Understanding These Difficult Times as a Licensed Vocational

I would like to point out the circumstances we are faced with the overall economy and the great decision you as LVN students (or otherwise known as LPN - License Practical Nurse) have made for your future.

I would like to point out the circumstances we are faced with the overall economy and the great decision you as LVN students (or otherwise known as LPN - License Practical Nurse) have made for your future.

We as a nation are coming to the critical point with the aging of the “baby boomers”. Boomers have left their imprint on every stage of American life they’ve passed through, and there’s no reason to think that the seniors years will be any exception. Let’s embrace this time and understand that with this environment of older Americans come the effects of aging. You as LVN students have chosen a field that will enable you to care for the elderly in your new found LVN / LPN career or should I say future career since you must pass the upcoming California state LVN boards for your coveted LVN license. Remember that this education will allow you to be mobile because as we all know our lives change and our situations can become more complex and/or our families grow. With your decision to enter the medical field you are able to take advantage of the employment opportunities which are exploding in this field. Once again I commend you on your excellent decision to enter the medical field. It is always refreshing to know our choices have been wise. No matter what your current circumstance of life, you have made a wise decision in enrolling in an LVN / LPN program.

Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts is an LVN school that prides itself on helping out their students. So rather than just sliding by with a passing grade, buckle down and strive for excellence. Grab the learning opportunities that the staff at Gurnick Academy has to offer you. The staff at Gurnick has many years of hands-on nursing experience: take advantage of that fact. Remember that when many industries are struggling with the difficult economic times the medical field is growing at an exponential rate. Take a deep breath and enjoy this decision you have made for yourself. Apply yourself and study, study, study! The harder you work the luckier you will be.

This message of encouragement was written because I too was a nursing student at one time and I can remember the demands of school and how much it meant to me to hear words of encouragement. We all can use some encouragement from time to time and you as students must know that we at Gurnick want you not only to succeed but to excel. Keep up the hard work and do not let yourselves think about the difficult studies but rather the end result of entering your new wonderful LVN / LPN career. Keep on keeping on.

About the LPN Role

The role of the LPN in various health care settings has evolved over the years along with LPN education. The role in Long Term Care has provided hours of competent patient care under the direction of a Director of Nursing and Assistant Director of Nursing who traditionally are registered nurses. The LPN is usually assigned a specific number of patients to render care to following physician orders, nursing orders as well as oversee the personal care needs of the patient or resident by working closely with certified nursing assistants and allied health professionals, i.e. physical therapy, respiratory therapy and activity or recreational therapy to name a few.

However, medication administration is a primary responsibility of the LPN, with

attention given to the efficacy of the drugs and side effects. Nursing notes, nursing care plan updates and nursing summaries that describe the daily and or monthly health status of the patient or resident are standard duties of the LPN in Long Term Care and Rehabilitation Centers throughout the United States. Each state has a specific licensed practical/vocational nurse practice act that defines the duties of the LPN. The scope of practice is directly related to the education and skilled competencies taught during the educational phase of training prior to taking the State Broad of Nursing Examination for licensure.

LVN & LPN Nursing Programs and Duties

In the medical fraternity nursing is one of the emerging profession, with an increasing number of takers these days. Wherein, LVN training is gaining lot of popularity among those interested to pursue a career in the nursing profession. It is believed that the state of California has the highest educational standards for certification in a LVN program. That is the reason more and more people are trying to find a quality LVN programs in CA.

Introduction to the LVN / LPN programs

1. LVN is abbreviation for Licensed Vocational Nurse.

It consists of clinical hours and three semesters of classroom.

Students enrolled in LVN programs of California have the advantage of working in clinical settings, hospitals or advanced medical facilities and even perform basic nursing procedures.

On parallel to clinical training students have privileged to learn other important skills in the classroom which include the subjects like:

Anatomy and physiology

Pharmacology

Psychology

Rehabilitation nursing

Nutrition

Medical and surgical nursing

Pediatric nursing

Disease management

Gerontological nursing

2. LPN is abbreviation for Licensed Practical Nurse.

This course gets you certified as a practical nurse in less than a year. LPN is one of the best choices in medical field with the prospect to enhance your career with high pay.

Advantages of these programs

There are lots of advantages that one can avail from LVN / LPN programs and they are:

• It is best suited for the individuals who have the flexibility with the shifts and travelling. As many medical provider offer housing and competitive wages as compared to other hospital or health care industry.

• As these programs are of short duration, students get the placement in hospital and clinics sooner.

• It gives a career opportunity who lost the jobs and looking for some changes in career.

Role

After completion of the program, the candidates need to pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX ) to be licensed as LVN or LPN and serve the patient with the duties assigned to them. They are supervised by RNs (Registered Nurses).

LVN nursing duties

1. Basic duties: LVN's assist with the personal care of patients from bathing to personal hygiene, monitor and keep the record changes in patient's condition. They also, keep a check on patient vital signs like measuring blood pressure, temperature and pulse.

2. Technical duties: In terms of performing technical duties, A LVN or LPN insert and monitor catheters, maintain medical equipments, provide sterile wound care. They even draw blood for the tests and administer injections for prescribed medicines. They may put the patient on intravenous fluid depending on his medical conditions.

3. Administrative duties: LVN's perform administrative tasks by taking the case histories of patient and information about current symptoms. They even schedule appointments for patients and also help in completing the required application forms.

So, LVN nursing entails these duties in hospitals, clinics or they might be required work in a specific department like emergency ward, ICU, maternity or pediatrics. LVN certification opens the door for those who are prepared for a demanding career which involves caring and serving sick people.

Vocational institute conducts LVN LPN programs, ultrasound technician programs, MRI courses, phlebotomy courses and psychiatric technician training in California

Exploring LVN Nursing

So you want to explore LPN nursing?

You want to take care of people, teach them about how to take care of themselves, and maybe you want to be the one who speaks up for those who can’t speak up for themselves? Maybe infants, children or elderly people? Fantastic! Then LPN nursing is a great place for you!

When you become an LPN you are becoming a licensed practical nurse (or in some areas, it’s called an LVN, which is licensed vocational nurse).

The first thing for you to do is go on the Internet and do some research. You’ll find there are many, many, many choices about where to go. The lengths of the programs are different (anywhere from twelve months to eighteen months). The LVN courses are pretty much the same since that is decided by the state board, called the BVNPT (Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians). On completion of the program, you will have to have a certain number of didactic, or classroom hours and certain number of clinical or practicum hours, that are “hands on.” The LVN courses cover the life span of a person. You will learn about the developing fetus in OB Nursing, the growing child in Pediatrics, the adult in Medical and Surgical Nursing as well as Psychiatric nursing. You will also learn about the world of medications in pharmacology. In clinical, your knowledge is applied to real people under the supervision of an instructor.

What if…

Being sick is no fun at all! You miss out on all the interesting things, such as going out, hanging out with friends, going to movies. You just feel plain miserable, when you are not feeling your normal self. Yes, it’s true, sometimes we feel like we are getting exhausted trying to keep up with this crazy pace of life, especially here, in California. Like, for example, students attending VN programs. And sometimes we may feel like getting sick would give us an excuse to slow down, take it easy for a couple of days, and just relax in bed, which VN students happily do so often. But the real truth is, being sick does not relax you, it makes you more exhausted. And being a student, on the way to becoming an LVN nurse, it only puts you behind in studies, making life even more stressful, once you return to school

So, what would be the solution here: if getting sick is the only way you allow yourself to stop the marathon you are running against yourself, take a deep breath, look around and relax? What is going on with us, if we can’t stop to smell the flowers, so consumed with our day to day routines? Something must be wrong with this picture! Something needs to change. This change has to come from within, like everything else that rules our lives. Until we take control over our own existence, we will never get rest, and hoping to get sick to have a chance to slow down will seem like a way out.

We talked about this in the previous writings, when we discussed the internal versus external loci of control. In this case, waiting for something to happen to make us slow down would be placing the control outside of self. Instead, empowering ourselves to take control and consciously slow down, focusing on what is important. And what can be more important than life itself? Often, people get upset over the smallest things, yelling at each other in frustration, crying, or even isolating themselves in depression. However, in most cases, the things we get mad about are not as significant if we take a few steps back, or try to look at the situation from the distance, from far away, take a bird’s eye view. It’s funny how things we are stressing over become small and insignificant. If in this situation nobody died and nobody got really irreversibly hurt, then there is no reason to be upset.

And yet, we often hang on to the little details and let them get to us. That’s why we get so exhausted: we torture ourselves over the pitiful, minute things, and we often feel like we need an escape. And since most of us can not go on vacation every month, we wish to get sick to get a few days off. A few days off from ourselves would be the more correct description. But is that necessary? What if we could just stop to smell the roses, and enjoy life with all its craziness? What if an LVN school student could take a moment to smile and appreciate life around? What if they looked at studying as fun, not a chore? What if?..

Honesty and Integrity in Nursing

One of the most important aspects of nursing is the trusting relationship people expect to have with their nurse. Nursing (whether RN Registered Nursing, LVN Licensed Vocational Nursing or LPN Licensed Practical Nursing) is one of the most ethical professions in that people feel an innate ability to trust their nurse, whether s/he is caring for their newborn premie in the intensive care nursery or their ailing grandmother in a skilled nursing facility. Many times physicians may leave clients and families with more questions than answers. Nurses serve to bridge the gap between medical knowledge and information given by the physician and how that new information can be absorbed and understood by the client and family members.

The nurse is the one who is usually in the room as family members voice their feelings about a newly diagnosed illness or change in condition. Questions that clients and family members have about how to deal with these changes may be most easily voiced to the nurse, as the nurse appears to have more time, and perhaps more patience to answer the questions. A nurse cannot be expected to know all of the answers, but his or her professional behavior dictates that if s/he doesn’t know the answer or isn’t sure, that they are able to ask the doctor and ensure the client and family that s/he will return with more information. It is of vital importance that the nurse has the ethical standard of being able to say, “I don’t know.”

Being afraid to admit to not knowing something is ultimately a weakness in nursing, because it may lead the nurse to say something s/he does not know to be true. It is always better to say, “I don’t know, but I will find out for you.” Being truthful about what you do or do not know enables others to trust you. Nurses are not expected to be all knowing, although there is a great deal that is learned in LVN courses in nursing school and in taking care of clients and families. Nurses are encouraged to be human, to connect with their patients and to engage in authentic communication.

Empowering the Patient with Informatics

From 1975-2006 medical doctor Tom Ferguson, “Doc Tom” studied and wrote about how to empower the medical consumer. Though he himself is no longer alive, his pioneering work is alive and well. In 1993 “Doc Tom” organized the world’s first conference to help medical consumers gain more medical knowledge from computer systems. One of the many advantages of Fergusen writing books and starting a patient-informational blog, is that his work can continue to empower patients today and into the future. On his e-patients.net website, Ferguson states that he created the term, “…e-patients to describe individuals who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions.”

He was not only a physician, but for the last fifteen years of his life he also lived as a patient with multiple myeloma. During his life with cancer he was able to work toward his vision of health care being an equal partnership between e-patients and health professionals. In Ferguson’s e-book “e-Patients: How they can help us heal healthcare he describes the changes in history from when the patient was totally physician-dependent for information about their diagnosis and procedures to the advent of the internet search-engines that serve an ever-increasing number of consumers surfing the internet for answers about their illness. Instead of the internet search-engines replacing the doctor, reputable medical websites can serve as support for the physician, nurse and patient.

Part of becoming a LPN/LVN involves practicing effective patient-education during the training at an LVN/LPN school. In 1999 Doc Tom was honored with another name “Online Health Hero” by the Intel Corporation’s Health Initiative Project. This award was given to him for his work in the field of health informatics. Health informatics brings both information technology together with healthcare concerns to assist a variety of healthcare professionals and their patients. Medical doctors, dentists, veterinarians, and nurses can benefit from having access to this technology. At Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts, computers are just one resource available to the students to search for healthcare information, and also assist with searching for a LVN/LPN job.

As health informatics is becoming more popular amongst nurses, there are professional organizations such as, the ANIA-CARING to advance the field of nursing informatics through communication, education, research and professional activities. You can visit the ANIA-CARING website at ania-caring.org to read about more information about the growing field of nursing informatics.

Nothing Plain About Planetree Hospitals

The Planetree model of care, founded by Angelica Thierot in 1978, named her model after the tree that Hippocrates (founder of modern medicine) taught his students under in Ancient Greece. Angelica, who herself has a name that is connected to a healing image, is probably an angel to numerous patients since initiating her all-encompassing model, which is both patient-centered and holistic by promoting the mental, emotional, spiritual, social and physical healing of the patient. Not only does the patient benefit, but the family as well is empowered with information. Anyone becoming a LVN/LPN or seeking a LVN/LPN job will be glad to know that this health-care model also encourages healing partnerships with caregivers, and provides a working/healing environment that includes art and nature.

The Planetree model of care can found in both small-rural to large-urban hospitals, long-term facilities, out-patient clinics, and community health centers. In self-care guru Tom Ferguson, MD’s article “Planetree: The Homey Hospital” posted in www.healthy.net, he takes us into a Planetree-embraced hospital as the patient. Ferguson describes the environment decorated with hand-painted borders on his door, soft classical music, full-spectrum lighting, and subdued-colored walls.

He also describes how the patient’s home is brought into their hospital experience by wearing PJs from home or having family cook a meal in a private kitchen, visit in a private room to view your favorite movie, and if desired family can stay around the clock. If that is not enough, Ferguson states, “… interested family members are trained to give routine and advanced nursing care—changing dressings, caring for permanent intravenous lines, flushing out IVs and suctioning family members who are on respirators.”

This both supports their loved one as an in-patient, and the newly learned skills can be continued at home. Nursing students at a LVN/LPN school know firsthand the importance of practicing skills during their skills lab practice prior to performing them in the hospital. The complex Planetree model continues to branch out from its origin in the United States to both Canada and Europe. More information about the Planetree model can be found at www.planetree.org

Becoming A Hospice Nurse

By becoming a Hospice nurse you automatically become part of an interdisciplinary team that includes: the patient’s family, volunteers, social worker, chaplain, medical director, nursing assistants, RNs, and LVN/LPNs. In some Hospices they utilize aroma, music, massage, occupational, speech, or physical therapists. Hospice care is a branch of palliative care. Hospice care is usually given in the last 6-9 months of life. Whereas according to the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) “Palliative care is both a philosophy of care and an organized, highly structured system for delivering care.” The goals of palliative care include: prevention and relief from suffering, enhance the quality of life for both patients and their family, and assist with making decisions.

Unlike Hospice, palliative care can be provided during any stage of an illness. Both Hospice and palliative care can be offered at the patient’s place of residence, the hospital or skilled nursing facility. Hospice care can also be provided in inpatient hospice units, and

Hospice-run residential facilities, known as Hospice Homes. These “homes” provide respite for the family and help manage the patient’s symptoms. To gain more knowledge about this specialty, the LVN/LPN schools usually provide the opportunity to shadow a Hospice nurse during the latter part of the LVN/LPN student’s program. In addition the HPNA offers additional information for the nurse and student nurse about palliative nursing across the life span.

In 1986 the Hospice Nurses Association was created to support Hospice nurses. Later on in 1998 HPNA was created to include palliative care nurses. The HPNA promotes excellence in palliative care and offers support and education to their members. The HPNA membership is open to advanced practice nurses, registered nurses, licensed practical/vocational nurses, and nursing assistants who care for people with life-limiting and terminal illness. For more information about hospice and palliative care nursing visit www.hpna.org

Nurses As Massage Therapist

Recently I taught a Skills Lab for the nursing program at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts. This week’s learning objectives include massage. You may be thinking, “I didn’t know massage was part of the LVN or LPN schools training?” Usually massage is performed by the nurse or nurse’s assistant after bath care or at bedtime. Unfortunately nurses typically do not have the time to massage their patients. The good news is that if the student nurse takes the time to massage their patient’s hands during their clinical rotations, massage will more likely be incorporated into their LVN or LPN jobs. For the nurse who want additional training in bodywork there are massage programs with 500 hours of therapeutic massage and bodywork to earn the title Nurse Massage Therapist. According to the article Nurse Massage Therapy posted on MassageTherapy101.com, “[massage] is used to help patients recover more quickly from injury and illness, while also providing relief from any pain or discomfort they may be experiencing during the healing period.”

This article also states that Nurse Massage Therapists are now employed in various positions from private practice, nursing homes, hospitals, community health, and rehabilitation centers to Hospice. Massage is not only needed by the patient. Nurses also need modalities to support their well-being. One association that promotes this holistic practice is the National Association of Nurse Massage Therapy (NANMT). To become an active NANMT member requires a nursing license and certification by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, or a state license to practice therapeutic massage/bodywork, or has completed a minimum of 500 hours verifiable instruction in massage and/or bodyworks. For those who are becoming a LPN or LVN, and want to know more about this specialty, you can contact the NANMT at www.nanmt.org.

LPN Certification and Certificate Programs

LPN certification which prepare students for licensing as practical nurses, can be completed through a number of 2-year colleges. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs will grow very quickly for licensed practical nurses over the decade between 2008 and 2018. Licensed practical nurses are also known as licensed vocational nurses.

LPN Certificate:

After 2 year community, colleges and trade schools offer LPN certificates. Students can earn a certificate in licensed practical nursing within 2-3 semesters. During that time, they will gain nursing experience through both classroom and laboratory work, learning how to care for patients across a variety of healthcare settings. In addition, certificate programs prepare students for the National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nurses “NCLEX-PN)”,which is required to practice as an LPN.

Following is Educational Prerequisites:

In order to qualify for an LPN certificate program students must first earn a high school diploma or "GED". Colleges may also require applicants to pass basic aptitude tests, which gauge fundamental English and math skills. Additionally some schools necessitate that students complete introductory biology and anatomy courses before enrolling.

Continuing Education Information :

LPN certificate holders can go on to earn an associates or bachelors degree in nursing, both of which qualify them to take the NCLEX for registered nurses “RNs”. Registered nurses supervise licensed practical nurses and work more closely with physicians.

LPN Training

An LPN training course first involves having a high school diploma or GED. Usually entrance exams are required at most schools. The course of study for the PN student is usually between 12-24 months. Some of the required courses include the following,Fundamentals of Nursing, Anatomy and Physiology, Nutrition, Medical-Surgical nursing, Pharmacology, Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Psychiatric nursing and a clinical component supervised by an instructor. The training for the PN student can take place at a community college, private college or trade school.Once an LPN graduates from a school, they are eligible to take the licensing exam called the NCLEX-PN. Upon passing this exam, the person is now licensed and able to work in their state.

LPN are usually supervised by a Registered Nurse RN or a physician. LPNs work in many different areas besides hospitals. They also work in clinics, long term care facilities, home health nursing, prisons, and can teach in LPN programs. The greatest need for LPN is going to be in home health care and long term care the higher demand for this occupation results from the aging baby boomer population and a general increase in demand for more health care services.

The LPN is a person who can walk a mile in another person’s shoes. The nurse needs to have empathy and be a caring and confident individual. With professional advantages and personal rewards, the role of the LPN has it all.