Tag Archive for 'nursing programs'

What is the National Student Nurses Association?

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on June 13, 2011
in Nursing Scholarships
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i_nurses_4The National Student Nurses Association (NSNA) is an organization created to improve nursing education and support nursing students as they begin their entrance into the nursing profession. This takes the shape of a nursing journal released five times annually, career workshops, employment resources, NCLEX study resources, and nursing scholarships.

There are currently over 56,000 members in the NSNA. It was founded in 1952 to foster the professional growth of students enrolled in all types of nursing programs (from Associate degree and diploma programs to post-graduate work). Since then, additional services have helped to launch the organization into the national spotlight, and even those who don’t qualify for or are granted the scholarships can benefit from membership and the opportunities in educational development.

National Student Nurses Association Scholarships

The NSNA scholarships are among the best opportunities in the country for nursing students to get access to financial support. Few foundations focus as much on nursing as the NSNA, and $125,000 in awards are offered in increments of $1,000 and $2,500 each year.

In order to apply for the scholarships, individuals must be U.S. citizens (or students with alien registration numbers) currently enrolled in a state-approved nursing program. Graduate-level scholarships are only offered if it is the student’s first degree in nursing (such as going from an undergraduate degree in biology to a graduate degree in nursing).

The scholarship board looks at factors like academics, financial need, and the student’s involvement in community activities, volunteering, and nursing-related issues.

National Student Nurses Association Annual Convention

Nursing students can also take advantage of the annual convention put out by the NSNA. Students can obtain career counseling advice, attend workshops on certification opportunities, attend job recruitment fairs, learn about and participate in nursing advocacy at the legislative level, and even learn more about becoming a part of the NSNA leadership board.

The location, times, and costs of attendance vary. The convention typically takes place in the spring and you can book hotels and even flights through their package options.

To Learn More about the National Student Nurses Association

If you’d like to learn more about the organization and how you can get involved, visit the NSNA on the web at http://www.nsna.org/. Many of the features are Internet-based only, so even if you can’t travel to the conventions or participate in live courses, you can still benefit from the services and resources offered here.

Related Topics:

How to Afford Nursing School

Military Nursing Scholarships

Find a Nursing School in Your City

How to Set Up a Nursing School Visit

Published
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on April 4, 2011
in Nursing Education
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i_student_1One of the best pieces of advice for potential nursing students is to visit the schools you’re interested in to determine if they’re the right choice for you. Once you have narrowed down your nursing school options to two or three of your favorites, it’s time to set up the campus visits.

Depending on where you live, this could be an easy task or a fairly large undertaking. After all, if you’re looking at a school halfway across the country, there will be a big time and money investment in looking at the nursing school first-hand. However, since you might be moving your entire life that direction, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re 100 percent on board with the plan.

Visiting local schools is just as important. The only way to know for sure if the nursing school is right for you is to take a look—both formally and informally—at the program.

Formal Tours

Almost all schools, whether they are four-year universities or private nursing schools with an annual enrollment of just a few hundred students, provide a formal look at the program you are considering. These guided tours take a group of potential students through the campus and into the facilities to learn all about the school and what it has to offer. From taking a peek at the lab equipment to checking out the dorm rooms and dining facilities, these tours are intended to show you what life at that school is all about.

During these formal tours, you typically have a chance to ask all the questions you have about the general school setting. Things like student life, study halls, local amenities, and even the city as a whole are openly discussed, and you may have the chance to talk with other students, faculty members, and administrative staff. You might also be able to set up a classroom visit at this time, in which you sit in on a class to see if the lecture or hands-on format is right for you.

These tours are almost always set up through the admissions office, and you may need to book as early as a month in advance. If timed correctly, you could join a group of other potential students and parents as they all ask the same questions and make this important decision.

Informal Tours

You don’t always have to make a formal appointment to see the nursing school you’ve been considering. Many schools offer an “open campus” type of policy, and you are free to visit the facilities whenever you want. While you probably won’t be able to sit in on a class or have one-on-one talks with professors during this time, you can get a feel for the overall atmosphere of the place.

This can be a great compliment to a formal visit. Because guided tours are created with the intention of boosting enrollment, stepping away to draw your own conclusions can be a great way to build a more accurate picture.

Choosing the Right Nursing School

There are hundreds of nursing schools in the United States, and all of them have both pros and cons. By taking the time to make the right decision and looking carefully at all aspects of the program, you will be better equipped to make changes in your life and see your education through to the end—and be that much closer to a great new nursing career!

Related Topics:

Choosing the Right Nursing School

Top Ranked Nursing Schools in the United States

Find a Nursing School to Tour in Your City

Nursing School: Balancing Life and Education

Published
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on December 7, 2010
in Nursing Education
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i_student_1One of the biggest challenges in entering a new career in the nursing field is the large educational commitment. Although there are nursing programs designed to complete your education (all the way up to an RN license) in as little as two years, most programs will end up lasting a total of four years, once you include all the basic education courses like math, basic science, English, and even a little bit of history.

Although four years might seem like a long time to go to school—especially if you already have a full-time job or a family to take care of—nursing schools have done their best to provide an easy way to take your classes without sacrificing too much of your time.

Online Nursing Courses: By allowing you to complete part of your education at home via the computer and remote learning, you can get much of your core classes out of the way without stepping foot on campus. Not only will this allow you to learn according to your own schedule, but you’ll also save on commute and lecture time.

Variety of Learning Formats: No nursing program is exactly the same, but you can almost always expect a wide range of learning types. Hands-on clinicals and labs are complemented by lectures and guest speakers. Textbook learning occurs right alongside real-world scenarios. By tapping into all your learning types, you can learn better – and faster, oftentimes with reduced study times.

Day and Night Classes, Full-Time and Part-Time: Nursing schools know that you have a busy life that can’t be put on hold. That’s why so many of them provide a variety of class times. If you can make the commitment, you can go full-time during the day. However, if you work or have small kids, you can also opt for part-time evening classes or even just one or two classes per quarter. Talk with the nursing school advisers to determine how much time this will add to your education overall.

Start Working as a Team: Much of the nursing field is about working as a team; other nurses, doctors, health care professionals, and even your patients are all part of your job and your day. Many nursing courses use this right from the start, and you’ll be working with fellow students to get the job done. This may mean setting aside some of your own time to attend group study sessions or labs.

Nursing school isn’t easy, and it isn’t always the fastest way to a vibrant, new career, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great choice for your future. With a little hard work and a few adjustments today, you and your family can look forward to an incredible and rewarding tomorrow.

Related Topics:

Getting a Master’s Degree in Nursing Online

How to Prepare for Nursing School

Find a Nursing Program in Your Area

A Taste of Nursing in High School

Published
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on July 31, 2010
in Nursing Education
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i_student_3As soon as I made the decision to enter nursing school as a high school junior, I started brainstorming ways to prepare for nursing school. In addition to researching nursing schools, and preparing applications, transcripts and letters of reference, I wanted a little taste of a career in health care.

I wanted some sort of preview of what it might be like being a nurse. So, I signed up to be a hospital volunteer (“candy striper” in the days of old) during the two summers before my high school graduation.

Working as a hospital volunteer exposed me to the field of nursing and allowed me a valuable glimpse into a “day in the life” of a nurse. It also gave me the chance to help in many other hospital departments, see their role in patient care, find out how they interact with nursing and get the “big picture” view of my future profession.

More and more high schools are seeing the value of spotlighting a career in nursing for their students, in hopes of drawing them into the field, especially in light of the mounting shortage of nurses. Lamar University in Texas, for instance, has created a program for high school students called the “Nightingale Experience” where students are introduced to the field of nursing, are engaged in conversations with nursing faculty, shown the different job opportunities available and encouraged to consider nursing as a career goal.

The university program takes it a step further, allowing students a hands-on learning experience in a simulated hospital setting. Whether your groundwork for nursing school includes a program such as the one at Lamar University, or if you choose to work as a hospital volunteer, it is helpful to include some kind of “real life” component to your preparations. Nurses will be in higher and higher demand in coming years, so the earlier you start developing an interest in this career, the better.

Online BSN Degree For Nurses

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on June 28, 2009
in Nursing Education
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Online BSN Training Excellent Option for Working Nurses

i_nursing_studentYou’re an RN with an Associate Degree working several 12 hour shifts per week plus overtime because of sporadic staffing shortages (even though BSN schools are matriculating and graduating nurses as quickly as humanly possible).  Your goal is to earn a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing, for higher pay and more job opportunities with additional responsibilities in different clinical settings outside of the hospital such as home health.

But how is such a goal even realistic with your work schedule and family responsibilities?  Going back to school the traditional way, in the classroom at a local college or university for a full 15 week semester, makes for an almost impossible schedule to juggle. Thank goodness innovative nursing programs across the country are starting to understand this and offering a flexible alternative.

Many community colleges and universities are now offering online versions of BSN refresher and BSN transition programs to help existing or former nurses meet their continuing education goals. Online courses incorporate the same academic coursework typically taught in the classroom setting on a more rigid schedule.  The courses also include practical work in clinical settings that emphasize more advanced clinical skills required by the RN BSN along with an emphasis on leadership and management training.

I recently participated in an online RN, BSN refresher course. This was my first time “back to school” along with my first time taking any kind of online training course. Live classroom discussions among students and teachers are replaced by online message board discussions that resemble regular message board threads on popular social websites.

The discussions are extremely academic with strict guidelines revolving around specific weekly assignment questions that reflect the reading. However, students are encouraged to share their opinions, clinical experiences, observations and research findings. Honestly I found these discussions to be much more thorough and informative than the ones I recall from traditional nursing school.

This may be due to the combination of experienced nurses as students along with the online aspect removing any fears of raising one’s hand and speaking up. Quizzes and exams are also taken online; experiences that feel partly like taking an online trivia exam and partly like an online IQ test.

Overall the experience was extremely positive, very convenient and I’m glad that nursing programs are recognizing online BSN training as a viable solution for nurses to meet their goals.

For the Math-o-phobic Nursing Students

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on May 22, 2009
in Nursing Education
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i_student_1I was already halfway down the hospital corridor to my patient’s room with a syringe full of IV Digoxin in my hand, when something stopped me. In past blogs I’ve mentioned a nurse’s infamous gut instinct when it comes to sensing that something isn’t right. Well, on this night, only a couple hours into my 7pm-7am overnight shift on the med-surg floor, my gut instinct kicked in and propelled me right back down the corridor to the nurse’s station.

I had calculated the Digoxin dosage by hand and also by calculator but my instinct was right. The decimal point was still in the wrong place. If I had pushed that amount of medicine directly into my patient’s vein, there’s a good chance that he would have gone into cardiac arrest.

Moral of the story for nursing students: The best calculators and computers will never replace good old-fashioned math skills and the human brain that processes them.

That night on the floor was ironic. I had earned straight A’s on all my medication dosage calculation tests during nursing schools (I wonder if they still teach nursing students to calculate dosages manually). In case you think I’m bragging, I’d like to point out that until nursing school my cumulative math score was somewhere around a C-.

I hated and feared math and all math related skills growing up. However, once I had conquered my initial math-o-phobic panic attack when faced with my first medication dosage test in nursing school, I had a revelation – math is fun when it’s applied to something you’re interested in.

As nursing students this is important advice to take to heart. If nursing is your chosen profession, do not allow fear of the known or unknown to detour you from your goals. Nursing school sometimes feels like an impossible amount of studying and coursework but you will get through it. The same is true for the nursing boards (which I will cover in a future blog). I transformed my fear of math into an interest and a respect for it. Rely on the technology available, but always remember my story of how a human brain that used to fear math, used it to save a life.

Nursing Skills Still Best Diagnostic Tool

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on May 19, 2009
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High Tech Tools Don’t Replace Eyes, Ears, Common Sense

i_nurse_female_3At the rapid rate that diagnostic testing technology is evolving, future generation of nursing students may be learning about a magic wand that reveals patient conditions before they even develop. Diagnostic tools that nurses and other practitioners use are concurrent with emerging needs of various patient populations.

For instance, there has been a cumulative rise in the number of severe traumatic head injuries such as the subdural hematoma that took the life of actress Natasha Richardson earlier this year. This type of data has led to the discovery of a certain serum protein biomarker that can detect serious brain injuries early.

Heart disease and the entire family of cardiac related disorders has always been a magnet for some of the most exciting advances medicine has to offer. This is a blessing indeed for the tens of millions of baby boomers who are entering old age with clogged arteries and ailing tickers from decades of fatty food abundance. Between learning how to interpret brain injury blood tests and staying current with patient teaching for the newest cardiac tests, nursing students almost have to become techno-geeks to keep up.

Stop. Before you go and immerse yourself in the technological side of patient care, make sure you don’t forget the human side. As a nursing student and later as a nurse, your most important diagnostic tools don’t require a battery, outlet or user’s manual. A nurse’s critically thinking mind, perceptive touch, alert eyes, and finely tuned ears are his or her most valuable diagnostic tools.

One of the dangers of the nursing shortage and replacing RNs with lesser trained health care providers is that RNs are trained to walk in a patient’s room, observe and detect the subtlest changes in a patient’s condition. Even after being trained to do this and then doing it several times, I find it difficult to explain how nurses are the best human diagnostic tools I’ve ever seen. As nursing students, it’s very important to be aware of these skills, nurture your natural assessment instincts and above all, learn to ask questions when you need to and trust your gut.

There was a great scene on the popular television show ER where the nurse turned medical student told her supervisor, when asked how she knew there was something more serious going on with her patient than what tests revealed: “He just didn’t look right.” How many computers can do that?