looking back, are there courses that you thought were not necessary?

Nurses General Nursing

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At my nursing program, we have to take two semesters of Fundamental of Nursing. Now, i'm not saying this course is unnecessary, but two whole semesters of learning what "therapeutic communication" is , just sames like waste of time to me. And to cap it off, we had to have Intro to Nursing too, which was basically the same as fundamental. Oh and i can have two semesters of organic chemistry but not pharmacology? of these two, which one i'm i going to use most of?!!!!

I mean there are other courses i wouldn't mind spending two semesters learning.

Take for instance pathophysiology, i wouldn't mind two semester of this, in fact i would totally welcome it! i think it is particularly important for nurses to know disease processes and how they affect our patients. Another course i would love to have two semester of is Health Assessment. This is one of the core process of nursing and yet our school sort of breeze through it.

Instead of nursing school bombarding us with unnecessary stuff, why not focus on things that are actually useful for when we graduate and enter the workforce.

so what about you? any courses you wish had been cut off or ones you wish you had spent more time with?

Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.

GilaRN I know, I recently attended a preceptorship and mentoring inservice (one day) course and I was the only Irish one there, I remarked to the presenter (during morning tea) how much of the day felt like a rehash of my personal and professional development lectures from uni. You the ones............Listening, communication, learning styles, diversity in healthcare (age/race/gender/beliefs, etc.), self awareness, reflection.

She had been running these courses for about 2 years with 2 big hospitals and she said that the Irish nurses always said that to her but very rare for the Aussie or other internationally trained nurse to remarke on it.

Mind you I HATED PPD lectures when I was at uni..........mainly cause they were on a Monday and Friday morning..........Monday cause I was back for a full 37hr week at uni after working about 25hr at the weekend and Friday morning cause well after Thursday night (AKA student night at the pub) :smokin:.

But I realise after doing the Honey & Mumford (1970) Learning Styles questionnaire (AGAIN!) that I am still an activist/pragmatist learner rather than a reflector or theorist!

But we had very little fluff in our course - loads of Nursing theory and anatomy and patho-physiology, psych and sociology, law and ethics (only issue there was our lecturer was a disbarred barrister for turning up to court drunk and was off the wagon more than on it) research and health statistics and pharmacology which was kind of melted into A&P and nursing theory as well as a stand alone lecture . All pretty relevant I think. :nurse:

Mind you a class on how to deal with patients wandering hands would of been nice..........but working in a bar taught me that one...........I have a fantastic dirty look that stops most of them in their tracks or a sharp "Stop it!" with full on Irish accent does the trick.:lol2:

The general consensus in this, and other, threads on this site seems to be that anything besides the hard sciences is a "fluff" course. Many don't seem interested - or even show contempt towards - the humanities and social sciences.. I just don't understand! Part of obtaining a BA or BS is having a "well rounded" curriculum beyond your chosen major. I appreciated these classes (and my first degree consisted only of them) as an undergrad.

Isn't what we learn in sociology, for example, (social stratification, race relations, feminization of poverty, etc.) completely relevant to nursing, as understanding and interacting with people is much of the job? Even nursing curricula itself emphasizes holistic care, including understanding the social/economic/psychogical, etc. aspects of the whole person in order to deliver the best nursing care. I think the humanities and social sciences are an excellent background to bring to nursing.

GilaRN I know, I recently attended a preceptorship and mentoring inservice (one day) course and I was the only Irish one there, I remarked to the presenter (during morning tea) how much of the day felt like a rehash of my personal and professional development lectures from uni. You the ones............Listening, communication, learning styles, diversity in healthcare (age/race/gender/beliefs, etc.), self awareness, reflection.

She had been running these courses for about 2 years with 2 big hospitals and she said that the Irish nurses always said that to her but very rare for the Aussie or other internationally trained nurse to remarke on it.

Mind you I HATED PPD lectures when I was at uni..........mainly cause they were on a Monday and Friday morning..........Monday cause I was back for a full 37hr week at uni after working about 25hr at the weekend and Friday morning cause well after Thursday night (AKA student night at the pub) :smokin:.

But I realise after doing the Honey & Mumford (1970) Learning Styles questionnaire (AGAIN!) that I am still an activist/pragmatist learner rather than a reflector or theorist!

But we had very little fluff in our course - loads of Nursing theory and anatomy and patho-physiology, psych and sociology, law and ethics (only issue there was our lecturer was a disbarred barrister for turning up to court drunk and was off the wagon more than on it) research and health statistics and pharmacology which was kind of melted into A&P and nursing theory as well as a stand alone lecture . All pretty relevant I think. :nurse:

Mind you a class on how to deal with patients wandering hands would of been nice..........but working in a bar taught me that one...........I have a fantastic dirty look that stops most of them in their tracks or a sharp "Stop it!" with full on Irish accent does the trick.:lol2:

I wish allnurses came with a voice over for the messages. LOL, I am reading your post and hearing the Irish accent. I LOVE that accent, but I am sure you hear that from a lot of crazy Americans. I had a friend from the UK in college, and she rolled her eyes every time we told her we liked her accent. LOL!!!

Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.

LOL!!! Yes I certainly do!

I'm probably going to get flamed, :madface: but I thought my paramedic training did a great job of providing just what you needed to know, with lots of hands on, spectacular, high paced clinicals with lots of skill training. No fluff in that program!

Specializes in ER/ICU/Flight.

Statistics is an important class.

The main thing I learned from it is that I would never apply for a job that required me to do anything like that. I would rather get kicked in the teeth than figure out another chi-square analysis.

I'm probably going to get flamed, :madface: but I thought my paramedic training did a great job of providing just what you needed to know, with lots of hands on, spectacular, high paced clinicals with lots of skill training. No fluff in that program!

I agree that the psychomotor aspect of paramedic school is great; however, I often find that a deeper understanding of the physiology (the why) behind all the hands on stuff is often neglected in paramedic school. I would add this is the case with nurses as well, only in reverse if you will. A good programme must strive to find a balance between the didactic and practical environments.

Specializes in Acute Rehab.

writing 101 and 102 was basically a repeat of what i did in high school. I don't remember but one or two things from my psychology and sociology classes. Child Development was fun, but not needed. My humanities class was a joke!...but an easy A.

Aaaah! Someone tell me you liked/thought was useful any class besides science... give me a sociology, a psychology, an economics... Anything.

You can lie to me.

A lot of your training IS seemingly useless, until you need it. I would agree that ADN nurses in our state are shortchanged in so many ways. They cannot chart in our hospital, because for some reason they are denied access to our computers. Well, how the HECK are they supposed to learn the legalities and proper documentation formats, if not as students with an instructor to correct them? I had an instructor come around before shifts end to eyeball my charting before I wrote it. (Paper charts, long ago). And yes, i have to agree that some of the courses may not be immediately applicable to the real world, but they are valuable; just seemingly secondary to what a new grad needs to function on a floor. I get a little riled when EMT to RN's talk about how IV's, intubation skills and ACLS protocols are MUCH more important then boring class work. Actually, knowing how to deal with a stressed out, non-compliant patient and/or their hostile, angry, ignorant family can be MUCH more valuable to a new nurse. I can teach foley insertion in 10 minutes, I may have to spend HOURS calming down an incipent riot when a family member feels "dissed".

how to put a pillowcase on a pillow without creating air currents, could have done without.

Geez. I am so going to get kicked out of this program, lol.

Statistics is an important class.

The main thing I learned from it is that I would never apply for a job that required me to do anything like that. I would rather get kicked in the teeth than figure out another chi-square analysis.

Kudos times one million.

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