Advice for an EMT in Nursing school

[A-fib]

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I received the fruit of two years of difficult prerequisites: my final acceptance into NMSU's School of Nursing.

I have very good grades from my prerequisites and feel great about starting Nursing. I am a licensed EMT-Intermediate and have been working as a teacher's assistant at the community college as well as clinical preceptor for EMT students (in the ER) for about a year.

My desire is to learn a lot in nursing school in preparation to be the best nurse that I can be after I graduate. Is there anything you think would be valuable for me to know to prepare me for nursing school and a job afterwards?

Thanks!

[MyUserName,RN]

Wow two pages! Thanks to everyone for the advice! I am very thankful for it. I know that my school tries to incorporate NCLEX style questions into the exams but I will look into getting a study guide specifically for that. From what I'm told, this program has like a 94% first time pass rate on the NCLEX.

I was told by a very experienced ER nurse that I would have to start thinking differently during nursing school. He said that I would need to stop being as problem focused and think more about long term, holistic treatment of the patient. Would you agree?

Yes, I agree with that. My husband is a firefighter/emt and the training is much different. Nursing school (at least in my program) only focused on emergency nursing through one unit in my last semester of school.

I got this book before nursing school and read through the tips for studying and nclex style questions before starting the program: "Test Success: Test Taking Techniques For Beginning Nursing Students". I think it helped me a lot. In Fundamentals you are going to be learning the basics, like vital signs, fluid and electrolytes, pain and comfort, nursing process (assessment, interventions, etc), bed baths, medication pass, safety, stuff like that. Then after that you'll go into disease processes and interventions and assessment for these problems. That's when it gets more interesting. At least this is how my program was anyways.

[A-fib]

That is actually one of the required texts in my program. I'm glad to hear that it was helpful.

I think the assessment side of Fundamentals will go fairly well because of my experience. I'm just not especially excited about the CNA skills I will be taught this semester. Technically, as an EMT, bed baths and cleaning the patient after they have used the bedpan, etc is not in my scope of practice (something that EMT's in general are proud of) so I'm hoping it won't be too much of a problem for me to get over. :)

[Rob72, ASN, RN]

I am a licensed EMT-Intermediate and have been working as a teacher's assistant at the community college as well as clinical preceptor for EMT students (in the ER) for about a year.

The above will stand you in good stead. As a Clin Lab Asst./TA, you should already be thinking, "Why are we teaching XYZ? What are the consequential processes after the field intervention?" Some people have trouble with switching from interventional(EMS- we try to freeze the trauma or med problem where it is, and maybe re-gain some ground) to theraputic care(more generally Nsg- we are working towards attaining integrated homeostasis).

EMTs that are taking the time to make the hospital stay easier for the patient, and the receiving RNs, are already thinking that way, tho' many do not. I.e., if your patient is aware and no longer "emergent", offering a bit of education to hopefully prevent/mitigate recurrence; not being an AC sticker, but practicing getting good distal forearm lines to prevent vessel trauma, and improve line patency over the next 3-4 weeks, etc.,etc..