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To be specific, what I said was "That said, I doubt a CNA or even many LPN's would ever use algebra in their careers."
I said in their careers. I stand by that. In many states they don't administer meds or start transfusions, assess patients, or perform any sterile procedures. The things that they do wouldn't require algebra.
In NY State you don't even need to be a graduate or have a GED to get into the BOCES LPN program, you just need to be able to pass the entrance exam.
You are, to put it bluntly, wrong. Many doctor's offices hire LPNs to be their "nurses". As such, they have to do the kinds of computations I was discussing in the other threads. Why do you think LPNs have to take a course titled "Pharmacology Calculations" if they are never going to have to use this knowledge in their careers?
According to this program (below), one has to be a high school senior to start, then one finishes after graduation. It's a two year PT program, apparently.
To be licensed as a licensed practical nurse in New York State you must:
•be of good moral character;
•be at least seventeen years of age; •be a high school graduate or the equivalent;
•meet education requirements; and
•meet examination requirements.
So you may not have to have a HS diploma or GED to get in, but you have to have one to become an LPN in New York State. Good grief, do you want to put the public at risk by having people care for them who can't even graduate from high school?
i would be a little hesitant on the lpn route simply because the hospitals (where I live at least) are not hiring lpns. You would have to look into doctor's offices, ltc facalites. That being said there are many lpn-rn bridge programs so the opportuinites are def. there if you want to go lpn.
Still if you can afford it, and if you get into a RN or BSN program, pick that over lpn.
...In NY State you don't even need to be a graduate or have a GED to get into the BOCES LPN program, you just need to be able to pass the entrance exam.
because in that type of program, one completes the 1st part of the program while still in high school. After HS graduation, they enter Part 2 of the program and complete it, and then, if eligible, take the LPN licensing exam. NC has a similiar arrangement with community colleges and high schools.
because in that type of program, one completes the 1st part of the program while still in high school. After HS graduation, they enter Part 2 of the program and complete it, and then, if eligible, take the LPN licensing exam. NC has a similiar arrangement with community colleges and high schools.
Not any more. That's how they used to do it, which I though was great. Now you need to be at least 18 to start the BOCES LPN program--at least the one in the Capital District. You can do CNA through BOCES as part of high school.
Many of the best BSN probably advanced beyond RN referencing your personal example.
I don't have a BSN. I have a 2-year hospital diploma RN from 1981. I wouldn't sit through another nursing class about "the care plan matrix kardex etc.etc. without large weapons at my head.
To my mind, four-year college is often the default program for the middle class and up. It's what people do unless there's a serious reason to do something else. Four-year school (especially for a technical trade, like nursing) is dependent usually on one's age/resources/etc.
I guess I'm just not that big a fan of higher education as an automatic plus. And yes, I was "trained" as an RN, not "educated" but I don't know that a BSN is that good a healthcare education. Then again, I think most nursing education that isn't directly practical is BS.
...Then again, I think most nursing education that isn't directly practical is BS.
A toast to you! Cheers!
People have been brainwashed to think that BSRN is the best-schooled, but that ain't necessarily so, haha. What makes a nurse is the floor time and experience, and lots of BSRN programs lack much of that. In the state of Pennsylvania, we still have diploma nursing schools. They require just as much if not more college coursework than an associate degree ADRN. Some of them are 24 or 28 months, but some as short as 18 months, depending on whether or not they require you to complete all your college work before you start the RN classes. In PA, diploma RN, ADRN, and BSRN all sit for the exact same NCLEX-RN exam. The only differences seem to be that the ADRN and BSRN students benefit from the structured days off and term breaks and whatnot that a college builds into its schedules. And the diploma programs can and do flog the students mercilessly, day in and day out, because many of them are still the old 3-yr hospital based curriculum crammed into 18mo to 24mo but with the added burdens of college coursework and computer training.
I attended a diploma RN school for a year, and it was absolutely the most grueling and relentless schooling I have ever seen. It did give us a lot of clinical hours, and the clientele were kind of gritty, lower socioeconomic, and either elderly or else young welfare recipients. Consequently, you saw a lot of medical conditions and chronic health probs and cantankerous and difficult patients. As well as amputations, heart surgeries, C-sections ,and much OR stuff that you'd not get from a college program. We passed meds and wrote nurses notes before the end of Nursing I. They gave us the patients that the regular nurses didn't want to deal with anymore, so you were forced to learn how to deal with people who were noncompliant and/or not very capable of following a care regimen.
This program didn't teach in standard "units" (block topics). It was "integrated," i.e. built around the hospitals facilities and their need to get every student rotated through all the clinical experiences within any given term. Therefore, your clinical group might be doing labor and delivery clinical while the lecture that week was covering death and dying and STDs and select peds topics, and *before that L/D stuff was ever covered in class. It was nuts. It was all over the road. It increased the workload and the time drag on the students exponentially compared to traditional block curricula. The tests were nightmares to study for. I thought their format made it very hard to learn, to pass exams , to keep a B average. And sure enough, this program produced a lot of Cs and flunkouts, a few Bs, and virtually no As.
We spent two full days per week in clinicals which were generally hospital. And there was a boatload of paperwork for them, too. What killed my enthusiasm was the total monopolization if my life, every day, all day, and then being forced to spend all weekend studying. We spent 6-8 hours/day in lectures, 3 days per week. If we didn't have lectures all day, all 3 days, they filled the day(s) with some computer simwork or off-site clinical observation or carp like a 3-hour "poverty simulation" workshop exercise. Just never gave us any time off to study. And loads and loads of massive paperwork and research projects, and care plan writeups and drug information writeups. What a flogging. Being pulled in so many ways all the time, relentlessly, was exhausting and depressing to me. After 12 months, I was done. I hated it. The only job I wanted to do in a hospital was scrub the bathrooms, because a) dayum were they disgustingly filthy and I felt sorry for patients who had to use them and b) I didn't want to think anymore or cram anymore or worry anymore. I just wanted to work and be left alone. I wanted to look at before and after and see, black and white, whether or not my efforts were a success or failure.
So, no, nursing is not for everybody. I think nursing as a profession has made its bed and now must lie in it. I predict that the working conditions for nurses are only going to get worse, because the profession has forever put too much emphasis on women's role as self-sacrificing care-givers and on doing an extreme amount of gratis work for employers and for patients, and now they are trapped in it. Demands are constantly increased, but nothing is ever lopped off. Tying RN performance ratings and pay and career advancement to "patient satisfaction" might sound like a good idea, but it's a mistake. For example, at the hospital I was at, the patients had 5th grade to high school or GED level education, and medical personnel could be giving them the absolute best medical care in the world, but not a lot of babying /waitressing / schmoozing, so the patients rated the quality of care "poor." Then Dr. Incompetence who's botched so many diagnoses and surgeries that he should be banned comes in there, and glad-hands and fusses over and BS-es the patient and their family, and perforates the patient while doing a routine colonoscopy b/c he wanted to hurry through his schedule and leave early that day, gets a very high rating, because he is perceived as "caring."
Friggin' insanity. I'll never go back.
Last edited by SorryIMovedBack; 09-14-2012 at 07:33 PM..
Just because hospitals aren't hiring Lpn's isn't a good reason not to try it.
There are always ltc,home health,and offices that hire Lpn's.
I always thought the goal was to become employed somewhere.
Truth be told,most nurses who are graduating will not be working in the hospital but will work in community based care like ambulatory,home health,and Ltc. So I think it will be evry smart to get some type of certification in geriatrics.
Oh,I have seen private Lpn programs for 15,000 and 20,000 in Nj.
My lpn to rn program(non profit) costs me 12,000.
Not any more. That's how they used to do it, which I though was great. Now you need to be at least 18 to start the BOCES LPN program--at least the one in the Capital District. You can do CNA through BOCES as part of high school.
So sorry, but it is still in place. HS seniors complete the PN I program. You can Google it.....
The V.A. and long-term care are still big on LPNs, although the V.A. is often hiring people who were 91C MOS (at least Army- I think that's the designation). I don't know if they hire LPNs from outside the military system.
Anyway, it's employment, and as people have pointed out, there's the LPN-RN track. I had the time and borrowed the money to go to a two-year hospital program, but if I couldn't, I would have gone the LPN route. There were several LPNs in my class and they certainly knew a lot.
Id proably do the same as Bright dog, I got into a BSN program but if I did not I proably would have went LPN route. There are many, many LPN-RN programs out there so it all works out
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A toast to you! Cheers!
