23rd International Conference on Global Nursing Education & Research

23rd International Conference on Global Nursing Education & Research

Differences between my MSN and BSN experience

I am resuming my MSN this fall and there’s a stark difference between my undergrad experience vs my grad school experience. If you’re thinking about continuing your education, but aren’t sure what to expect, here’s a rundown of my first impressions. Note that this is relevant to the school I intend and doesn’t necessarily reflect all MSN or BSN programs.

It’s way less terrifying

I remember sitting through my BSN orientation, hearing all the horror stories from the faculty about how this program was going to take over my life, how I could never wear nail polish again, how I better wear underwear underneath my white scrubs pants (seriously) and how we would be disciplined or even expelled for not adhering to the strict code of conduct.

Fast foward nine years later and I’m sitting in my MSN orientation which is SO MUCH more relaxed. Same school, some of the same professors, and a totally different attitude. While it may seem like BSN programs are touting an “only the strong survive” mentality, at my MSN program it’s more of a “thank you for being here” vibe. The reason? Nursing programs are in dire need of faculty and the nursing profession as a whole is in dire need of leadership…nurse educators, clinical nurse specialists, administrators and researchers. So while they tried to scare the pants off us first semester, they now are welcoming us with open arms and even an open invitation to use the staff kitchen. For real.

Conference brochure: https://nursingeducation.conferenceseries.com/conference-brochure.php

Your professors are your colleagues

Now that we’re all colleagues, there’s none of this “Dr. so and so” business. We are on a first-name basis, y’all. While it may seem like a small thing, it actually goes a long way toward promoting collegiality and a sense of equality. Sure, these men and women are far more educated and experienced, but they are here as your partners in academia. Knowing some of these faculty during my BSN has made it difficult to make the transition to a more casual style of address, but I’m giving it the ol’ college try. So far so good.

They actually try to HELP you succeed

My grad school orientation includes resources for using the library effectively, how to log on and navigate the Canvas LMS, and they’re even bringing in the IT folks to make sure our computers are set up properly and that we have no glitches with any of the technology. With this much hand-holding, I might start to feel a little bit spoiled. Considering that my first semester Med/Surg class was mostly self-taught…I’ll take it.

No exams

Say what? No exams? No NCLEX-style test questions? No staying up until all hours of the night reviewing material in order to regurgitate it the next day? In my MSN program there are no exams…just loads and loads of papers and projects. And since I came from a career as a professional writer, this is the single-most dynamic factor in making my MSN experience much easier than my BSN education. Now if you don’t have a lot of experience with writing or just absolutely dread it, this could be the single-most dynamic factor in making you loathe your MSN experience. Give me the opportunity to take a test vs. write a paper, I’ll take the paper every day of the week.

The program is mostly online

My BSN program required my presence for most lectures, not to mention skills lab and clinical hours. I was at the school ALL THE TIME. My MSN program is a hybrid-style program. My first semester met face-to-face every two weeks, while my current semester meets face-to-face just a few times and it’s mostly all done online. This means I can stay in my jammies and save all that commute time. Win-win!

More flexible

Remember how your BSN program was so rigid you didn’t even register for your own classes? You were on a single trajectory that started with first semester and didn’t veer off course at all until you crossed that stage at graduation. With my MSN program, I can choose to finish in two years, four years or anything in between. I can even take a break if I need to (and I did!).

To learn more please visit https://nursingeducation.conferenceseries.com/

What’s been your experience with your MSN education? How has it compared to getting your undergrad? Let us know in the comments below!

Gypsy Nurse: Nursing Education Summit 2019

About Gypsy

The Gypsy Nurse is the largest and most active online community for travel nurses. 

Thank you for being a supporter of The Gypsy Nurse website! We’re proud to be a resource for travel nurses. The Gypsy Nurse is dedicated to providing powerful tools, information, and social connectivity with complete transparency to our members.

The Gypsy Nurse offers hundreds of great articles from across the travel nursing world. The GypsyNurse.com website has free online tools to safely connect nurses from around the U.S. Recently we added the ability to search jobs by state and by city. There are great travel nurse housing optionsavailable right on this website. Many use our website and social media for the 100,000 followers from our social platforms. These are just some of the reasons why we’re today’s #1 travel nursing community.

Our foundation are the 3 Cs we’ve had from our inception – Collaboration, Community and Camaraderie.  Our goal is to provide a welcoming, informative community supporting each other and helping each Gypsy to thrive.  This wonderful spirit continues in the group today.

We would like to give a special thanks to our all our Gypsy Ambassadors over the years that have tirelessly helped support our members and keep the conversations going, as well as the great Gypsy Nurse internal staff that works every day to bring you great stuff each and every day. 

Thank you, Gypsies!

Nursing Education Summit 2019 | Global Nursing Education & Research | 23rd International Conference on Global Nursing Education & Research

About

Brittney Wilson, BSN, RN, a bachelors-prepared registered nurse, is the founder and owner of The Nerdy Nurse, LLC and TheNerdyNurse.com.

About The Nerdy Nurse

Established in 2010, The Nerdy Nurse is a leading nursing and technology blog that is consistently
listed as one of the top nursing blogs on the web. In fact, out of the 20 most popular nursing sites online, The Nerdy Nurse is the only site fully owned and operated by a Registered Nurse.

Topics on The Nerdy Nurse include nursing issues, nursing products and services, healthcare, technology, social media, personal branding, and lifestyle topics. The audience is varied and includes nurses, nursing students, physicians, healthcare professionals, and the general public.

About Brittney Wilson

Brittney Wilson, BSN, RN, the nurse behind The Nerdy Nurse and co-founder of Health Media Academy, is an award-winning author and blogger, international keynote speaker, and influencer in the nursing and healthcare technology communities.

The internet isn’t Brittney’s only playground, however. Her nursing career spans a variety of settings including med surg nursing, clinical informatics system administration and implementation, and healthcare community management. She is currently working as a product manager developing innovative workforce analytics solutions for healthcare organizations.

Brittney’s goal is to help others gain confidence in the digital world through her unique vision of technology empowerment. Her passion for informatics and innovation in healthcare is unmatched. She is a devoted patient, nurse, and technology advocate. She is also the author of The Nerdy Nurse’s Guide to Technology and co-author of The Nurse’s Guide to Blogging. She blogs about nursing, technology, health IT, and other healthcare topics at thenerdynurse.com.

Brittney offers a variety of services including:

• Sponsored blog posts
• Technology and nursing reviews
• Speaking
• Conference attendance and coverage

Brittney is available for interviews and media inquiries.

Contact Brittney directly through the contact page.

Global Platform for Discussing Trends in Nursing Education and Research

What Does a Cardiac Nurse Do?

We know that a cardiac nurse works with heart patients, but what do they do, exactly? Let’s take a closer look at this job to see if it is right for you.

We know that a cardiac nurse works with heart patients, but what do they do, exactly? Let’s take a closer look at this job to see if it is right for you.

Nursing Education Summit 2019

Cardiac Nurse Jobs

A “heart nurse” goes by many different job titles. Each of them has their own specialties. Let’s look at each of them – what they do, and how to become qualified for those jobs.

Cardiac Nurse Certification

Before we look at each job there is, we need to know how to become certified. As with any nursing specialty, you will need to take additional tests and qualify for specific accreditation standards.

There are a few different certifications you can go for if you are interested in specializing in this.

Adult CMC

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses has a wide variety of certifications you can earn. If you are interested in cardiology, look into either getting the CMC or CSC certifications.

CMC is Cardiac Medicine. You’ll need to prove a certain number of hours taking care of critically ill patients and pass a test. Learn more here.

CSC Certification is Cardiac Surgery Nursing. This certification will prove that you are able to provide direct care for patients in the first 48 hours after heart surgeries. There are clinical practice hour requirements and an exam to pass. Learn more here.

After you have your certifications, you will be more hirable in the field of your choice.

But which field should you choose? Let’s look at what the different nurses actually do.

Cardiovascular Nurse

The most general term for a nurse that works with patients with heart problems is a cardiovascular nurse. They are also called cardiovascular clinical nurse specialists or CNSs.

Most CNS jobs will be located in hospitals. Since they are specialized to work with the heart, they will care for critically ill patients and those recovering from surgeries and procedures like bypass, angioplasty and more.

But the hospital isn’t the only place they work. They could help patients recover at home. And the work with patients of all ages, since heart problems don’t only happen to a certain age group.

Another term for a Cardiovascular Nurse is a Cardiology Nurse. Both jobs are essentially the same – helping patients recover and/or educating people about how to maintain heart-healthy lifestyles.

Cardiothoracic Nursing

Cardiothoracic nurses typically work in intensive care units. They closely monitor patients with heart conditions that are considered critical. Their job requires them to think quickly on their feet and notice subtle hemodynamic changes that could lead to serious complications.

Cardiac Nurse Salary

How much does a cardiac nurse make?

Due to the requirement for certifications, the salary for a cardiac nurse is higher. The salaries vary by state. You can see an overview of how much you can earn in each state by visiting the Nurse Journal Website.

Here are the average incomes for cardiac nurses as reported by top job websites:

• Indeed – $63,00
• SimplyHired – $52,000

Is Cardiology Right For You?

Now that you know basically what they do and how become a cardiac nurse, is it right for you?

This job deals with life and death situations. It requires extreme attention to detail and the ability to react quickly when things turn for the worse.

You also need emotional strength. You’ll be interacting with grieving family members and people that might stubbornly refuse to listen to heart-health advice.

It is an incredibly rewarding career. You’ll experiences joys as you see people overcoming tough odds and healing from open heart surgeries.

If you can handle both the highs and lows and the stress of life and death situations, this job is perfect for you.

Nursing Education Summit 2019

23rd International Conference on

Global Nursing Education & Research

September 16-17, 2019 Tokyo, Japan

Theme: Innovative Ideas and Approaches in Nursing Education

Advanced Practice Nursing: Preparing Yourself

This blog post was written by Nick Angelis, MSN CRNA

In my last post, I mentioned that clinicals are very different at the master’s level. There is very little watching “The Price is Right” while learning to make a bed or fold a washcloth properly.

Similar prioritization exists in the classroom, where case studies revolve around what the clinician should do to fix real problem themselves. Of course, get an interdisciplinary team involved and call all the right people, but whether you are a psychiatric nurse practitioner or a nurse anesthetist, you need to have and be the solution. Because of this, in some ways the culture is less academic and more practical–hopefully, in an evidence-based way that makes a real difference in patient health. I felt I needed an exponential increase in knowledge and fine motor skills during my MSN. The technical skills of a baccalaureate nurse are often limited to the catheterization of various veins and orifices. However, career advancement requires expertise in a new array of procedural abilities, not just the learning of more in-depth pharmacology and physiology. It’s ironic, and of course the new hands-on skills must be used appropriately. I was always told by my grumpier preceptors, “We could teach a monkey how to intubate.” I’m not sure that’s true. At least, not for a banana. Maybe if I were a monkey and Jane Goodall offered me a banana tree–no, a banana orchard, then I’d settle down and learn how to pass an endotracheal tube between another monkey’s vocal cords, but it would still take a lot of effort not to jack up their teeth, and if I did mess up and summon the monkey tooth fairy, I’d probably be thrown out of the monkey club or whatever they call a group of monkeys because now the intubated monkey could only gum mangos instead of bite them, once they took the tube out, I mean.

One Thing at a Time (or, Gum One Mango at a Time)

Sorry about that. Take steps today to avoid feeling stressed and overwhelmed like a gummed mango. It certainly is difficult to transition from knowing the right answers on a test to making the right decisions in practice. Sean wrote an excellent post the other day about preparing for the next step while still in nursing school.

Remember that paper you’re supposed to be writing about NP school but instead you’re reading this blog? Getting into school is a similar process in that there’s more work and time involved than you’d suppose.  The worst thing you can do is procrastinate because of some vague requirement or elusive document that the school demands.  No, you don’t want to look needy and helpless (that secretary you keep calling is an important gatekeeper), but you certainly can’t afford to miss deadlines and be pleading with professors who barely remember your name for effusive reference letters at the last minute.

Do the legwork or move on to a school that doesn’t require you to retake Geography of Middle Earth (yes, I have taken that class) before applying. It may be difficult not to let all of the requirements to hang over your head. Different schools have tasks to complete in order to grant an interview that vary in difficulty, from faxing a resume to destroying a golden ring with addictive and invisible properties.

That said, don’t let preparation for the next phase in your life cause you to miss the present. The worst attitude is “I can’t learn anything from where I am right now, I can’t wait until I have my MSN.” Do you really want to be the hapless nurse well-versed in Orem’s theories but not any practical help on a hospital unit? Learn as much as you can every step of the way and make your brain adaptable. Saving patient’s lives often requires quick, irreversible decisions. First impressions in a health care environment can be similar. We’re wired to make snap judgments. That’s why I gave my patient with the Sponge Bob tattoos (as in like, every character on the show) more propofol on induction than the one without.

Balance

Preparing mentally means you first concentrate on being the best nurse aid or tech possible. Figure out the basics before trying to become the best nurse or nurse practitioner possible. I get emails all the time from STNAs wanting to become CRNAs. I actually answer them all and give clear directions so that worry of the unknown won’t impair their education, but I realize that much of my effort is wasted because it’s much too soon. The process of setting goals naturally gives us tunnel vision. There’s nice scenery from various vantage points of the Himalayas, not just Everest’s summit. See, I was going to talk about bananas and mangoes and toothless monkeys again, but as my earlier .gif demonstrated, I know when to stop.

Balance adaptability with consistency

You can pick out the right attitude years ahead of time. I could write a whole post about honing initiative by finding the sweet spot between humility and confidence. Flexibility from floating to other units or specialties trains your brain to learn new information–it’s good to feel uncomfortable sometimes. Excellence every time allows coworkers, preceptors, and patients to trust you with the routine. I can adapt easily, partly because of my alternative medicine experience of random miracle cures to some patients that were worthless potions to the next. In contrast to my style, some students soon perform consistently, but what happens when they meet a patient who doesn’t fit neatly in the middle of a bell curve? The latest research, protocols and algorithms work so well on standard patients, but I assume all of us would also like to impact the outliers skewed on the edges of normal, rather than, uh, mid-level. What frame of mind do you think would work best to pursue your MSN? How will you make it sustainable? Remember, there are no weird answers, just outliers skewed on the edges of normal.

Written by Nick, author of How to Succeed in Anesthesia School (And RN, PA, or Med School)

23rd International Conference on Global Nursing Education & Research

Nursing Education Summit 2019

Nursing Education Conference will focus on educational research directed toward its impact on clinical outcomes, through oral and poster presentations, educational workshop sessions, and influential plenary presentations. Attendees will be provided with the tools to enhance nursing education programs to make education more effective in nursing practice.

Conference will focus on the following topics during presentations of the two days event, which reflect current education research, developments and innovations internationally and as evidenced in both Nurse Education and Evidence Based Practice.

• Teaching, Assessment and Learning in University and Clinical Practice
• Technology, Simulation and Education
• Continuing Professional Development
• Continuing Education
• Patient Safety
• Innovation, Academic Leadership and Evaluation Research
• Midwifery Education

The Nursing Education Conference is a platform for nursing students, faculty, deans, researchers, and leaders to collaborate on topics affecting nursing education. Attendees can:

Take advantage of opportunities to learn about nursing education research from a variety of oral and poster presentations.  Meet and network with nurses ranging from students to deans, faculty, and researchers. Take advantage of opportunities to collaborate with nurses from around the world. Attend prominent plenary sessions about relevant issues affecting nursing education.

Nurse Education involves of the theoretical and practical training provided to nurses with the purpose to prepare them for their duties as nursing care professionals. This education is provided to nursing students by experienced nurses and other medical professionals who have qualified or experienced for educational tasks. Most countries offer nurse education courses that can be relevant to general nursing or to specialized areas including mental health nursing, pediatric nursing and post-operatory nursing. Nurse education also provides post-qualification courses in specialist subjects within nursing.