What valuable experiences did you take away from Nursing School

anotherone, BSN, RN · Jul 10, 2012

Wow a "quiet" personality can be viewed suspiciously? How so? Now I'm worried because I would definitely consider myself very reserved.

Co workers can think you are quiet because you are rude, snobby, or incompitent and use the quiet shield to hide it. It can also be pretty useful, just like outside of work, it adds a sence of mystery, the less people know, the better.

Salisburysteak, BSN, RN · Jul 11, 2012

In nursing school, I learned that:
1. Unspoken politics exist.
2. Interpersonal skills will make or break you.
3. People with 'quiet' personalities are viewed with a suspicious eye.
4. Sometimes the best nurses are the first to be punished.
5. Sometimes the worst nurses fly under the radar undetected.
6. Some doctors can be unprofessional and immature.
7. Family members and visitors can be menacing and get away with it.
8. For every nurse who loves his/her job, there's a nurse who hates his/her job.
9. Not every patient wants to be helped.
10. Not every nurse has the desire to help.
11. A person can be here today and gone tomorrow, forever.

I totally agree with number 4 100%. I was terminated from my last job for a pressure ulcer that got out of control. The resident stopped eating and drinking, did not tolerate taking meds. This resident was actively dying; however, one of the nurses at this facility was terrible at passing meds(usually "forgot" to give meds), documentation was terrible, hard to read. I know this because this nurses was working my hall the next day, and I marked on the med card to know if meds were given, and lo and behold, I observed that this nurses did not give half of his meds! :mad:

I am sure this nurses is still working there and here I sit at home trying my hardest to find a job! I am just frustrated!

allnurses Guide · Jul 11, 2012

Coming from sort of an artsy background (and realizing my job prospects in that area were next to nil) and maybe also due to my age at the time, I learned that details I decided were not such a big deal really were such a big deal even though at the time I just thought the instructors were just persnickety (putting it kindly :)) over details for no good reason.

I was supposed to be here at 6:30am - so it's 6:32, what's the big deal? So I didn't take that last scheduled blood pressure! I was running behind and it was lunchtime! Someone else will do it! So these shoe aren't exactly the kind I'm supposed to wear, they look OK to me and they're white, aren't they?

As in the seemingly unimportant, so in the really important. As irritated and embarrassed as I was when the nurse tracked me down in the cafeteria, slapped the chart down and pointed to the empty space where that noon BP was supposed to be saying, "you need to go take that blood pressure", today I thank her. It slowly began to dawn on me that thinking like a nurse was completely different from anything I'd known before, and that we fuss over the little stuff to teach us habits that we must have to handle the big stuff safely.

mom_coach_nurse, LPN · Jul 11, 2012

Coming from sort of an artsy background (and realizing my job prospects in that area were next to nil) and maybe also due to my age at the time, I learned that details I decided were not such a big deal really were such a big deal even though at the time I just thought the instructors were just persnickety (putting it kindly :)) over details for no good reason.
I was supposed to be here at 6:30am - so it's 6:32, what's the big deal? So I didn't take that last scheduled blood pressure! I was running behind and it was lunchtime! Someone else will do it! So these shoe aren't exactly the kind I'm supposed to wear, they look OK to me and they're white, aren't they?
As in the seemingly unimportant, so in the really important. As irritated and embarrassed as I was when the nurse tracked me down in the cafeteria, slapped the chart down and pointed to the empty space where that noon BP was supposed to be saying, "you need to go take that blood pressure", today I thank her. It slowly began to dawn on me that thinking like a nurse was completely different from anything I'd known before, and that we fuss over the little stuff to teach us habits that we must have to handle the big stuff safely.

Great advice, thank you.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · Jul 13, 2012

Keep your mouth closed, keep your eyes open..

sit back.. observe ...and learn.

K+MgSO4, BSN · Jul 13, 2012

If you have a gut feeling something is wrong with a pt act on it. as a 4th year student my pt just wasn't right to me. all his numbers were good blood work from that morning improving obs fantastic but he just didn't look right. I went to lunch and returned half an hour later to see him being wheeled into the High dependency unit that we had on the ward. I had mentioned my concerns to the surgeon and he had looked at him and thought there was something not right. he had a massive MI. A good (senior) doc will listen to a nurse about a gut feeling.

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Jul 13, 2012

lol one of my closest friends says she has PTSD from nursing school, but she'd do it all over again. lol

This is no joke, this seriously kept me away from pursuing my BSN for almost 20 years. In my professional transitions class we were assigned an article and it stunned me in it's descriptions of former ADN grads about their traumatic school experiences (that's not the only topic of the article). I will cite it and hopefully if you are still in school you can find it. It looks boring but it kind of rocked me back a few weeks ago.

Megginson, L. A. (2008). RN-BSN education: 21^st century barriers and incentives. Journal of Nursing Management, 16, 47-55.

I think I found a link:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2934.2007.00784.x/abstract

canned_bread · Jul 13, 2012

I learnt confidence is so important, even if it's "fake". It's important for nurse relationships with colleagues, patients, family...