The School and SIM Lab

I went up to the Methodist College of Nursing campus yesterday and again today to check out the SIM lab. The staff at both are VERY helpful and open to suggestions from students to make the school better. There are about 550 students that attend the various programs at the school.

The Methodist Hospital (where clinical are held) is pretty huge. There is even a gym with a few lap lanes that students can use. The school is on the opposite side of the highway from the hospital and has a few study rooms and a nice library. The school is actually an old hotel that the hospital bought and converted into a school. In fact, there are bath tubs in all of the faculty’s offices.

Why Nursing

Aside from all the reasons mentioned above I really appreciate the opportunity to work three days a week and be considered a full time employee. This will allow me to spend more time with my family and friends and only work the three full days. Nursing also provides the opportunity to move up a career ladder in a very precise way. There is the ability to become a teacher at a college of nursing. In the end I feel that the overall top reason to be a nurse is that the opportunities are completely endless both career and pay wise.

Male In Nursing

Being a male going into nursing is obviously something that must be addressed. In fact just today my brother in law who is a head vet technician was teaching in a children’s Sunday school class and he introduced himself as a head vet tech, the children of course had no idea what that was and he explained that it was like being a head nurse at that point the children laughed their heads off and called him a girl.

MCON Campus

The school itself is a bit run down but appears to have more than adequate space and facilities to house the near 400 students that attend. There is a small library that is open 24 hours a day with several private study rooms. There is a large computer lab and many small and large classrooms. The bookstore has a handful of MCON apparel all in girly colors of course so I am sure that I will not buy one. The building is about 9 floors and houses the on campus housing as well. It has controlled access that only opens the doors with an ID badge. I will update on the facilities once school begins.

Peoria - The Town

The town of Peoria is an interesting town it is a very small town compared to Houston where I moved from. It only has about 120,000 people. The downtown is pretty ghetto but they are building nice, new homes and retail on the north side of town. It is pretty easy to get around here due to pretty minimal traffic so I would suggest living on the north side near Dunlap and the Shops of Grand Prairie. In reality there are only a few streets that get you around town, War Memorial, Knoxville, the 74 and a few others.

Moving to Peoria

Following the wise advice of the same friend in medical school I called MCON and asked that my acceptance to the school be deferred until the following semester. They were willing to allow for me to be the first application in the stack for the next semester but would not defer.

Within a week of starting my new desk job I was about ready to blow my brains out. It was not for me and I knew that I could not continue in this job. After some deliberation I decided to call MCON and check on my application status. Thankfully I was again accepted to attend the ABSN program starting in January 2011.

Applying to Methodist College of Nursing

Life went on and I had totally convinced myself that nursing was not for me. To make a long story short I enrolled in a program to finish my Bachelors degree in Business and begin thinking again about medicine. I investigated medical school or podiatry school. Both of these routes took too long and in the end I knew that I did not have the scholastic stamina to stick it out. At the same time I continued to look into nursing. I discovered that in reality CRNAs can make an incredible living. Not only that but many nurses in other fields make 70-80k a year and nurse practitioners can make over 100k. A brand new grad RN can make at least $21/hour in most states and up to $27/hour or more in some areas.