If you are currently working as a paramedic and want to engage in a career where you can still help others, but don’t have to deal with the stress of emergency response, you may want to consider becoming an RN (registered. Mesa Community College provides outstanding transfer and career and technical programs, workforce development, and life-long learning opportunities to residents of the East Valley area of Phoenix, Arizona. Distance Learning Systems' purpose is to enrich lives by providing affordable and convenient access to higher education while achieving standards of excellence. This article describes the basic principles and path for those looking to become an RN or Registered Nurse. Find nursing license requirements in your state and additional resources to help you along your way most efficiently. Most program information can also be found online. Please be sure to read the entire RN Refresher Information Packet and go through the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Click here to access an interactive map of the campus or download a pdf version here. If you meet all program eligibility requirements and are interested in program enrollment, please submit your application materials to the college. Click on e. Learning Information and pay special attention to the Minimum Computer & Technology Requirements section. The computer skills listed on this page are the minimum computer skills needed to take the online refresher course. Please refer to the RN Refresher Information Packet for all of the health and safety documentation requirements that must be met before you can start the precepted component of the course. It takes time to obtain all of the required documents. LPN to RN Distance Learning Program Overviews with School Info. Find out about online licensed practical nurse (LPN) to registered nurse (RN) programs and check out some universities at which they are offered. Start working on them as soon as you decide to enroll in the RN Refresher Program. American Nurses Association. Safe Staffing: Share Your Story. Date. User Response. I have been a nurse since 1. Now I am working in an . Something has to give. Just last week we had 1 nurse and 1 aide on a hall with 4. While I was fortunate not to be that nurse or aide, I was one of the 2 nurses who followed and our day was an utter disaster - residents could not be gotten out of bed for breakfast, no showers were done by either shifts aides, we see an increase in skin break down and we do not use agency nurses to fill any empty holes, so the entire facility's staff is exhausted from working longer shifts, more shifts, and being interrupted on our days off to be strong armed into picking up more shifts. And then I have to sit in family meetings and answer for the decisions of our administrators for things that I have no power over. Please do not release my name in any public manner, I fear recourse for discussing this matter. I am a Masters prepared nurse work in patient safety at a 9. These models are manipulated and do not provide safe staffing for patients when manipulated. This hospital does not even budget to the recommend staffing from this system so managers even if they staff to acuity are always over budget and are told get in budget. So they must staff by numbers reather than recommended standards to stay in their budget. The targets with this system are set at only 2. TJC requires when a sentinel event occurs that staffing be evaluated. This is the elephant on the table. As long as the numbers match it does not make any difference what the skill mix is they are just not going to address it. Unitl CMS or another regulatory agency does the do diligence. Nurses can no longer nurse they run all the time to do tasks, no time for critical thinking, numerous disruptions, work load added to baby sit other care givers that are not held accountable so pay for performance goals are met. I have been a nurse for 4. I can do real nursing but in this day and time I never feel like I gave the best care I was trained to give and want to give because nurses are caring for everything and cannot focus on the patient with the staffing they have at hand. Please keep my name confidential as I could loose my job for speaking out and I am only 4 years from retirement and cannot afford to loose my job. Nurses have difficulty advocating at the local levelas they work in the community and it would get back to their employer. Employers do not want to hear the stories. However, sentinel events around the country tell the story. And nurses will too if given safe and confidential opportunities. Night shift works with 2 nurses, no CNA regardless of numbers of patients and with no consideration for acuities. We are regularly told that no agency assistance is available particularly for night shift. Currently (last several months night shift nurses( albeit 1. He was transsferred to telemetry twice with tachycardia. He was catherized late with renal retention which gave him much discomfort, Nurses came from the cardiac unit to fill in. I felt a lack of professionalism with some nurses who maybe tired at the end of their 1. The care took longer to give having to familiarize with the history of the patient with each new nurse. Unfortunately the nurses where I work constantly fight Administration for safe staffing. Admin continues to push for staffing by numbers rather than acuity. It is a constant fight for safety. We are lucky to have a law in this state. We just have to have strong and courageous nurses to push for safety. Many times I never got a break or a meal because of patient load and orders. When a nurse has to do a lot of care she is at greater risk for injuries and mistakes. Her health and license is on the line. Both need to be protected. RN. I work in a hospital in the icu. I had been there only about a month and was scheduled to still be on orientation with a preceptor for at least 2 more weeks. At this time, I was working mostly independantly with my preceptor supervising and answering questions. I arrived on the unit to find that I had been assigned 5 patients, and my preceptor had been assigned a different 5 patients! I was shocked and devastated that I was being asked to care for 5 patients alone, when I had yet to even care for one on my own! Besides this, 5 patients was a very large load for this unit, 3- 4 is the norm. Since we were so understaffed, the 5 patients had the higher acquity that would normally be seen in a 3- 4 patient load. However, it scared me to see how things can go when staffing is not right. That night, I was afraid for my liscense. Had something gone wrong, I do not think there were enough nurses on the unit to care for the patients properly, and someone would have suffered. Also, if someone had needed an emergency cath that night, there was no way we could provide the after care and monitoring that we normally do. I am now a school nurse, and I feel that I actually have time to practice nursing, even though I am dealing with a largely well population. I often feel guilty for leaving the hospital because everyone told me I was a good bedside nurse, and I know that my leaving that part of the profession only worsened an already large problem. However, the stress of the hospital took a large toll on my health and my relationships, and I had to do what was right for me. I hope that the ANA continues working for safe staffing levels so that other new nurses will not have to go through what I went through, and maybe they will stick with bedside nursing longer than I did. With just one year of nursing experience to draw from, I embarked on an eight week assignment to the remote Long Island facility of my dreams. Wow, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. With absolutely no reservations, I arrived for my first shift at the quaint community hospital that was often visited by pop culture icons, government leaders, financiers and businessmen from all walks of life. I was unsuspectingly asssigned to a telemetry unit. Hmm.. not at all what my contract stated that I had signed just days prior. I signed a contract stating that I would be working on a medical/ surgical unit. I quickly befriended the staff RN's to draw from their knowledge. Everyone was helpful enough including the nursing supervisors. In addition, I also befriended another traveler on her first travel assignment, but with significantly more nursing experience to draw from. I immediately contacted my clinical liason at my agency and expressed my concerns for working with a patient population that I had had no prior experience with, outside of a clinical education experience. She assured me that she would back me if I was asked to do anything that I felt uncomfortable with, in completing any nursing interventions that I felt uncomfortable with. Consoled.. not really knowing that it was my license at stake, 5 years of education and nearly $6. One day of orientation to the floor was . Needless to say, I was given my very own patient assignment on telemetry. I do not specifically recall the number of patients each RN had that night but it was upwards of 1. I compared notes with my collegue traveler who I had befriended after our first shift. By then I had completed two shifts and her just one. She too was terrified to go into work each shift, not feeling comfortable with the acuity of the patients in our hands. My second shift I did have 1. Cardiac drips in which I had never seen in my life were the poison of the evening. Night two at Southampton had me wondering why in the world anyone would ever want to be a nurse. Just when I thought things could not get any worse, I had an assignment of 1. The hospital that I had just came from as a staff member had units of 1. What was going on here? How could I ever complete all my meds on time, knowing that each of these cardiac patients were victims of polypharmacy and the commorbidities that had plagued them. Pager goes off to the front desk.. ED. Would they and could they in good concious send me a thirteenth. At this point it was up to me to vehemently protest. That means you guys will have what 1. I completed the assignment reluctantly, each shift second- guessing my decision to accept my patient assignment. With little knowledge of common nurse to patient ratios I accepted each shift. Today I would never ever consider taking ten patients. Two nights ago in fact, at a facility in South Florida, the oncoming nurses, including myself were assigned 9 patients each. I spoke up, as a traveler. The inexperienced charge nurse literally began to cry, faced with the pressure of administration versus her oncoming staff notably upset. We did end up getting an additional nurse reducing our initial patient load to 7 each, with sured admissions to arrive over the course of the next 1. Each day I shake my head in astonishment at what nursing/ hospital administrators throughout this country think they can get away with. I am currently on my 1. When I feel my numerous licenses are being jeopardized by a haphazard patient assignment I suredly speak up for . Any repercussions for me doing so can never equate to the hoorific events of a patient's death and the impending litigation that could have been prevented if I had initially expressed concern for my patients' safety. After all that is why we all became nurses. To promote health, ensure safety and provide our patients with the dignified care they deserve. When we have to make a . That is truly unfortunate. I had five patients and was responsible solely for their care as we do not have any support staff. Four were diabetics with accuchecks, two were completely bedridden with wounds, specialty mattresses, foley catheters, and an ostomy, the other was incontinent of stool both of whom required repositioning every two hours. Three were on isolation; one for VRE/MRSA/C. Diff and shingles and was also climbing out of bed multiple times while I was attempting to pas my meds.
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