Accelerated BSN Programs

[erchick85]

I'm looking into doing the ABSN program at Loyola then eventually making my way to be a CRNA. Has anyone here gone through an ABSN program? Likes/dislikes? Is it worth the headache or could I just as easily obtain a BSN the traditional way (even if it would take a little longer)? Advice/opinions/ect. Thanks.

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[bryanboling5]

I'm looking into doing the ABSN program at Loyola then eventually making my way to be a CRNA. Has anyone here gone through an ABSN program? Likes/dislikes? Is it worth the headache or could I just as easily obtain a BSN the traditional way (even if it would take a little longer)? Advice/opinions/ect. Thanks.

I looked at the ABSN program. I've got a bachelor's in another field. The one I looked at was 2 years to a BSN. I ended up going a different route. I'm in an ADN program right now. It's 2 years as well. The catch for me was tuition. A local hospital is paying my tuition and the amount they give me can be used for tuition, books etc. but it's a fixed amount no matter which program I'm in. The tuition at the ADN program is 1/3 that of the ABSN so that money goes a lot further. It was REALLY important to me to get my degree without taking on any more debt, so that made my decision for me. A little more time for a lot less debt was a trade I was willing to make. That may not be such a factor in your case.

I'm hoping to go on to Nurse Practitioner and the local university has an RN-MSN program that allows an RN with an ADN to go directly to a Master's by combining the BSN work into the grad work. And, you get to skip some classes. There are some classes in the BSN program here that are repeated in greater detail at the Master's level, so in the RN-MSN program, you just take the MSN course. I don't know if that would benefit you wanting to go to CRNA school or not.

You may have better luck finding folks who have done the ASBN program on allnurses.com if you don't get a lot of responses over here. Feel free to PM me if I can help any.
Bryan

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Completed a one-year accelerated BSN program last August. It was not very difficult and it was easy to get a job when I graduated.



My chief complaint is that it focused too much on general nursing instead allowing the students to specialize. There really is no way to change that because everyone has to pass the same boards, but seriously, I only got exposure to the ER because I did extra shifts.


We were told to put our lives on hold for a year because the program was going to be very time intensive. It might have required 15 hours of week of out-of-class work, but it was not very difficult.

 

[bryanboling5]

My chief complaint is that it focused too much on general nursing instead allowing the students to specialize. There really is no way to change that because everyone has to pass the same boards, but seriously, I only got exposure to the ER because I did extra shifts.

Same problem with m ADN program. I worked in the ER before Nursing school, so I got lots of exposure there, but I'm interested in the NICU and we get exactly zero NICU time. I'm hoping to do an externship this summer to get some experience/
Bryan

 

[RAMPA]

Same problem with m ADN program. I worked in the ER before Nursing school, so I got lots of exposure there, but I'm interested in the NICU and we get exactly zero NICU time. I'm hoping to do an externship this summer to get some experience/
Bryan

just wonderin, what units do most nursing students rotate thru?

 

[bryanboling5]

just wonderin, what units do most nursing students rotate thru?

I don't know about "most" students, but our program does Med-Surg, OB (including L and D, Post-partum, and Newborn Nursery), and Psych. We do several Med-surg rotations and one of them is with predominately peds population. It's kind of hard to get inpatient peds spots here as there is only one children's hospital and the others do negligible peds. I think they also stick in a 2 week "community" health rotation as well. I personally wish they'd get rid of psych and give us some more exposure to other areas. I've been told that the NCLEX is heavy on Med-Surg, OB and Psych and light on the other areas and that's why the shorter programs (ADN and ABSN for example) focus on those areas and exclude the others. I still wish that we got to do more interesting things though. I'm not even sure that we get ANY ICU exposure (although, I've heard that we might be able to do our senior preceptorship in an Adult ICU since it's "like" Med-Surg...)

Bryan

 

[fab4fan]

You can apply psych through every aspect of nursing, not so with some of the more specialized areas. You may not like in-pt psych, but trust me, what you learn will come in handy down the road.

The purpose is to give you a good foundation. After that, you can choose to go where you want. If schools allowed students to specialize while in school, students wouldn't get the general knowledge they needed. No matter what specialty you go into, you can always carry basic med/surg knowledge with you and apply it. If you specialized right away in say, OB, you'd be out of luck if you ever wanted to do anything else, or if you graduated and found there were no openings in OB areas.

 

[bryanboling5]

The purpose is to give you a good foundation. After that, you can choose to go where you want.

Oh, don't misunderstand me, I realize that. But, I still don't like it.

It's like when your parent tell you to eat your green beans. They're good for you, but you'd rather have cake.

 

[bryanboling5]

The purpose is to give you a good foundation. After that, you can choose to go where you want.

Oh, don't misunderstand me, I realize that. But, I still don't like it.

It's like when your parent tell you to eat your green beans. They're good for you, but you'd rather have cake.

 

[fab4fan]

I know. I hated med/surg with a passion and I hated ICU. I was dead positive I would be a psych nurse forever. Ha! I did psych for four years, and everything I've done since then has required med/surg or critical care nursing.

You never know where the path is going to take you. I am fairly confident, though, that the path will never take me anywhere near anything related to OB...blech.

 

[erchick85]

What is expected of you during clinicals? I'm assuming there wouldn't be a lot to do on a med surg floor besides checking vitals and giving meds considering pts come from the ER or OR and already have a line established, foleys, ect. Are clinicals more of an observation time then?

 

[bryanboling5]

What is expected of you during clinicals? I'm assuming there wouldn't be a lot to do on a med surg floor besides checking vitals and giving meds considering pts come from the ER or OR and already have a line established, foleys, ect. Are clinicals more of an observation time then?

I'm in the first year of a two year program, so there's not a lot they'll let us do yet. We usually pass meds, give shots (gave a lot of flu shots this last semester) and if they're on a tube feed we manage that. After OB, which we start this week, we go back to Med-Surg and I think we'll get to start IVs (if there are any needed) and manage those. I don't want to malign Med-surg or Med-Surg nurses, but I hate it. There is not a lot to do. From what I've seen of the nurses, there is not a lot THEY do either. It's not just that we aren't able to do much, there just isn't that much to do. Having said that, I don't mean the nurses are alzy or aren't doing much. They're not doing a lot on each patient, but they have 6 patients a piece and so all that adds up! They seem to spend most of the time doing paperwork!!!

maybe someone with more Med-Surg experience can enlighten me?
Bryan

 

[fab4fan]

Maybe not at your hospital, but the med/surg pts. where I work (and I work in a small hospital) are pts. who years ago would have been in step-down, if not ICU. You get some very sick pts. in med/surg.

I know it's der rigeur these days for students to turn their noses up at med/surg as not being exciting enough. Everybody wants to go into critical care right away. That's fine, but there is also a lot to be said for learning basic nursing skills, how to prioritize, how to work with pts. with numerous dx. in a med surg. setting. I can't tell you how many times I've heard ICU nurses complain about being pulled to m/s and not being able to handle the nurse: pt. ratio. It takes skill to manage all of those needs effectively. The kind of skill you don't learn in nursing school.

I haven't worked m/s for many years, but I have all the respect in the world for those nurses. I don't know how they do it day after day.

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

One of my friends started on a critical care step-down unit when we graduated and I started in ICU. I took a patient up to her once and was amazed how many semi-critical patients she took care of. Sure she didn't have to titrate any drips but she had to have the time to look in on all five of her patients to know if they needed to be kicked back to us.


One of my nursing school supervisors once said:


"Patients that were in the ICU 10 years ago are now on Med-Surg, and patients in the ICU now would have been dead 10 years ago".



Amazing stuff.

 

[bryanboling5]

I can't tell you how many times I've heard ICU nurses complain about being pulled to m/s and not being able to handle the nurse: pt. ratio. It takes skill to manage all of those needs effectively. The kind of skill you don't learn in nursing school.

I agree. The hard part of Med-Surg is the ratio. I said that where I've been, I don't see the Med-Surg nurses doing much for each patient, the challenge is that they have so many. I have also seen the bulk of their time taken up by paperwork - much of which seems to have little or no real value.

I have respect for the Med-Surg nurses that I've seen and worked with. Many are recent grads and all of them have had high patient loads. I really wasn't trying to knock on them at all. They have a hard job.

As I said, I'm in school and have very little exposure to Med-Surg. My pre-nursing school experience has all come from ICUs and the ER. Perhaps what I've seen in my limited exposure is not typical.
Bryan

 

[fab4fan]

Probably not. Med/surg pts. are often quite sick. The picture you get as a student v reality are two very different things.