.

The next 10 days, I’ll be suggesting some ways to keep your academic mind sharp, but since this is a weekend and I usually talk about some new resource on the weekend, my first suggestion is: use your ‘pod. Your ipod that is.

I talked about the many nursing podcasts available in an earlier post, and I’ll be reviewing more nursing podcasts soon. However, if you’d like to keep your brain geared up without specifically focused on academic issues, check out books on MP3. You can buy books on CD, of course, and then burn them to your computer and then upload them to your MP3 player, but the easiest way to get books on MP3 onto your MP3 player is to download them directly.

My favorite site for this is Audible (and no, they don’t give me anything for saying that) Read the rest of this entry »

    If you’re applying for jobs now, no doubt have you’ve spent a fair amount of time assessing the pros and cons of a med/surg year.

    For many years, some nurse educators and many nurse managers have maintained that a new grad is not a nurse until that new grad has completed at least 1 year working in an inpatient setting on a medical/surgical floor. They maintain that the experience allows RNs to develop valuable organizational, technical, and assessment skills and helps new grads get a firm grip on the RN role and learn leadership skills.

A nurse educator at Easton Hospital in Pennsylvania, said, “[The year of medical/surgical experience] is absolutely necessary. I went directly into critical care, but I missed out on a lot of organizational experience. I eventually made up for it, but I was in a panic whenever I was reassigned.” Other nurse educators’ responses to the 1-year medical/surgical floor experience controversy range from calling the idea “poppycock” to saying the experience is “helpful but not mandatory.”

    Spending a year on the medical/surgical floor is a useful idea, especially if you don’t have a clear idea of the type of nursing you’re interested in doing or if you feel particularly drawn to medical/surgical nursing—a concentration area in itself. Because of the nursing shortage, new grads are being recruited directly into specialty areas, but you still should be able to find a med/surg job if that’s what you desire. I thought the this interview—although now somewhat dated—sheds some interesting light on this issue.

Tis the season, right? Here’s some online places to start your job search, with the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Advance for Nurses
www.advancefornurses.com
This is easily the most useful nursing job-search site. This site includes many ads for nursing openings, all of which are organized into easily searchable categories. If you find a job opening that interests you, you can forward your resume to potential employers via e-mail or create a resume with the site’s software by filling out an online form. The site also has career resource links and loads of free articles about writing resumes and cover letters as well as all manner of job-search advice, patient handouts you can print and use, and helpful threaded discussion boards organized by topic.

Career Builder
www.careerbuilder.com
This site allows you to search for job openings by keyword, job title, and geographical area. You can save searches or use their personal search agent function to have new jobs meeting your criteria sent to you. You can also choose whether you want your resume to be public, anonymous, or visible to only selected employers.

Flip Dog
www.flipdog.com
Um, I’m not exactly sure why this site is called “flip dog,” but it has the potential to be a nurse’s best job-search friend. They include well-organized nursing openings and understand that being an RN is different than being a health-care administrator. You can do an automated search here and post a resume.

Great Nurse
www.greatnurse.com
This site contains a substantial collection of ads for nursing positions. They monitor their ads closely, so there are few repetitions. One of the nicest features here is the active nursing discussion boards where you can post questions about your job search (or even nursing school questions)and get advice from other nurses.

Read the rest of this entry »

This time of year is SO exam focused in nursing school and it is easy to get slightly (or extremely!) discouraged when we pour out our blood, sweat, and tears studying for exams and still get grades that only “squeak” us by to the next level. The ability to do well on multiple-choice exams and the ability to be an excellent nurse are not the same thing, however. As long as you are doing well in the clinical component of your courses, remember that “A” is not the only letter that equals “RN.” A nursing school faculty member, who wishes to remain anonymous, told me the following story:

“I had a student my first year of teaching who could never do well on the tests. She would get so anxious that she’d forget even her own name, I think! She always did well on the floor, but just barely passed her exams. She graduated, but certainly not with any honors, and I think it took her two tries to pass her boards. About 15 years later I had to go to the community hospital for some very painful surgery. The first night after surgery I was in bed, trying to sleep, and who should tiptoe in but that student, now an experienced RN! She took the best care of me of any of the nurses there, and I suspect I was a very demanding patient. In those moments, I was glad she had persevered!”

So, squeakers, you’ve made it this far. Plug on!

The next ten days we’re going to be targeting all you new grads that are starting the job search. We’ll talk today about the basic questions you need to consider before you even begin. Before you start searching, you’ll probably want to think about:

SALARY
Sign-on bonus
How long are employees required to stay with the facility to receive this bonus?

HEALTH CARE BENEFITS
How much does the plan cover? Are employees required to pay into the plan? Are vision and dental included or available?

OTHER BENEFITS
How much sick, vacation and personal time is allotted? Do employees begin to accrue time immediately?
What provisions are made for short-term disability? Learn term disability? What holidays are paid holidays and what is the procedure for if a nurse has to work on a paid holiday? Is tuition reimbursed and under what circumstances?

SCHEDULE and CONVENIENCE
Is the schedule compatible with other responsibilities?
Will you have to rotate shifts? How many weekends and holidays are nurses required to work?
How close is the job to home? What will the commute be like? What are the public transportation options?

CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Is the patient population compatible with your desired patient population?
Do you want to work in an urban environment? In a small community hospital?
Specialty area compatible with your desired specialty?

TRAINING AND PRECEPTING PROGRAMS
How long is orientation? How are preceptors chosen? What procedures are in place for new grads who might want additional time on orientation? How committed to precepting new grads is this institution?

Other students at nursing schools everywhere (okay nursing schools on the semester system) are finishing up their exams too. If this is your last year and if you live in an area where there are several nursing schools, I suggest forming an NCLEX study group with new graduates from other schools.

Ideally, these should be students from another type of program, for example, students from an AD program if you graduated from a BSN program, or BSN students if you graduated from AD program. Each program will have had individual differences and areas of emphasis. Not only will you have the benefit of exposure to these individual differences and areas of emphasis, but also you will acquire valuable job-search allies and extend your professional network.

You can find students from other schools through Internet contacts (craigslist is a good start and of course free), by posting notices on other campuses, and by calling or e-mailing members of the faculty of neighboring schools of nursing. Do this while exams are still going or there may be no one around to read the e-mail or the notices.

When you opened your syllabus the beginning of your semester, did you groan aloud at the 100 page reading assignments? If you’re in the last minute rush before finals you may be overwhelmed with all this undone reading. And while I posted a few weeks about boosting reading speed, if you aren’t understanding what you’re reading, speed is pretty much irrelevant.

There is more than one way to increase your reading comprehension, and perhaps by now you have one that works for you. The most basic thing you can do to enhance reading comprehension is to have a clear idea of why you are reading. When you sit down to read, ask yourself (although probably not out loud, unless you’re in that soundproofed cave we talked about earlier), “What is the point of me spending my time to read this material?” Are you trying to memorize facts? Understand a complicated physiological process? Obtain a working knowledge of an issue?

Then, as you read, stop after every main topic, paragraph, or sentence if you have to, and ask yourself, “What did I just read? What does it mean? Why is it important? How does it apply?” If you are reading clinical material and have started your rotations, try to relate the information to someone for whom you have provided care. For example, you won’t forget the physical changes that sometimes occur with long-term steroid use if you’ve ever seen a patient with a “moon” face.

Another way to reinforce what you’ve read is to take notes or outline as you go. If your instructors have a tendency to put questions on the exam that come directly from the book (rather than testing solely on lecture content), these notes may come in handy when it is time to study for an exam. If you find that your instructors don’t usually ask questions about topics from the book that they didn’t cover in lecture, however, extensive note taking may slow down your reading without yielding much benefit.

Many students underline in their books as they read, whereas others think underlining is a waste of time. Although underlining may not increase comprehension and retention the way that taking notes does, it may help you interact with the text and move from passive to active reading. Underlining also provides a handy way to pick out important points when you go back later to study the reading in a more in-depth way. Sometimes, though, I go back to what I’ve underlined and think, “Good grief! Why did I think that was important?” It’s a good idea to underline in pencil so you can erase the marks if you find you’ve been off track. This has the additional advantage of greatly increasing the chance that the bookstore will be willing to buy back your used text if you find yourself strapped for cash when you go to buy books for next semester.

If you’re making your decision about which nursing school to go to, there are other considerations besides just academics, clinical and price. For example, parents and other nontraditional-age students need special flexibility in their schedules. Some schools are able to accommodate this; others aren’t. To check for flexibility, one single mother suggests, “When you have an entrance interview, say you are unavailable for the first time slot they offer you because you won’t be able get a babysitter. If there is a long, awkward silence, you’re almost guaranteed that few of the students have children. If they aren’t able to accommodate you for an hour, think how inflexible the clinical schedules will be!” Most programs allow you to take a part-time course load, which sometimes works better with complicated work and child-care schedules.

Many community colleges are offering weekend only programs now too. These can be very demanding but for working students, they can work great.

My sister–who is entering nursing school in the fall–recently took a challenge exam in order to be able to skip Math for Meds class. She failed it by one point because she didn’t read the problem correctly. Now she is spending every Wednesday night in July in nursing lab, doing drip calculations that she can already do backwards and forwards, because she didn’t doublecheck her work. So this reminded me of what seems like a self evident test taking tip: doublecheck your work. Every time. Even if you’re “sure” of your answers. Especially if you’re sure of your answers.

Before you turn your test over to the exam proctor, look over each response quickly to make sure that you are actually answering the question asked. For example, make sure there are no questions in which you have chosen the answer to “All the following are nursing interventions for a patient with a broken big toe” when the actual question reads “All the following are nursing interventions for a patient with a broken big toe except.”

If the exam papers are graded by machine, check for stray marks that the machine might interpret as misplaced answers. Also, make sure that the little circle you meant to fill in for each answer is the circle that you actually filled in.