Availability compromised for awhile

[SkyBoat]

@KB7-- Wow! I can't express how proud I am of you and all the great changes you are making in your career. I wish you luck and Godspeed in your pursuit of a nursing degree, especially a BSN. We are already short of RNs here in the United States, so I commend you for jumping into what is a highly demanding but extraordinarily satisfying career. As a chaplain, I credit the nurses I worked with for teaching me about 85% of everything I know about modern medicine, right down to the smelly, yucky stuff. The rule of thumb in the Spiritual Care Department was if you wanted an answer to a medical question, talk to the nurse, first. The docs either don't have the time or won't take the time to converse (there were notable exceptions, though, I must say).

Don't forget to play, however. Studying for any kind of medical certification can become an all-consuming endeavor because there is just so much that has to be accurately learned. You want to avoid the tunnel vision I saw a few of our nursing students experience.

I was in a hospital that had nursing students working both from the local community college and from the nursing school at the Oregon Health Sciences University. So, they were around virtually all year as they went through their unit and specialty rotations. To my way of thinking it greatly enhanced our overall nursing services, because we always had students (and teachers) in the various units working hard to learn their skills and craft, but it also involved our professional RNs as preceptors and they were definitely motivated to be up-to-date with the latest standards of care in working with their student and their patients.

Congratulations!