Medical Training

Well we are back to school and it’s time to buckle up, study hard and enjoy the now. And I do mean enjoy the now. This time for knowledge, learned by both LVN courses and practical hands-on experience, is an important leap towards furthering your education and ultimately holding that coveted license as a Vocational Nurse (LPN Licensed Practical Nurse.

For my clinical students this is their first time for what we term as patient care with “real patients.”  The students are now interacting with real time and place situations in the process of becoming a fluent and valuable LVN of the future.  Here are a few of the skills which you must acquire during this critical and fulfilling portion of your clinical studies:

Patient Care:
A. Vital Signs
B. Wound care and treatments
C. Foley care and insertion
D. Collection of urine specimens
E. Removal of surgical staples
F. Develop critical thinking
G. Develop leadership skills

These skills must be obtained and made ready for the call of your new sought-after profession as a Licensed Vocational Nurse.  Be proud of those letters LVN and keep those letters always at the forefront of your day.  Remember it’s a journey and every journey begins with one step forward.

If you attended this weekend’s graduation ceremony of our VN group 17 and 18, class of 2010, you, probably, would have cried too. Tears of joy of making it to this long-anticipated day, filled with bitter-sweet memories and good-byes, tears of happiness and pride were rolling down the cheeks of our LVN students and faculty. Smiles were on every face, and no heart was left untouched.Following the heartrending Amazing Grace, the speeches of our VN program director and program coordinator, the beloved instructors and counselor, touched the hearts of the graduates and their families, who came to support and celebrate this special day for Gurnick Academy.

When the time came to light those candles and to pronounce the famous Florence Nightingale Pledge, the faces of our graduates lit up. It was not just the glow of the candles, but the deep, sincere belief in every word of the oath they were taking and the pride and devotion in becoming nurses that kindled the radiance on those faces. Oh, how pure that moment was! The distribution of the diplomas and the pinning of each student by their family members: husbands, wives, parents, or children, was simply breathtaking in the sincerity of the moment. Then the speeches by the student body government that brought tears to the eyes of the listeners as well as the speakers themselves were followed by the ever-so-moving slide show, accompanied by song No More You, where pictures of the fun times, working and learning together, growing to be nurses, were shown to the audience.

Our LVN students have finished their studies here at Gurnick, but they will never leave our hearts. And we will always welcome them back with open arms, because no matter where they go, or where their career takes them, they will always have us: their Gurnick family. Congratulations, class of 2010! Farewell and Good Luck!

So you finished going to an LVN school in California and you are wondering, “That was a lot of work, but what can I do with this LVN certification?” Well, first of all, think back to when you made the decision to become a nurse in the first place. Did you want to help people? If so, in what way?  Maybe you took care of a family member who was sick at home and you thought that was something you could do as a career.  Maybe it’s a career change because you wanted to be an advocate for people who are disabled or in capacitated due to illness.  Once you remember the initial reason for your becoming an LVN, you can explore possibilities and options available.  If you like children, look into hospitals, clinics, home health care, pediatric hospice, or maybe school nursing.  You liked the technology and machines, look into the companies who made them and give them a call.  They use nurses to help teach others how to use them and to sell them.  This could be a lot of fun.  If you happen to like the excitement and the adrenaline rush of thinking on your feet and acting quickly and yet not get too emotionally involved with the patient, then maybe emergency room nursing is for you.  It’s a very fast paced area to work.  If you do like working with people, the patients and other health care providers, then bedside nursing is great.  You have 8 or 10 or 12 hour shifts where you will see the patient throughout those hours.  And within that area are several specialties, such as geriatrics, that is working with the elderly.  You could work at skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation centers, day care facilities, or some retirement homes have need of nurses. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box when considering where to work. Large manufacturing companies often have on-site nurses, sporting facilities where professional athletes play, camp nursing would allow one to be outside and work with either healthy or special populations (asthmatics, cancer patients, etc), and working in the prison system.  Prisoners get sick or already were, so there is another special area of care.

Do you enjoy seeing other parts of the country or even the world?  Travel nursing is an exciting field.  Many nursing magazines have advertisements for travel nurses.  You get to experience living in another part of the country, learning about their culture and beliefs, maybe even a different language.

Registry nursing is a challenging area to be.  Here you would work within a company who would send you out to appropriate places to work.  It could be one-to-one nursing in someone’s home, or possibly working in a hospital, or even giving out flu shots at the local drug store, constantly changing environments with new people.

LVN’s also can become instructors and teach other students to become LVNs.  But, with all these areas of nursing, you have to do research and find out more about it.  Some areas will only accept registered nurses; that is why you have to ask more questions. Sometimes you have to explore further from the cities to find where an LVN can work, but the jobs are out there.

Each student at a LVN or LPN school learns about nursing care for all stages of life including childbirth and infancy.  During this phase of life, some nurses have a credential to provide greater assistance for the lactating mother and baby.  There is even an association, The International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA), which has over 5,000 members in 50 nations for the International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs). Nurses, midwives, and physicians are not the only health professionals allowed to become certified as a Lactation Consultants.

This specialty also encourages childbirth educators, dietitians, and other health professionals to apply for certification.  The role of a lactation consultant is far more in-depth than just helping the new mother breastfeed.  According to Valerie Banarie, RN, BSN, CLC from Breastingfeeding.com, Lactation Consultants can address the following breast-feeding challenges: infant latch-on problems, sore nipples, infant’s rapid weight loss or slow weight gain, insufficient breast- milk, and twin infants.

If a LVN or LPN wants to specialize in the clinical management of breastfeeding there are several health care settings that can utilize their expertise.  According to the ILCA (www.ilca.org), Lactation Consultants can work in “…hospitals, pediatric offices, public health clinics, and private practice.” For those that want to address global health, the ILCA with UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), provides representatives to organizations including the World Health Assembly and United Nations.

Well, the Summer break is officially over at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts, and it’s time to roll up those sleeves again and get back to work. For some of our LVN students it’s time to continue their studies, get back to those thick textbooks and get ready to take more lecture notes. They feel like the seniors of Gurnick Academy. LVN classrooms come back to life after a two-week break, and like a busy bee-hive, our LVN college is buzzing again with students hurrying to their classes, instructors walking down the hallways, locomotion in the corridors, moving desks, equipment, projectors… lights… camera… action!

And yet, though some of our nursing students are soon to graduate, others are only beginning their journey. We are talking about the LVN students who are just starting their LVN program now. This will be their first module, and they are about to take their first LVN course, the Fundamentals of Nursing. Our newcomers are about to experience their first contact with this profession, with the world of nursing, as they attend the Clinical Skills Lab course. And even though they have a long way to go to their graduation day and they may feel a little nervous right now, they are excited, because they know that they are on their way to something wonderful, stimulating, and very rewarding. Welcome back to school, Gurnick!

Our Groups 11 and 12 have just begun Module 4.  We’ve advised them even though they see the light at the end of the tunnel, they should hope it’s not a train! (LOL)  Their coursework in becoming an LVN is now covering the specialties of obstetric nursing, pediatric nursing and psychiatric nursing.  They have finished with 24 weeks (that was intense) of Medical Surgical Nursing parts 1 and 2, and Pharmacology, parts 1 and 2.  They will take their 2nd HESI exam next week, this one on Medical Surgical Nursing.

They will go on various field trips this module to Sonoma Developmental Center, John Muir Medical Center, Telecare Gladman, a psyche facility in Oakland, and California Medical Facility, the men’s prison in Vacaville which houses inmates with medical problems—they even have a hospice.  Various LVN schools in California may also have these types of clinical rotations.  Module 4 clinical will also include a day-long OB mock-up using our exciting new patient simulation lab.

They will also earn pediatric clinical hours required for becoming an LVN at Lynn Center in Pittsburg, a school for special needs children from 18 months to 5 years.  They will visit Martin Luther King, Jr. Preschool, where they observe normal growth and development as well as abnormal growth and development. They will also visit with children at the Concord HeadStart site where they will interact with children from infancy through pre-Kindergarten.  They will also spend clinical time at the Juvenile Justice Center Medical Unit in San Leandro for a combination Pediatric and Psych rotation.

A major area in nursing is addressing wellness for both the physical and mental health of patients.  Unfortunately attending to one’s mental health can be very challenging not only the patient, but also for the LVN/LPN.  Fortunately nurses, patients, and their family have a resource called the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which addresses mental health, and has expanded by promoting health for the whole person with mental illness.NAMI has a Wellness Center at their National Convention that promotes healthy living.

The Wellness Center offers activities, advice and information including topics such as: medications, nutrition, blood pressure, smoking cessation, and dental hygiene. According to the NAMI website at www.nami.org, many people with mental illness have challenges with their teeth. Other than dental health professionals, most medical courses, such as the objectives in a LPN program are not required to have extensive dental training.  Knowing the need for further dental health education, Lisa Knapp Stillman and her sister started the Dental Voice for Mental Health.

Since 2008 Lisa and her sister represent their project with a booth at the NAMI convention’s Wellness Center. Lisa, who is both a dental hygienist and a mother of a son with severe mental illness, knows first hand how the medications that treat mental illness can deteriorate teeth.  In The Dental Voice for Mental Health in the summer 2010 issue of NAMI Voice, Stillman states that there are over 700 medications that can cause the side effect, xerostomia (dry-mouth).

Did you see the fireworks this year? Amazing! Well, they are amazing every year, actually. This year, however, for Gurnick Academy, the fireworks seem especially bright to our LVN students, who have worked so hard during this past module! Now that the Final Exams are behind, it is time to enjoy the summer break.

Yes, yes, we know, it is never long enough, and the nursing students are craving a bit longer vacation, but in this accelerated program, two weeks is all you get, if you want to finish your VN nursing degree in just one year. This is why these students come to our LVN program: fast-paced, efficient, effective, packed with information, knowledge to gain, and skills to learn in a fairly short period of time. Besides, Gurnick is the LVN school who cares about our LVN students, helping each and every one of them to succeed and make it to that ever-so-anticipated graduation day.

In just another week, it will be time to again roll up our sleeves and get back to work, but for now, it is time for romantic getaways, hanging with family, Fourth of July fireworks, barbeque, and nice weather. There is time for work, and there is time for play. You deserve a good time, Gurnick!