Medical Training

Whether you are considering becoming a RN or a LVN/LPN classes, travel nursing opportunities are abundant.  These temporary nursing positions are a great way to see someplace new, and a way to consider places to later relocate. I once knew of a nurse who wanted to spend her summers near the ocean.  Instead of going through an agency or a nursing recruiter, she asked the hospital of her choice for a summer salary with a housing allotment.  This was a great way for her family of four to spend a summer in her idea of paradise. However if you are looking for simplicity in job placement, it is easy to search on the internet for traveling nurse staffing agencies; make sure you first find out which hospitals and shifts that they are contracted for.

Hospitals generally utilize traveling nurses to cope with the increasing shortage of nurses. If you graduated from a LVN/LPN program and are considering working in another state, first find out the licensure requirements from the state’s board of LVN.  Since each state has different LVN/LPN requirements, it is a good idea to plan ahead.  Another recommendation before signing onto this journey is to first work in one facility for at least one year to develop a foundation and learn as much as you can about nursing.  Sometimes nursing students make the mistake of thinking that all they need to know about nursing will be taught at their LVN/LPN school.

Even though nursing schools, such as Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts offer “real” life situations with simulated mannequins and clinical experience in healthcare facilities, the career of nursing is an ongoing classroom filled with endless opportunities to learn.  In addition, by selecting an area of expertise and becoming certified in that specialty, will place you in even more demand, which can lead to more choices in your job positions.  One last suggestion is to speak directly with a traveling nurse to find out the pros and cons.  If you don’t know of any traveling nurses, you can check out one of the many blogsites written by “real” nurses who have experience in this exciting career.

I am one of the clinical instructors for LVN or Licensed Vocational Nurse of Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts. I am currently handling Module IV and we’re having our clinical at Stonebrook Health and Rehab. Stonebrook is located at Concord Blvd in Concord, CA and it is both a short term rehab and long term facility that has 120 bed capacity. I’ve been working at Stonebrook for more than five years and I can say that Stonebrook is one of the best place for clinical site or training ground for SVNs or Student Vocational Nurses.

Module IV students are one step closer in a becoming Licensed Vocational Nurses. That’s why they are practicing or doing actual LVN works or duties. They are doing the actual med pass with 18 to 22 patients. They are the one preparing and giving the medicines to patients but of course with supervision of a licensed staff, either an LVN or RN. They are doing wound care or treatments not only the simple or common wounds but even the complicated ones. They are given the chance not only to observe but to do actual wound vacs themselves. Each student is given their chance to do common bedside procedures like catheterization, suture and staple removal, different types of enemas (fleet and retention enemas), colostomy, G-tube and NG tube care and feeding. They also do actual documentations like nurse’s notes, weekly summaries and care plans. And they also carry out actual doctor’s orders.

This is only the 3rd module that I handled and so far I can say that I really enjoy teaching or handling module IV because this is the last module they need to become Licensed Vocational Nurses. And it gives me a sense of accomplishment knowing that I was able to enrich their knowledge and help them gain the self confidence they need to be effective and efficient nurses in the future.

Have you heard the latest and the most exciting news and Gurnick Academy? Our newest LVN Program graduates, who just finished the post-program review course, completed their first attempt to pass the exit HESI exam last Saturday. The results were unbelievable! 82% passed it the first time! This is the first time in the history of our school, when we have such high passing rates from the first HESI attempt! Thanks to the hard work of all our instructors, staff, administration, and, of course, the students themselves, we are achieving such astonishing results!

An important aspect of LPN training is maternal-child education.  Although many acute hospital units that care for pregnant women i.e. prenatal units do not employ the LPN the understanding of the origin of human life is an essential component of LPN education.  The curriculum generally includes the following:  basic biological principals of the symphony of hormones necessary for conception to take place, the conditions of embryo and fetal gestational growth, complications of pregnancy, labor and delivery, postpartum, the newborn as well as contraceptives.

The role of the LPN during the perinatal period in various health care settings depends mostly on the nursing scope of practice for that state.  Maternal-child health presents many risk factors that require specific assessment skills that are not included in LPN didactic education or skill set training.  In view of that fact the LPN can provide some basic nutritional guidelines, recommended weight gain  education as well as contraceptive alternatives to the expectant families, family planning clinics, physician offices and public health agencies many welcome the LPN as a valued staff member.  Sexually transmitted disease education is often a role for the LPN and some LPN’s have completed certification programs that allow the classification of specialist to be designated following their license initials.

We are half-way through the module, and it’s time for the six-week evaluations for our LVN students at Gurnick Academy. All faculty and students must participate to follow up on our VN students’ academic progress. This means, the instructors are completing evaluation sheets to establish the academic and practical standing of each student.

What a great idea this is! Each of our nursing students will find out from the teachers, where they are in terms of their grades and overall progress in our LVN program. Some of our students are only at the beginning of their journey, and have a long way ahead of them. This is their first module on the LVN program, and they are trying so hard! Some of the subjects are very new to many of them, but still fun to learn and practice. Practicing using crutches in the Clinical Skills lab, learning about the nursing process in the Fundamentals’ class, and studying for midterms in Anatomy, is not easy, but surely is interesting and involving.  Other students have been on the Nursing program for a while, and now they are half-way through their courses. For these nursing students, it is time to stay focused in their Medical Surgical Nursing and Pharmacology, as well as keep improving their skills in the Clinical Practice rotations.

Half-way through the module, we want to motivate our students to keep up the good work and work on the areas for improvement. This is the time to replenish the connectedness between students and their instructors, and to insure the continuity of high quality education.

When we, the faculty at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts, tell our students “we are here for you,” we actually mean it. Yes, it’s true, our LVN students have to work very hard toward their degree, and no, we do not “sell” the diplomas for the tuition fees. Our nursing students have to put a lot of work and their time into their studies to get the right to become a Licensed Vocational Nurse. However, when it comes to helping our students achieve their goal in education and becoming a healthcare professional, we stand behind them one hundred percent.

So, when LVN program students express their opinion on assignments given in class and at home, we listen to what they have to say. Everyone has a voice and deserves to be heard and considered. We do want to know, what works for our students, what learning techniques are the most useful in achieving maximum results, and which methods may need to be retired. This way, we get maximum student satisfaction, and yet the highest results in academic success. It is possible to get both: high students satisfaction scores for our school, and high NCLEX scores from our graduates. We push them hard, but we push them wisely. After all, we are here for them primarily. So whatever they have to say, we do listen , and we to hear.

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.

The delicious smell of barbeque smoke is in the air, every here and there, chairs are pulled outside, backyard umbrellas open, and swimming pools become crowded by the minute. Cars, with happy dogs peaking out of the windows, are rushing to the shore, to the ocean, where the hot summer sun meets the welcoming, soft sand and the cool, salty water. The summer is here.

As our LVN schools doors swing open, out hurry our nursing students, hugging their books, holding them against their bodies, rushing to their cars, or catching those rides home. They hurry home to their families to start the summer vacation. No school for two whole weeks! No homework, no classes, no clinicals, no tests, no quizzes, no sweat! Well, perhaps, yes, sweat, but that would be from the hot Californian sun, kissing the pale in-door student skin and the tired bodies, exhausted from hard work and sleepless nights, while studying at our high-paced LVN program.

For two whole weeks there will be not a care in the world. Going to an LVN College is great and rewarding, but nothing beats a good, healthy, so-very-relaxing school break! The summer is here, and even though, the Gurnick LVN students are very serious about their studies, they will also seriously enjoy their well-deserved summer break.

As an instructor for an LVN program, we know how important laughter is, when it comes to learning. Imagine, the first day of class, nervous brand new LVN students are anxiously waiting at their desks to discover what kind of teacher their new instructor will be. Will this be a demanding “prima donna,” or a tyrant and a monster, or perhaps, an easy-going pushover?  Will this instructor burry them under mounds of homework, or will she expect them to absorb and regurgitate every word she speaks, or will she be easy-going, for an “easy A?” …Probably, not.

As the class begins, it starts with a joke, something related to the field of healthcare, or maybe the teacher making fun of herself, making a quick humorous remark at her own expense. And suddenly something magical happens: a smile breaks out on a worried face, and the tense wrinkle between the eyebrows disappears, nervous grimace is replaced by a friendly warmth in the eyes of a student. Now, we are ready to learn.

It is absolutely essential for our LVN students, as well as any other students, to be at ease, when coming to class. Tension is one of the enemies of effective learning. A nervous student is less receptive to new information, less responsive to the learning environment, and more prone to failing. This goes back to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: the need to feel safe is much more important than the need for learning and self-actualization. The need for our LVN students to feel that they are in a safe place, where they will not be attacked, but rather can express their needs, feelings, and concerns, is vital to successful learning environment.

This is why here, at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts, we make sure, our students feel exactly this way. This is why on the first day of class, the instructor makes an announcement that the very first course our new students are taking will start with a special event, where everyone has to bring a food item and a joke to share with their new classmates. Laughter is the first thing that can put anyone at ease in an instant. If you can laugh with someone, they momentarily become your buddy, and you are no longer so worried about making friends with complete strangers.

Yes, here, at Gurnick academy, we believe that laughter brings people together, making us closer to each other, helping us learn from each other and get along. After all, this is what we all want: to find our own place in this world and to get along with others. Only then, we can strive for higher heights, and attempt to achieve more. Only then we can truly live, as we laugh, and learn.

The answer to this question is that both LVN / LPN schools and the state of California require boundaries.  According to Anne Katherine, M.A., author of Where To Draw The Line: How To Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day, “A boundary is a limit that promotes integrity.” One type of professional boundary-setting discussed in her book involves the use of dress and attire.

Have you ever wondered why a LVN or LPN program, such as Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts requires the students to wear professional uniforms?  Katherine says, “Our appearance and attire are the first signals we send to people.  By our attire we reveal who we are, [and] what we care about…” The next time you go to a health clinic notice how safe or unsafe you feel in response to the attire worn by members of the office staff.  If you find yourself wanting to run out the door, it might simply be your sensitivity to the nurse’s jewelry that looks like s/he fell into a fishing-tackle box, or the fashion-torn jeans.  There is nothing wrong with jewelry or fashionable clothing.  The key is to find a balance between personal expression and sending a message that relays “Don’t worry – I won’t hurt you.” As you become more aware of how appearance can either stimulate fear or foster reassurance, the nursing-career-focused attire can become a tool to support both therapeutic and professional relationship.