I posted this somewhere, but I can't find it so I'll post again.

I haven't had orientation yet for n.s. and was wondering what you did during your 1st semester? What classes did you take & what were they like? Also, did you have the same instructors throughout n.s. and is there more that one set schedule to choose from? (meaning do you have an option on which day's you attend your classes?) Thanks in advance!

Christy

Community College in Rochester NY:

Each semester is team taught, so its one group of instructors for each semester. They rotated who did which lectures. Always the same clinical instructor during the semester, and the same conference teacher as well (Conference is the same as lab on campus). We learned fundamentals--

nursing process, core concepts, nursing philosophy, and then studied different things like body mechanics and hygeine, infection control, sleep, respiratory, basic pharmaceutical information, bowel and bladder elimination, cultural issues, safety issues, decubitus wounds and skin care, probably some other stuff I can't pull out of my head just now. Oh yeah, math and calculations lol. Can't forget that!

Skills wise, we learned ADL's, bed baths, transferring patients bed to chair etc, mouth care, foot care, IM, ID, and SQ injections, passing and documenting meds, all types of wound care, straight caths and foley caths, hanging IV bags and regulating, wound care, sterile gloves, documentation and nurse's notes and the basics of a Nurse Process Paper. We did a LOT of data collection. Also we did Inspection, Auscultation, Palpation and percussion, breath sounds, assessments head to toe mostly. We did eye and hearing assessments which was fun.

We cared once a week for a pt in an LTC. This was morning care, ADL's, and med passing.Not everyone passed meds every day, it depended on how your clinical instructor set it up.

Looking back, I realize that it was the very basics of nursing and I encourage you to really work to learn this stuff. Once I internalized much of what they were teaching in first semester, I found that it was much easier.

I just started my 1st semester in clinical now. We are learning everything you just said. I have my 1st exam on Sept. 19 on nursing process, communication, saftey, and oxygen. Already did med calculations, passed with 100

In my first semester I had Pharm I, Fundamentals, and Nutrition. I wanted to take Dosage Calc. again cause I loved it so much. I loved it cause it was so dang hard the first few weeks. But yeah, like Coopergrrl just listed is what we learned.

I had

Nursing Experience [2 hr class. Intro to nsg]

Patho [4hr]

Nsg Therapeutics [skills mostly. 4 hrs]

Pharm [2hrs]

Nsg Assessment [4 hrs]

1st sem

Nsg process 4 hrs/week (2 classes)

Skills 3 hrs/week (1 class)

Pharm 3hr/week (1 class)

clinicals 8hrs/week (2 times)

classes were:

A&P I : learned all muscles and all bones

Intro to Computers: learned there are to many people out there that dont know how to use a computer.

Fundamentals: our program is integrated therefore we have no Pharm. class. which means every semester we learn the drugs that go with the lectures, so aside from a bunch of drugs, our clinical was mostly CNA stuff, bed baths, vitals etc...