R.N.

The Exam

I got to the test fifty minutes early (I almost missed my LPN exam the year before because I couldn't find the building and I didn't really want to deal with the adrenaline rush this time). People slowly trickled into the building (there were four other BYU nursing students) and at 7:30 they opened the testing center. They called me up to be scanned and fingerprinted and after six failed attempts my palm vein scan went through...but it didn't match up with the scan from my LPN scan (although I doubt my veins did any serious moving in only eight months :) ).

One hour after everyone else started, I was allowed to begin (they had to do some weird back-up procedure). I was expecting lots of 'select all that apply' questions, but I'd say they only made up about 1/6th of my test. I did get massive amounts of priority questions (you know, if patient A is in dire condition, patient B is seeing lights at the end of the tunnel, and patient c is trying to jump out of the window, who will you see first?) and a good deal of medication
questions. The test questions really weren't that bad (as in I recognized the material, but I was still pretty iffy on the right answer). I had one math question and none of the audio or diagram type questions. I answered 75 before getting kicked out.

The Wait

I left feeling pretty good about life because a) we were told that BYU students never get kicked out at 75 questions and fail and b) our instructor was pretty sure that all BYU nursing students who pass the LPN exam also pass the RN exam. The next day Calvin, a student from my testing group, posted on facebook that he passed. I rushed to the dopl website, but my name wasn't there.

I looked up the other four BYU nursing students. They were all listed there, but not me. At that point I started to panic. In the next two hours I went through 4 of the 5 stages of grieving and then went to bed planning to spend the next day eating lots of tator-tots (they're my comfort food) and mapping out a rigorous study schedule.

The one sure way to know if you failed or passed the exam is to wait for the results to come through the mail or to shell out $7.95 two days after the exam and find out early. I needed closure, so I paid the money and found out I passed. Dopl now has my name up (I'm still not sure why it took them so long to post my results) and you can see it here :)

Lakin Hays, R.N.

Now What?

I'm still working at my nursing home, but now as a registered nurse (woot for a $2 pay raise) and I'm applying for a second job at my capstone facility. The position is night shift on the medical/surgical floor. I'm not thrilled about the prospect of messing with my eight-hour, 9-5 sleeping schedule, but it will be wonderful to be working in a hospital again. Now I just have to find a hobby to fill up all of my spare time :)