Advise to help with school

[Wren]

I've got a tip for all of you future nurses. One thing that helped me with nursing school was subscribing to a couple of general nursing journals.

Yep....I am suggesting that you read EVEN MORE than what you are assigned! Go with me on this a minute and I'll explain why. Nursing journal articles are generally short, to the point and easy to read. Heck you can read 'em in the bathtub.

They help you to start thinking like a nurse, learn how the terminology is used and cover things you will be learning in class. When I had to learn about acid-base balance I was struggling....... then..... like magic, my trusty nursing journal had an article that explained it in terms that I could understand. I copied it for all of the students in my class!

I know your books cost a fortune and money is tight. Most journals have student rates though and it is probably more affordable than you think. But you could even consider getting 2 or 3 friends together and each subscribing to a different journal and then swap. A journal club! Lot's of working nurses do that too.

What should you subcribe to? That is harder to say. I subscribed to Nursing 03 (with the appropriate year of course!) and American Jrnl of Nursing. I don't think either of them is fabulous now but they have good basic nursing info. If you have time, go to the library of your nursing school and spend an hour or two reviewing what is there and find a journal that you like.

Good luck, welcome to nursing and I hope this helps!

[ShelleyERgirl, LPN]

Hey Wren, thanks for the tip! Will look up some stuff tomorrow after my organic chem class.

Michelle:D

[rnnurse2be]

Wren, Ive been wanting to do this, but didnt know which would be good ones to read!

See, even though Im not in school this summer, Im looking thru the NCLEX book, medsurg books, med dictonary's ect...

I know I know... Im hopeless!

[Wren]

Connie (rnnursetobe)

It's not hopeless at all! You are doing all of the right things. I personally don't think that you can read too much, even if you don't really understand everything that you are reading. I know from experience that you will start absorbing how nurses think, assess and evaluate patients and that will be so valuable to you.

Go to the nearest medical or nursing school library when you have at least an hour or two to spend. Find the nursing journals (ask the librarian for help) and just browse through them. Some are MUCH more user friendly with lots of pictures and charts and advertisements. I enjoyed the ones that had essays, letters to the editors, etc. Some are very dry and harder to read, especially when you are first getting started. Pick one that you like and can afford and take the subscription card (or copy the page with subscribing info) and order it.

Save all of your old issues because when you get in nursing school and start studying certain topics (diabetes, heart failure, etc) you will undoubtedly already have resources at home to review.

Take care and don't give up.....you'll be there before you know it!

:)

[fnimat1]

Wren,

Thanks for the advice. My college get the Spectrum magazine free of charge so I have been reading that. It is very interesting and I have saved all of them. My question to you is what other nursing journals are out there. Do you know the websites to these journals...if so please post them. Thanks in advance.

Fatima

[Wren]

Fatima,

There are literally dozens, probably hundreds of nursing journals dealing with every conceivable subject or special interest. Your local nursing school library probably has a list on line that you could browse.

Here is a link with a lot of journals and some articles are available on-line.

http://www.nursingcenter.com/library/index.asp#journals You can also go to http://www.google.com and type in the subject that you are interested in (pediatric nursing, oncology journals, whatever) and find more links.

Hope this helps. I'd look up more but I am heading out of town for the weekend and haven't packed yet!

[marilynmom, LPN, NP]

I think that is a great idea. At my school in the library there is either 1 or 2 nursing journals and I read those and have learned a lot, plus they are just interesting to read.

Good idea!

M

[maeyken]

Medscape has a weekly email thing that is good. Each week it emails you with links to journal articles, news articles, etc. It's really interesting, and each week has different topics.

I don't remember exactly how I signed up for it, but I went to Medscape and signed up somehow there. Here's the

Nursing Homepage

I can't find the place to sign up for the email, but the site is updated each week, or maybe even more frequently. I've found it's got lots of info on many different topics, and is a great place to start off for projects.

~ Mae