Accepted to RN bridge!

MackTheKnife said:
No personal experience, but California does not accept Excelsior.
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This is correct. California requires concurrent didactic and clinical experiences. As an example, if you're doing Peds in class, that same semester/quarter you must have Peds clinicals. This requirement doesn't just affect Excelsior students, it also affects some other US and overseas students as well. Philippine students have been impacted greatly by this, not all, but many.

If a nursing program basically follows the basic California pattern for didactic/clinical experiences, it'll likely be OK enough for its students to be licensed by California. Excelsior doesn't (and won't) follow this pattern, so their students are SOL for obtaining a California nursing license. I'm not saying that Excelsior is or isn't a good program, just that their graduates WILL be limited in where they can work (not California).
 
MackTheKnife said:
Pardon the late reply, but stand your ground. I had my didactic and clinical instructors telling me ad nauseum that I was a nursing student and couldn't do what a medic does. I reminded them I know how to stay in my lane and knew I was a student. One clinical instructor wouldn't let it go and I pulled her aside and told her nicely to f**k off. And guess who got asked by the floor nurses to start IVs on their hard sticks?????
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I agree with this. My personal experience wasn't as bad, but the instructors definitely did, at least initially, keep a closer eye on me than the others. Unfortunately for nursing, the profession doesn't play well with other professions if it's not "nursing." The same could be said for EMS too... I couldn't use some of my nursing class stuff for my CE because it was "nursing" and not "EMS" (and vice versa) even though the courses involved patient care and assessment.
 
Summit said:
Congratulations! Welcome to the dark side! ;)

Interesting it is still 5 semesters as a "bridge." My traditional BSN program was 4 semesters over 21mo (3mo off over the summer for externships or electives like critcare/ER). Sounds like the course load might be lighter so you can keep working more easily during school?

typing woot to see
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1 semester is a "transition to RN" class which is next semester.. It's supposed to be nursing theory and nursing skills.. It's now been made online due to covid, so that should be interesting..

After that, it's 5 clinical rotations, nursing pharm 1/2, and "human growth and development"..

It's fine, I'm not in a super rush, as I've said I'm stuck in my pension system for just over 5 more years, should all line up with the end of NP school..
 
Akulahawk said:
This is correct. California requires concurrent didactic and clinical experiences. As an example, if you're doing Peds in class, that same semester/quarter you must have Peds clinicals. This requirement doesn't just affect Excelsior students, it also affects some other US and overseas students as well. Philippine students have been impacted greatly by this, not all, but many.

If a nursing program basically follows the basic California pattern for didactic/clinical experiences, it'll likely be OK enough for its students to be licensed by California. Excelsior doesn't (and won't) follow this pattern, so their students are SOL for obtaining a California nursing license. I'm not saying that Excelsior is or isn't a good program, just that their graduates WILL be limited in where they can work (not California).
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While California is the only state that absolutely will not license any Excelsior grad (who enrolled in the program after Dec 2003), a handful of other states do have additional requirements for Excelsior grads. I've heard Maryland makes this very difficult and requires a lot of out-of-state experience or a lengthy in-state preceptorship which can be very hard to arrange. Georgia only grants licensure to Excelsior grads if they had clinical experience (paramedic, LPN, etc.) prior to starting the Excelsior program. Other states will only license an Excelsior grad after a period of time practicing as an RN in another state, or after obtaining a higher nursing degree (BSN or MSN) from a school the than Excelsior.

Don't count on what I'm saying here to be accurate because this stuff changes; I'm just presenting it as an example of things that a potential Excelsior nursing student needs to consider.

The Excelsior website has some info on this, but the best source if current info is the BON of the state(s) where you plan to practice.

Excelsior College list of state board requirements
 
I think it is also important to remember that there is a distinction between having a nursing license and being competitive for certain jobs (especially within critical care), especially as a new grad. Having your medic will certainly be helpful in many cases, but a questionable nursing program can ruin than advantage and much more very quickly.
 
MackTheKnife said:
Pardon the late reply, but stand your ground. I had my didactic and clinical instructors telling me ad nauseum that I was a nursing student and couldn't do what a medic does. I reminded them I know how to stay in my lane and knew I was a student. One clinical instructor wouldn't let it go and I pulled her aside and told her nicely to f**k off. And guess who got asked by the floor nurses to start IVs on their hard sticks?????
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Not to derail the thread (I will anyway), and since we're talking nursing instructors, my med-surg clinical instructor (nursing text book author, DNSc, etc.) told me at end of semester evals that I lacked the "intellectual curiosity" to be a nurse. When I told her my plan of transitioning off of the ambulance to a flight job, this wave of relief went across her face and she says "ohhhh....I was worried you'd be working in a hospital..."
 
E tank said:
Not to derail the thread (I will anyway), and since we're talking nursing instructors, my med-surg clinical instructor (nursing text book author, DNSc, etc.) told me at end of semester evals that I lacked the "intellectual curiosity" to be a nurse. When I told her my plan of transitioning off of the ambulance to a flight job, this wave of relief went across her face and she says "ohhhh....I was worried you'd be working in a hospital..."
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My wife was virtually ignored and written off as a medic in nursing school while the CNAs of the class were highly favored by the instructors.

That all changed when it came to clinicals, she excelled at assessments, skills, and bedside manner and the favorites of the class all struggled.
 
The dismissal of EMS knowledge is far from universal in nursing school.

I received a lot of respect for being an EMT while in nursing school from profs (BSN). It seemed unwarranted and confused me since I never made a habit of mentioning it. Sometimes I was asked for my perspective based on my EMS experience. Another example: nursing fundamentals lab I was asked by the prof if I'd be comfortable helping sign off my classmates on auscultating BPs with the dual scopes. I was so I did.
 
Many of my nursing school instructors did not look on my EMS experience favorably, especially the ones who have been out of practice for years/decades and used teaching to get away from bedside.
 
I am slightly nervous about the preceptor interactions, but my plan is to just keep my head down, not make waves, and get through this..

I need a solid reputation when I apply to NP school..
 
FiremanMike said:
I am slightly nervous about the preceptor interactions, but my plan is to just keep my head down, not make waves, and get through this..

I need a solid reputation when I apply to NP school..
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I wouldn't put too much stock in these anecdotes....just more of a source of amusement even at the time they happened, at least in my case. And your competitiveness when you do apply for advanced practice training will be more of a function of your experience/ performance as an RN more than your time in undergrad.

ps...in my case, the fact that I was a dude probably rubbed some instructors the wrong way a lot more than my EMS background. It worked to my advantage with others tho.
 
FiremanMike said:
I am slightly nervous about the preceptor interactions, but my plan is to just keep my head down, not make waves, and get through this..

I need a solid reputation when I apply to NP school..
Click to expand...

My clinical instructors and preceptors were all great, that being said they were almost all ED or ICU nurses getting that side hustle.

I have a distinct memory of my first med pass giving IV zofran. I was so afraid of getting I trouble that I did that ridiculous two minute push counting whatever number of seconds after each 0.2 ml line on the syringe. My clinical instructor was a adult CVICU nurse, she essentially asked me if that’s how I give zofran on the ambulance (obviously not), because we don’t have time for that in the hospital. I leaned real quick that there is a big difference between class/lab and clinicals.
 
It's awesome when you are in a program that actively looks favorably upon EMS experience. Many do not, at least initially, look so favorably upon this. Mine was initially somewhat ambivalent about this as they seemed to be wary about EMS folks doing the "I got this, I know this..." thing and not necessarily doing nursing the way they're being taught. Once it was clear that I wasn't one of those, they began to look to me for an EMS perspective as they saw me as a bridge between worlds. I probably had more problems being male in nursing than a Paramedic going to nursing school.
 
It seems to be the trend is that many nursing instructors lack the bedside clinical experience of the subjects that are attempting to teach. I did not have many instructors with prior critical care experience.

I was a monitor tech in nursing school and spent 24hrs a week starting at EKGs and then had to sit through an EKG class taught by an Med-Surg instructor whom had never worked on a telemetry floor. It was challenging for everyone involved.

Unfortunately you do not see many stellar critical care nurses go back to teach at nursing programs. If they have the desire to teach they tend to go back to a unit as an educator.
 
Being a nursing academic does not pay that well and is dominated by a culture that does not typically mesh with a critical care mindset which tends to be a critical thinker who mostly lives in the real world.

Now, clinical scholars, clinical preceptors, and nursing lab instructors tend to be much more likely to be CritCare/ED types.
 
My single largest frustration is they say "we need to teach you how to critically think"...yet that is all I have done throughout the program and have suffered for it. They do NOT like any independent thinkers, challenges, comments, or discussions which deviate from the mantra of "Nursing is the greatest thing ever and it's our calling".
 
Nursing academia involves critical thinking in the confines of academia ;)
 
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