First known RN's from our class

I'm still digging through the state's database, but so far I see that Missy and Albina are both RNs as of today. Congratulations!

... And Anne and Adrianna as well!

Grace Clinic hat tip to CBC

From an email to all volunteer nurses at Grace Clinic:

I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate the CBC students who have already graduated from the RN program and will be getting pinned Saturday afternoon. They are Jeff Jewell, Missy Fargher, Gulmira Shelton, Albina Pace, Sharon Shaw, Carla Schultz, Ranae McCullough, and Kristie Bond. Grace Clinic is a better place for each of you taking the time to volunteer here and we are thankful for the continuing relationship with CBC that you help us maintain. Congratulations and we are all proud of your achievement.

I heard a number of great comments from Grace Clinic regular volunteers about CBC students. I hope next year there will be even more CBC volunteers.

No NCLEX authorization yet? You have a problem!

Disclaimer: This is "unofficial word", but from my experience:

If you have not gotten your authorization to test, THERE IS A PROBLEM. You need to check into it. The dates are filling up horribly. I was just able to scheduled today, due to a problem on my application to the state board, and the earliest date that I could get at either Spokane or Yakima was July 7th at 8am. Also, it didn't look like there were any times other than 8am.

Here is what I did to track down the problem, and both at the state level, and PearsonVue, they worked quickly to get it fixed. The outcome was just very disappointing, because I got such a late test date:

I called PearsonVue first:
United States - 1-866-496-2539 (toll free) Monday - Friday 7am - 7pm US CT

They told me that they hadn't received the go-ahead from the nursing board, and they gave me the number to call there, which is: 360-236-4700 (not toll free). You get a voice menu, and the choices don't seem to fit any of the situations, so I selected "6", for "other problem". Also note that I tried at least one of the other options yesterday, and it gave me a recording saying that they were too busy, call back another day and disconnected me--no chance to leave a message--nothing. So "6" is your best bet.

Good luck!

Come on, nurses, you shouldn't mind an extra tax!

Did you realize that in 2005, our governor decided that there needed to be a nursing center in the state for the benefit of all Washington residents? (click document at left for the full PDF file) Who could argue with that, especially since we're nurses, right? Some of the benefits of this center are:

1. Maintain information on the current and projected supply and demand of nurses;
2. Monitor and validate trends in the applicant pool for programs in nursing;
3. Facilitate partnerships between the nursing community and other health care providers, licensing authority, business and industry, consumers, legislators, and educators;
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of nursing education and articulation among programs to increase access to nursing education;
5. Provide consultation, technical assistance, data and information related to Washington state and national nursing resources;
6. Promote strategies to enhance patient safety and quality patient care; and,
7. Educate the public including students in grades K-12 about opportunities and
careers in nursing.

Well, this center that they set up, "to contribute to the health and wellness of Washington state residents," is paid for by us, as nurses, every year. To fund this, they raised the cost of annual nursing license renewal fees.

Is it just me, or does this seem a little unfair? Let's say that the governor thought we should have a new law enforcement resource center set up in Washington state. Clearly, we would want to charge each police officer a $5 per year fee, right? I don't think it would fly. Someone show me what I'm missing here...

Congratulations Sophomores!

We're done, guys! I don't know that anyone sees this other than me, but I had to write something somewhere, since I have no mountaintop close by to shout it from. It sure is a relief, isn't it? Not much else to say about it, but I can't stop thinking about the fact that I don't have anything due...well, except that at some point soon I'll be taking NCLEX-RN and should probably be getting ready for that. But that can always wait until tomorrow, right?