Virtual Information Session: MSN Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Online Information Session

Hi everyone. Umm I am going to give just a few minutes for everyone to get logged in. Uh, my name is Joni Ritsky and I work at the University of Cincinnati with our online MSN Nurse Practitioner Program. Umm. So I put a little message in the chat. Umm, but we will get started here in just a minute or two. Umm again, I just want to leave some time for everyone to get logged in. So just relax for a couple of minutes and then we will go ahead and get started.

Alright, I'm going to give just another few seconds here for people to get logged in and then we will get started.

OK. Our numbers have kind of evened out a little bit there. So again, my name is Joni Ritsky. I work at the University of Cincinnati with our online MSN Women's Health Nurse Practitioner program. I am a Senior Enrollment Services Advisor. So if any of you have requested information already, you've likely heard from myself or one of my colleagues. But we will kind of go through the program. We've got the program coordinator here with us tonight. So I will go ahead and get started here.

So I always like to start out with our vision, mission and our core values. So this is really something that we hope that you see from us from the moment you request information and you connect with one of my colleagues all the way through to when you graduate. And I especially like to highlight the core value. So collaboration, accountability, integrity, respect and excellence. And that is something that not only as faculty and staff we strive for, but we also want our students to have those core values as well.

So again, hope that those are things that you have already noticed about our program and the way that you've interacted with us.

Some fun little facts about UC College of Nursing and our programs. We were the first in the nation to offer ABSN degree, so very strong history in nursing and we've also been offering graduate level online learning since 2007. So we are very well established in the online sphere. It wasn't a post COVID kind of pivot for us. This is something that we've been doing for a very long time.

In fact, 84% of the College of Nursing students attend their programs online. So a very high percentage of our students are interacting with us in an online format, whether they're in Cincinnati or California.

And another really important factor is that all of our full time faculty are certified in the specialty in which they teach and they also still practice. So I think it's really important in a nursing program that you are being taught by those who are you know out there doing what they're teaching you to do.

And have current examples. So nice to have those qualities in our faculty members.

MMM.

We also have multiple layers of support here at the University of Cincinnati. So as I've mentioned, I'm an enrollment services advisor and we are a team of five. So you again have likely heard from myself or one of my colleagues and we're with you from the moment you request information to helping you with an application if you get an offer confirming your spot.

We would pass you along to your student success coordinator and they're kind of like your advisor throughout the program. So they're with you from, you know, registering for your first semester through to graduation. The clinical site coordinator is a really great resource that you will lean on starting in your third or fourth semester of the program, so they can help facilitate contracts for clinical sites and things like that. And we'll get into more of that detail later on. And we have our program coordinators or directors.

Our other faculty members, obviously key people to have teaching the programs and you'll also have financial aid support staff. So we have a specific team for our online students. So you will have that support kind of all around. So lots of different people that you will be able to lean on when you need help. And you'll always have at least one specific contact person as well. So you'll know, you know. If you're uncertain who to reach out to, you can reach out to your enrollment services advisor or your student success coordinator and we can make sure that we get you to the appropriate person.

I'm trying to find my mouse here. Alright, so now I will pass off to Program Coordinator, Assistant Director of Public Moss.

Great. Hi, good evening everyone. My name is Tamara Moss and I am Faculty and Program Director for the Women's Health NP Program at University of Cincinnati. I have been certified as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner since 1994 and I have practiced primarily in the Central California and on the United States, Mexico border. Currently my focus is on education and developing and implementing technology through online and on site simulation experiences.

And this evening, I will be reviewing the Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Program as a specialty who should apply and then I will briefly discuss the program and the preceptors and then we'll be open to questions after that. So next slide.

Who should apply? RNS with ABSN are who are eligible to apply the What types of professional experiences are best for a woman's health applicant? Many applicants have worked in labor and delivery, or on postpartum units, or in Newborn nurseries or Nick Hughes, but there might even be some working in outpatient OBGYN clinics as well.

While these experiences provide exposure for working with individuals and their families, we have applicants that have never worked in Women's Health also apply, but usually they have some kind of a stated reason or interest in being in Women's Health, so we do welcome everyone to apply. You need one year of RN experience, so let's highlight what a Women's Health nurse practitioner practice might look like in case some of you.

Aren't familiar with some of the different areas. Typically we are seeing a patient population starting at puberty through the lifespan. We deliver a range of acute, chronic and preventative healthcare services in both outpatient and inpatient settings. And I'll kind of go over the inpatient settings here in a minute. Outpatient settings would range from things like private practices, community health clinics, specialty clinics like a maternal fetal medicine clinic, urogyne or infertility.

As for an inpatient settings, Women's Health MPs may practice an OB triage or supporting roles on a gynecological floor or postpartum units. And these are just kind of a few environments that you might find Women's Health nurse practitioners being practicing it. As for a little bit, just more about the program and then we'll kind of move on to the to the schema.

Graduating from our program makes you eligible to take what's is is the Women's Health NP certification exam through the National certification, through the National Certification Corporation or as it's referred to as NCC. And some of you may already be familiar with NCC because you may they are the ones that do a lot of the obstetrical certifications for inpatient for external fetal monitors and such. So you may have already been familiar with that and that is the same.

Agency that you would be taking your certification exam to be a nurse practitioner, a Women's Health nurse practitioner. So this certification is needed to apply for licensure in most states. Our pass rates for that exam are pretty phenomenal over the last five years or even maybe more. I don't know that I updated that exactly. We range from a 95 to 100% pass rate. So I think our our 2023 pass rate was a little over 96%.

And so that might seem a little low, but we had the highest number of of test takers this year we had 86 test takers. So that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good pass rate for that amount that I think we almost doubled in our test takers last year. So next slide.

So this is the program schema slide and as you can see it, we are a 49 credit hour program which includes 672 Clinical Practicum hours.

These practicum hours are divided into 4 clinical practicums and we'll be talking about where you'll kind of see a little bit of that broken down here in a minute. But there are 168 hours each and they start typically in the 3rd or 4th semester. So that gives you a little time to be in the program and start seeking kind of what kind of clinics would you like to get into for these practicum hours?

The program can be completed in six full time or seven part time semesters. All coursework is online except for your clinical practicum hours and we do not require a a specific site. Visit to Cincinnati Next slide.

As far as the preceptors, students know their clinical needs best and who is best in their area, so we encourage you to be looking and seeking out your own preceptors. Preceptors need to have an unrestricted license. They need to be engaged in active clinical practice. And as I said before, it's never too early to start thinking about the possible sites and preceptors that you maybe have.

And think about the networking that you have and people that you work with within your community because a lot of times they can really kind of either help you by maybe being a preceptor or maybe kind of guiding you to individuals that could do those and each particular. Oh wait, well let me, I'll talk about that in a minute. Again, this is a 672 hour practicum or clinical time with preceptors. So the next slide is the one that outlines your clinical practicums.

By course. And the first practicum is primary care and it over I believe to the right. It also talks about what kinds of things you'll be doing and what types of sites are acceptable for you to be in. And then we go to Women's Health one which is your gin focus course and is outpatient. Then you go to your OB course which is outpatient as well.

And then the final practicum is 8034 and that is kind of a catch all.

Practicum. If there are specialty clinics that you would like to work in, that's where we encourage you to probably do some of those hours, because we really want you to get the normal OB and the normal gin types of visits in your one and two practicums. Advanced oneself one and two practicums.

Remember to when I say it's gin focused or OB focused, if you're going to be in a typical OBGYN setting, we don't expect that you're only going to be seeing OB, but you do need to have both gin experience and OB experiences. So if you were at for instance for Advanced Women's Health, one which is Gen. focused, you wouldn't go to a maternal fetal medicine clinic because all you're going to see are pregnant people, right, or if you're in the obstetrical.

Of course, Advanced Women's Health. Two, you're not going to go to a Uruguayan course because you're not likely going to see a pregnant woman in the Urogyne clinic. You're going to be seeing, you know, GYN patients. So that's what we mean by that. So there's, you know, a list of the acceptable preceptors for each practical course. The document is available on our website and through your enrollment advisor, the specific document you're seeing and if you are struggling with finding a site or preceptor, we have a clinical coordinator who is wonderful.

Her name is Maureen Khoo and she can assist with helping you seek out providers that have precepted our students in the past. In your area, I think I've covered everything that I need to cover. I will be available at the end for questions, so I'm turning it back over to Joanie.

We had some echoing that was happening, so just at the end maybe when you come back on we'll do another test. It was a little echoey for me, but generally OK.

But we've we've covered all the information I know on this slide in particular the text is a little small. So as Tammy mentioned, if you don't have access to this or you haven't seen this.

Just reach out to your enrollment services advisor. We can get this document to you so you can review it. And a couple of things that I like to mention about the clinicals, which you can see on this document. If you can read the text, the 672 hours are evenly divided across the final four semesters. So it's 168 clinical hours per semester and that averages out to usually like 12 to 14 hours per week. So just if you're kind of planning ahead for how much time you need to set aside.

For that clinical portion, that's about what you need to average.

Umm, And I also really like to point out that for the acceptable preceptors you're you'll notice that uh, you have other options in addition to Women's Health NPS specifically, umm. So obviously we want you to have some Women's Health MPs that you follow, but you can also get experiences with OBGYN's and certified nurse midwives. So I know that's a big thing that comes up when I talk to students is kind of you know.

What are my options? Who can I use? So this document has a lot of good information on that in addition to, you know, the clinical focus and what you'll be doing each semester.

And if can everyone hear me OK? Or am I echoing at all? I definitely want to check that too since it came up a little earlier.

So the we've got a question about full time, so I am going to.

Go Oops. Go back.

So this option here is our full time option. So two years is full time, so it's six semesters. So the summer semesters are included. So there are three semesters each year. So there's spring, summer and fall. So you are enrolled kind of continuously throughout the year, but you do have a little break in between each semester. So even though again, you're enrolled.

All year you do get a little break in between each semester and I know on here we just listed the full time option. If you reach out to your enrollment services advisor, we have the seven semester option as well. That's a bit more part time. So that one is mostly two classes at a time, whereas this one is mostly three classes at a time. But again we can send that breakdown to you.

All right, so I am going to jump into the prerequisites for the program.

So this is something that Timmy already touched on, but kind of what we look for. In order for students to be able to apply for the program. So you need to have most importantly a completed BSN degree from a regionally and nursing accredited institution with a 3.0 or higher. You must also have a completed statistics class with a grade of C or better and then one year of RN work experience.

And it was mentioned earlier kind of you know having that Women's Health experience is really useful, it can strengthen an application. But in general just one year of RN experience if we happen to have any UCR into BSN alumni or upcoming grant on the information session, you can talk to your enrollment service advisor about your admission options. We do have a few.

Things that vary a little bit for our alumni, so just like to kind of mention that.

So, tips on how to strengthen your application. We do have, you know, a holistic review process and it is something where every document you provide is going to play a role in the decision. And these are just some things that you can use and just some ideas to have in mind.

So if you are interested, you can become a member of A.

An organization that's related to Women's Health and or nurse midwifery. So like a one or March of Dimes.

Experience the more RN experience the better. So while we look for just for that one year, if you have more than a year that's useful. And again, anything Women's Health related is great. And as Professor Moss put in the chat, the experience is great and again will strengthen your application, but it's not mandatory.

So it's something where in your personal goal statement, which we'll get to, you'll be able to really speak to, you know, why you're interested in changing specialties. If, for example, you're working in Med Surg but you want to become a Women's Health NP, that's where your goal statement really comes into play.

Also making sure that you have really strong recommendations, which I know might sound silly to say. Like of course I'm going to choose good references. I would never choose someone who's not.

But it's really making sure that you know you have one from a supervisor that you are able to use kind of someone in a leadership position. So charge nurses, MPs, MD's, someone you know. If you're in the Women's Health field, having someone who is also in Women's Health so they can speak to that. So really making sure that you're choosing, again someone at a leadership level is a really good resource for your references.

And in your resume or your CV, umm, if you have any additional certifications, make sure you list those. Umm, particularly if they are related to Women's Health, just as an example, UMM, fetal monitoring is listed on here, Umm. But really any additional certifications that you have, leadership roles that you've taken on and even just general memberships and organizations, even if it's not Women's Health specific, something that shows that you are kind of taking those next steps in your career and in the field?

Even before you start an MSN program are all really great things to list on that resume.

I guess I want to pause for a minute. Tammy, did you have anything that you wanted to add? I know you've put some things in the chat, but wasn't sure if there was anything on this.

It was actually. I was actually struggling typing, so I'll just state it it. For instance, if you're a recent student, instructors are great, but if you've been out of school 20 years, you don't want to use an instructor 'cause they don't know what your skills are. Because what we're really looking for are individuals like supervisor charge, nurse, Aprns that you work with, MD's that you work with that can speak to your ability as a nurse and your skills as a nurse.

So we don't want to pastor, we don't want.

Somebody that you've known from childhood or anything like that, we want they need to be professional references or recommendations from people who know you as an RN.

Yeah, that is definitely a really good thing to know. I know sometimes I've had students that are like, Oh well, I had a Women's Health MP that was really vital to my own personal, you know, healthcare journey. And like, that's great. But if they didn't know you as an RN and as a professional, but as a patient, that's not exactly what we're looking for.

All right. So like I mentioned, we do have a holistic admission process. So there are a few steps in the application process. And again, this is something that your enrollment service advisor can help with. We do have kind of a step by step guide on doing the application. So we use a third party system called nursing cast. So it's a nursing CAS and it's like a common application for nursing programs. So there's a lot of different schools that use it. So you'll kind of submit everything on the nursing cast site.

So none of your documents come to UC. Everything goes through nursing cast. And kind of more specifically, official transcripts need to be sent to nursing cast. Don't send them to UC. And we need transcripts from every college or university where you've earned credit. So even if it was, you know, two classes at a Community College that transferred into your bachelor's program, you'll want to send both of those official transcripts to nursing casts if we have any students on the.

Session today that completed their BSN internationally. Instead of an official transcript, we'll need an evaluation done by the World Education Service. So they will do a course by course evaluation where they will essentially look at each class you completed and kind of translate that into the US equivalent in terms of like credit hour and GPA. And they'll also determine if your degree is considered equivalent to a four year degree in the US.

And kind of along with that, I know we've talked about our experience, the year of RN experience needs to specifically be in the United States. So if you you know, have 20 years of experience, I don't know in Jamaica, that is great and put that on your resume, especially if it's related to Women's Health. But in order to be able to apply, you need to have a year of experience specifically in the US with your USRN license.

So I want to make sure I note that.

Johnny, could I say one thing here?

Nursing cast can seem daunting and I I know this for a fact because I I applied to many programs that I didn't have to go through nursing cast to do and then decided to do a program that I wanted to do at UC. So I just like everybody else I had to go through nursing cast and I just did this in March. What I will say is I was.

Surprised at how timely they got back to me when I had questions and I don't, I don't have AI have a kind of a strange educational background that it doesn't meet like, you know, a normal bachelor's degree and and a master's degree in Women's Health. And so I had to navigate some difficult kinds of things and they were able to help me answer and do those things. So don't feel like, oh, I'm in here and I can't, I don't know what to do.

I really I was surprised at how much help they actually did provide me, so.

Yeah. No, that's really good to know as well. And your enrollment service advisor can help. We're definitely able to troubleshoot. We are in nursing cast all of the time, but we don't have the same access as someone who works at nursing cast. Since it's a third party, we obviously can't do the same things as someone who works there. I know I tell students a lot if they're having issues and it's something I can't figure out or like I'm in a meeting and I can't take their call. A nursing test has a live chat feature, which is super helpful.

That automatically pops up at the bottom of your screen.

I've actually used them once. I pretended to be a student when I had a question that I wasn't sure how to answer. I used it myself and it was really fast. And they have a customer service number as well and we can obviously that information's on their website, but we can send it to you also.

I think I'm going to go ahead and go to the next slide because I believe there's more information about the application process.

OK. So the application again you'll complete in nursing cast.

So you'll upload your RN license there, Your resume, your personal goal statement will be uploaded there as well. Umm. And I guess, let me go back. Uh, because I didn't necessarily touch on that. Umm, oh, there's no notes in here. OK, so for your goal statement, you really need to focus on, you know, why Women's Health? Why are you choosing this program? Why are you interested in this specialty, your goals for once you complete the program?

And for those of you who don't have Women's Health experience, like we've touched on a little bit earlier, this is really your chance to show your passion for the field, explain kind of the logic of why, you know, I'm a Med Surg nurse, but I really want to be a Women's Health MP and This is why. And this is, you know, the research that I've done, like just kind of showing your thought process there.

Is really something good. It's your chance to sell yourself, right? Like there is a committee that reviews these applications.

Umm. And they're not going to interview you, so they're not going to, you know, talk to you. This is your chance to say whatever you would want to say if you were having a one-on-one. So really try to focus on those things. And it does need to be well written. There's not a particular format. So it's not like you have to, do, you know, MLA or something. Just organize paragraphs, you know, make sure there's no spelling errors or grammatical errors, which I know again, seems like.

Duh. Of course I would never use that in an application, but reading over things yourself, you can kind of skip over some of those errors. You can kind of correct them in your mind and not see them on the paper. So it's good to have a second set of eyes look through it. I think personally, just because, again, when you're reading your own work, it's really easy to kind of correct things in your head and not think about correcting it on the actual document.

And one other thing with the kind of documents that your references that we've talked a lot about.

You don't collect any letters yourself, so you will just enter the name and the contact emails for the individuals you choose into the nursing cast system. We need a minimum of three. You can provide up to six, Definitely quality over quantity, so it's much better to have three really good references rather than six OK references. But you don't collect any letters, you just enter their name and contact e-mail, and then nursing cast will actually e-mail them directly with instructions.

So your references will upload a letter of recommendation and they also complete a Likert scale where they rank you on like 10 to 15 characteristics. And both of those things are required in order for the recommendation to be complete. So again, those are things that nursing casts will e-mail them and once you submit your application, your enrollment services advisor can see the full details. So we'll definitely, you know, keep an eye on things. If we notice that references are taking a little longer, we can e-mail them ourselves.

Umm, you can obviously reach out to your references to you. Umm, so you're definitely not going through it alone. Umm, you have the nursing customer support and then you also have your enrollment services advisor.

So you'll start the application and submit everything again. In that nursing cast system, you are able to work on the application without submitting it. So you can go in and, you know, work on it for 10 minutes. When you have a chance on a lunch break, save it, go back to it as many times as you need. You don't have to sit down and do it all at once.

And you're able to submit before nursing cast has received all of your official transcripts and before your recommendations are complete. So again, you have to enter your reference details, but they don't actually have to complete the recommendation before you hit that submit button. And there's also a section called Coursework Entry or Transcript Entry. This section you have to manually enter in each class that you completed. So let's say it was the Fall 2000 semester. You took English 101, it was introductory English, it was 3 credits, and you got an A.

That's essentially what you enter into that section.

So you'll do that for every single class. It's not just your nursing courses. Every class, umm, you basically make it look the same as your transcript. Umm, and we require that because nursing cast will do a calculation of kind of your overall GPA from every school that you've attended. They do a breakdown by year and also by subject area. And those are all things that are reviewed as part of the holistic process. There is an option to pay nursing cast to do that for you. It's called professional transcript entry.

And I think it starts at $77 for the 1st 3 transcripts and then it increases from there.

So you have a few options. You don't have to do it yourself, you can pay them to do it if you want. And once you've done that transcript entry and completed the other sections uploaded, the documents, Nursing Cast will do a verification of your application details and when you hit verified, that's when you would go to the next step in the process.

In your ESA will be in contact with you throughout all of this, so you'll know kind of where you're at and what to expect next. So once you're verified, you will get an e-mail from our graduate college for your UC application. It's really just logging in and making sure that you have access to the UC system, because that's where you'll be able to view your decision. There's usually a $65 UC application fee.

Those are currently being waived for our fall 2024 applicants. Umm, so if you apply for that fall start date, you don't have to worry about the $65 UC fee. Umm I guess I also skipped over nursing. CAS has an $80.00 application fee as well. Umm, And again just for our fall applicants we have some. They're called coupon codes. UMM, and it's essentially an individualized code that we can give you that will waive that $80.00 application fee for you. Umm, since it's an individualized code, you have to be ready to submit your application before we can create it for you.

So there's basically 4 sections. When each one has a green check mark, you take a screenshot or a picture of that and you can e-mail or text it to your ESA and then we can get that individualized code created for you. So once you are able to log into your UC grad college system, then you're officially ready for review. So we send applications every Friday to the program coordinators, and as we already answered in the chat, from that point, it's about two to four weeks.

It can depend on you know, how many students are being sent that week. I know sometimes like around the holidays or like exams, it can take a little longer because you know faculty are teaching too. But generally 2 to 4 weeks and you would get an e-mail from our graduate college when a decision has been made. It's very mysterious. It just says that an update has been made to your UC account, but then you can log in to view the decision and you'll also hear from your enrollment services advisor.

I know that's already been a whole lot, and if you have questions, definitely enter them in. You can either put it in the questions or there should be a chat too, so whichever one you'd like.

So if you apply for the fall semester, so the Fall 2024 semester, it's an August 26th start date. I should know that. I don't know why I'm questioning that. I'm going to double check here real fast. Yes, August 26th. I said that so many times and so many emails and for some reason I was uncertain. So August 26th is when it starts.

And it usually runs through like the middle of December or so and then the spring semester usually starts like mid January and runs through like the end of April. And then the summer semester is always like early May through early August. But we can send you a link to the academic calendar too so you can see those exact dates.

Alright, feel free to keep entering in your questions in the chat or the questions box, but I definitely want to talk about the tuition. So we do have in state and out of state tuition for our online programs, but it's not a huge difference. As you can see it's $15 a credit hour, so not a crazy amount different there. So our in state is $892 per credit and out of state is $907.00 per credit and there are 49 credit hours total in the program.

And then we do have a bloodborne pathogen fee of 30, gosh, $31.00. That's assessed each academic year, so it's every 3rd semester, so not every single semester. And it's not a huge amount either. So the total tuition for the whole program is $43,770 for our in state students and for our out of state it's 44,505. And if you were to do the 7th semester option, I always like to point this out.

Just because it is a very small difference, you will literally pay $31.00 more because you'll have one more of those blood borne pathogen fee charges. But it's not again, not a huge amount.

You are eligible to complete the FAFSA. I encourage every single student to file a FAFSA, even if you don't want or plan to use federal loans at the graduate level. It's only loans that you would be eligible for, but never hurts to have it as a backup plan. I worked in financial aid.

Ten years ago. So I feel like the inner financial aid advisor and me always comes out like please just do a FAFSA. You don't have to borrow the loans, but nice to have it done. If you are eligible for any military benefits, make sure you contact your regional VA representative to make sure that your benefits are able to be used for our programs. Most of them are, but definitely outside of my area of expertise. So good to double check with your VA Rep And then we do have a payment plan as well with the Bursar's office.

So they take the tuition fees for one semester and they split that up into three equal monthly payments.

So.

Sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. Umm, there's that payment plan, Umm, and we have a breakdown by semester. So your enrollment services advisor, we can give you a breakdown by semester for both the full time and the part time option. So you can see kind of what to expect throughout the program.

And we do also have one scholarship. It's our university to business scholarship program. So we basically worked with employers across the country to set up an agreement with them. So just let your enrollment services advisor know your employer's name and then we can look them up and see if you would be eligible for that scholarship.

So we do have some state restrictions, so if you live in any of these states, we unfortunately cannot accept an application from you.

So Arizona, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. Umm, So you can't live in these states, you can't do clinical hours in these states, and you can't sit for the certification exam there. Umm, all of those restrictions only apply while you're enrolled in the program and before you initially pass that certification exam. Umm. So once you pass the NCC exam, you can practice in any US state. You just have to apply for reciprocity in the other state.

So I know I've had students that are like, Oh my gosh, you mean I can't vacation in Tennessee? Like, no, you can go on a vacation. Like you can go there for a week, but you can't live there and most importantly, can't do clinical hours there. So if you are a travel nurse, I have a lot of travel nurses.

I always encourage them to avoid these states during your travel time with your contracts and just start avoiding them now so you're in the practice of avoiding them.

You don't want to get in a weird situation with like a start date in the end of your contract might not line up, so just avoid these states.

All right. So now we are going to open it up for questions.

So how many students are accepted into the program per semester? So it can vary by the start date so we don't always have the same number every semester. I think it usually ranges between like 25 and 40. Does that sound about right?

We for fall we take 35, for spring we take 30 and for summer we take 25. But I can tell you that if we have qualified candidates, many times we do take over that amount.

You know in the past couple years we've had really robust enrollment and or robust I guess applicants and our applicant pools have been great and so you know we did accept.

You know, over that goal.

It's definitely something that obviously we have this like Target in mind, right, But we do have a little flexibility.

One thing that I am going to bring up, just because it's a question that I get a lot when I'm talking to students, is kind of the the differences and similarities between Nurse Midwifery and Women's Health. A lot of students are torn between those two specialties.

So I wasn't sure if that was something you could address for us.

Sure. You know, I, I, I have a a labor and delivery background as an RN and I would say most of our applicants probably have some kind of a background like that. And how do you decide what you want to do? I mean it really comes down to a little bit of a personal preference. It comes down to what how do you see yourself and what do you see yourself living and practicing in because I mean as you know.

A Nurse mid, a nurse midwifery role is going to keep you into a similar role and and time.

You know needs as an RN that works in labor and delivery, right? So it's seven days a week, it's 24 hours a day, it's holidays and weekends. If you know you don't mind that because you can't, you know you can just never imagine yourself not being in that delivery room and having that.

Kind of that adrenaline because let's face it, that's a real adrenaline kind of thing. Not to say that would be in a Women's Health Nurse practitioner isn't doesn't have the same types of high level acuity and skills, because they do. But it's different. It's just a different thing. It's more acute in in a delivery room. So that's kind of how I decided. I knew that I I wanted for my family life. I wanted it to be and look a certain way. I wanted to have a little bit more control.

Uh, and it's not to say that nurse midwives can't work outpatient exclusively. However, as we all know in the healthcare today, it's all about money. And what do nurse midwives, what can they do? Well, they produce the most money when they're delivering babies, so many times they're doing more that than maybe they have in the past. The other thing about nurse midwives, are that a nurse midwives malpractice insurance?

Always stays within a certain range because of that laboring piece of their of their scope where a nurse practitioner doesn't have that labor piece. So it it usually to have us on a bankroll like for a corporation doesn't cost us them as much money to have us as it would a nurse midwife if you work at a big academic hospital like a University of Cincinnati or wherever.

They have big, they have big kind of inclusive malpractice plans and it doesn't really matter. But some of the smaller practices and stuff, it can't, that can make a difference with them.

Do you know the there's some a question in here, Do you know if there are fees associated with clinicals in addition to UC tuition?

Not to my knowledge.

Do I? I will speak to this. Some students do decide to go through a payer to find sites because their their area could be a difficult area, but that is not something that is the norm. I would say that you know it's.

Not the norm that students do that, you know, I would say a handful each term.

Yeah. So the tuition fees breakdown that I showed earlier, so the 892 and 907 per credit that those are inclusive of like all of the kind of academic fees and then the Bloodborne pathogen fee is the one additional to that. So the only other thing that you'll kind of plan ahead for books, obviously books aren't included, but yeah, no fees associated with clinicals.

Mm-hmm. Ya.

Mm-hmm.

We have the clinical site coordinator, but their staff member here like that's not something that is you know something specific in your fees. So they are kind of the support and we actually have some really good information on our website for admitted students about planning for clinicals. There's a whole page for preceptors that's really great. So we do have a lot of really good resources.

And I know that clinicals are, you know, a really big part of any program. And I just always tell students, you know, start putting out feelers early, start asking within your networks. And even if you know, let's say you're, you don't know a specific like Women's Health NP, you know, just ask the people that you know because you never know kind of the six degrees of separation what you might find.

Your own personal practitioner, you know, you can start with them and see what connections they have. So there are, you know, some easy kind of first round questions that you can ask. I understand that it can be, you know, a little scary or feel a little weird. And as someone who calls students all day long, I understand, I mean, I'm not doing cold calls, I'm calling people who asked for information.

But you still never know what you're going to get when someone picks up the other end of that call. But you know, emails are, it can be sent, and you can follow up with phone calls. So really, just starting with the network that you have and you might be surprised at what you can find.

We have a question here. Let me see. I just lost my screen. Hold on here. I can't get back. Can you read the question, Joni? I can't for some reason. Some. There we go. Now I can see it. Do we have to report to campus during the program like for Skills Day? As I said before, we do not.

Tammy, you just froze for me. I'm not sure if you're frozen for anyone else.

Am I frozen now?

You are back.

OK. Yeah I think and something froze with my computer too and I couldn't get it off anyway. Do do you have to report to campus? No this this program is is a strictly on is off site hybrid hybrid. We do not require a site visit to Cincinnati our first clinical course in primary care does have a online clinical skills intensive which.

Is mandatory that students attended and we go over some specific outpatient skills that you'll be.

Meeting in the outpatient setting.

And but it's like you know, like 4 hours one day and four hours another day.

And it's something where you would get those dates from your student success coordinator, so your advisor during the program, they would send you those dates for the online intensive pretty early on. We know a lot of times that it can take some maneuvering to get days off or shifts covered. I know a lot of times schedules are done at like months in advance. So we'll get you those dates as early as we can.

Trying to think of their.

For.

Oh, I'm hearing an echo now.

Any other questions?

Oh, here's one.

So what days of the week classes for the fall semester take place on? So for the program it's all the coursework except for that clinical skills intensive is asynchronous. So what that means is you don't have like live lectures like Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 9:00 AM or something. Usually what will happen is the work for the week is posted on like a Sunday or Monday and then you have until the following Sunday.

To get that work completed. So you should expect recorded lectures, assigned readings. You'll still have exams, you could have discussion boards, you'll have papers. So kind of the the work is something fairly traditional, right? In an academic setting it's things that you would expect, but you'll have those weekly deadlines to keep you on track. So it's not totally self-paced. It's not like you can, you know, just start and end, you know, with a class whenever you want.

There are weekly assignments throughout the semester, but if you, let's say you're a night nurse and you want to do your work at, I don't know, 4:00 AM or something like, that's totally fine. You just need to complete it by that weekly deadline.

That's a good question. I definitely didn't touch on that.

I'm trying to think if there's other common questions that I have not touched on.

I feel like we've covered a lot.

But just thinking about this, I mean you guys are applying for fall in the summer and.

I know. I believe the deadline is late July. Is that correct? What's the deadline for applications?

So the deadline to submit is July 1st, so you have to have everything submitted, but we allow a grace period until about July 26th for official transcripts and recommendations to be received by nursing cast.

Right. So what I would say to that is that if you're planning on starting school in August, get yourself in and done because July 1, you really are going to want to know am I starting school or not because you really have to get things in place. And it's not to say that it, I mean you are going to a Graduate School, you're going to a graduate program and it does take time and it does take effort and energy, so the more you can get things.

Settled in your life and whatever those things are things with children, things with your family, money whatever it is, work schedules that is all going to really help getting people who you know if you have parents or family members or friends nearby that can help you know take the kids a couple hours so that you can have time to study those kinds of things. So the I think the sooner you get your your.

Your results back on, you know, are did I get in, did I not get in? Am I accepted? The more you can kind of start planning. And I think people who plan are usually the most successful and less stressed.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So even though we have that July 1st deadline to submit, we have been making decisions on file applications for a while now. So you know, if you hypothetically get everything turned in next week and nursing cast has your application verified, you could get a decision in the next two to four weeks. So you can definitely have that extra time to prepare and get ready.

So for the statistics class.

It doesn't have to specifically be like the course title, doesn't have to be like stats or math. Psych Stats is fine, it's just an introductory level stats class and we do usually look for it to have been completed in the last 10 years.

And with AC or better and a strong C so not AC minus but like AAC or AC plus so like a 2.0 and a 4.0 scale.

And I started to type this also. Sorry if you hear my dog is coming downstairs now so she might hear her.

So for the the nursing cast application, there's that $80.00 application fee. So you will pay that when you submit or use a coupon code. If you reach out to your Enrollment Services Advisor 1st and then for the UC application you just need to have access to login. You just need to set up your password for that.

The $65 UC application fee is being waived for fall applicants.

And then the only other fee which I had started to type in and I'll finish it since I'm talking, I just want to go ahead and say it the only other fee to expect kind of through the application process and decision making process. If you want to secure your spot on the program, so you get an offer and you want to secure your spot, there is an electronic confirmation form you complete through your grad college.

Access and then there is a non refundable $300.00 deposit that's required. That $300.00 deposit does count towards your first semester tuition, so you will see it as a credit on that first invoice, but other than that you'll just need to pay for transcripts. There's fees for transcripts that vary by school. I think I've seen anywhere from like $2.50 up to like $30.00, so there's quite the range, but that's something that depends on each school.

I just realized that I was on mute.

No.

You you should have an enrolled or, gosh, an assigned Enrollment Services Advisor. If you have requested information, you should have someone assigned. If you don't, I'm going to skip ahead for a second. This is our like general inbox that you can e-mail and I'm actually going to put my e-mail address in here as well.

So if you're not sure if you have an Enrollment Services advisor, either e-mail that online recruitment or you can save my e-mail address and you can reach out to me and either I'll reach out to you or I'll have one of my colleagues, just depending on our schedules for that day.

Trying to see? Let me go back for a second. Definitely keep typing in your questions.

So we've touched on this a little bit, but what's next? So what are your next steps after this session? So the application deadline is July 1st at 11:59 PM Eastern Time, and we apparently wanted to make you very sure that it's Eastern Time by putting it on there twice. So if you are in California, make sure you keep that in mind. It's not 11:59 PM Pacific Time. So again, you'll need to upload your resume or CV, your personal statement, your RN license, provide the name and contact emails for your references.

You enter in the name and attendance dates for your colleges and universities, do that coursework entry or pay Nursing cast to do it for you and submit your application by July 12th. We need, and by we I mean nursing cast needs, your official transcripts as well as completed recommendations if you pay for nursing cast to do that individual class entry for you. So it's called Professional Transcript Entry Service.

They won't start that until you've submitted your application and they've received all of your official transcripts. I know a lot of times students will be like, oh, I'm just waiting for the transcript entry to be done before I submit. Like no, don't do that. They're not going to start it until you submit. So go ahead and submit so they can get started on that. It usually, I think it takes like 7 to 10 business days to do the transcript entry, but it varies quite a bit.

And we do also have a contact at Nursing Cast, your enrollment services advisors. We all have a person there that we can reach out to. So if you know something happens and we're kind of scrambling, they are amazing and can usually wave a magic little wand and help us expedite things for our students. So yeah, ideally don't want to be scrambling, but we do have that contact that we can reach out to.

So go ahead and get started on that process whenever you'd like. I'll put the nursing cast link in here too, in case anyone is feeling super motivated. You can go ahead and get started.

Alright. In case there, it doesn't look like there are any other questions. Again, if there's something last minute, go ahead and type it in there.

OK, so if you're unable to meet the July 1st deadline, the spring application is actually already open, so it's a January 13th start date. So if you aren't able to kind of get everything in by July 1st, you would have to add the spring start specifically because a nursing cast it's kind of application by program and start date, but most of the information copies over to the other application.

So again, I know we talked about July 1st is going to be here before you know it, but you do also have time. So like I said, go ahead and get started, see what you get through. You don't have to do it all at once. Just you know, do what you can and your enrollment services advisor will be there to help. Even though we can't see the full details of your application before you submit, we are able to see some things. So I know for my students, if I'm like, oh, your transcripts are pending, let me send you these links.

So you can order your transcripts or oh, it looks like everything's there. Go ahead and submit. Send me that screenshot so I can get you a coupon code so you're not in this process on your own. Again, your enrollment services advisor is there to help. I know obviously I'm biased, but we're pretty great at helping students. It's kind of what we do. So don't be afraid to reach out to us always, you know, call us, text us, e-mail us. We all have a link for our calendar, so you can choose a day and time for a phone call.

So lots of options there and kind of after this you will get a recording of this information session. It can take like 24 to 48 hours for the recording to be available, but once it is available we will go ahead and e-mail that out to everyone.

So it looks like that might be all of our questions.

The the last thing I would say is the nursing cast application process itself once you get in and get going in it, it really didn't take me very long and now I already had a very up to date resume or CV. So I would say make sure your resume is up to date and and bear an inclusive of all the things that you've done and you do any committees that you sit on at your particular workplace or any volunteer work that you do, any leadership that you do if you're a charge nurse even if you're a.

You know, a what? What is it when you like a like a sub part-time charge nurse or whatever or casual charge nurse? I mean, anything like that really does help. And then really as far as you think the transcript thing is going to be daunting, but it really isn't because it's all right there. It's it's all the electronic modes of gathering that data and asking for it from your universities are there. So it's very.

It really has everything included right there. It's very comprehensive, so it really isn't as bad as it might seem. It's pretty it's pretty quick and handy, actually.

Yeah, I know it can look overwhelming and it is like it's very different than what most students have used before with other programs. But yeah, I mean literally one section is personal information. So your name, your birthday, like, you know, really easy stuff. So.

The big thing will be your your resume and your goal statement and your goal statement. You know you're going to want to take time with that and work on it a little bit at a time. You know if if you haven't, if you're not like a a particular, you know writing isn't easy for you, start working on it and work on it a little bit at a time and have people help you with it. I don't encourage you to use AI. You might. You know, you can gather, you can gather ideas from AI, but I can tell you.

We can, we can pick it out like that. It's. I know people don't realize AI is like that, but it really is because it's very structured sentences and they use the same words over and over, so it's pretty easy to pick out.

Yeah, good for like editing or like getting ideas like you said, but not not full on writing.

Yes, yes. But not for writing, yeah.

All right. Well, thank you again everyone for attending. We always love having these and getting your questions. Again, don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions about the program or the application. We are all here to help you. So I hope that you all have a great rest of your night and I hope to see some applications from you soon.

Thank you. Bye, bye.