Psychosocial retardation of our nursing curriculum.

StudentSandra · Feb 11, 2002

I HATED that class!!!! But my instructor was a jack as*! We spent more time on his views on all that crap and most of it had already been covered in Psych & Soc (my next least favorite class) It's just one of those classes you just have to tough out. Can you take it with a different instructor? I almost did, except I would have had to drive 25 miles to a different campus. Good luck Brad.

fergus51 · Feb 11, 2002

If your program is anything like mine was you better get used to it. In my first job my manager told me that it was there that I would REALLY learn how to be a nurse. Just hang in there and get used to jumping through hoops. That is what school is all about.

KC CHICK · Feb 11, 2002

NO, you're not a psychosocial retard... just sounds like you have no interest in the class. (and you're not the first) It is, after all, just a hoop....so start jumping!

Wait 'till you get to Psych Nursing.

Anne

carlalogan · Feb 11, 2002

I got lucky and took this class as a distance-learning class (basically over the internet at our school) and ended up just having to write a bunch of papers where we observed different people at different ages. Sorry your class is such a pain...it was definitely one to take over the internet! :)

colleen10 · Feb 11, 2002

Dear Peeps,

I had to double check where you live because I thought that you were actually in my Developmental Psych class that I am taking this semester. Our instructor has given our class suplemental readings and it literally puts you in a trance as soon as you pick up the paper. All kinds of stuff about Orthogenetic Principles and they use such huge words to explain the simplest things. Luckily, this is the only Psych. class I have to take and I am in the mindset that since this is the first class I have taken in 5 years it will be a good one to help get me back into the swing of things.

My Aunt is an RN and since she went through the BSN program she had to take a lot more psych. She said that she basically used the info. on the classes to understand her co-workers not so much her patients.

Peeps Mcarthur · Feb 11, 2002

Get this,

Today we had our weekly per chapter "multiple choice/short answer" test.

Instead of making up an actual test she walks in and starts writting on the board...........................Define Theory. Define Psychosocial Theory. Define the six foundations of the psychosocial Theory. Define Epigenetic Principle.......................that was our test.............I walked out directly to admin and dropped that piece of garbage.

This was my first psychology class. I noticed that Sociology and General Psychology are also required. Do they require these classes for the same reasons they would include, say, Composition I & II?( Those being a foundation for communicating effectively.)

What worries me about it is the concern that it may show up later in clinicals, or as part of an overall holistic approach as something I should understand in order to do well in clinicals or communicate in the body of a paper.

I am painfuly aware that this has very little to do with actual nursing, and more about filling in a curriculum. I think this is one of the reasons there aren't more males in nursing. This is just too "touchy-feely" and psychoanalytical to be anything useful to me.

Any nurse , with the exception of a psych nurse, is not going to really use this.......are they?

If that's the case then fine, I can hang for three classes. I don't think that instuctor has all her marbles anyway:roll

My A&P instructor has already given me the names of Life-Span instuctors she would recomend and said it sounded like the other instructor was just inexperienced. She thinks I should go to the department head and tell her. The other students I've talked to say thier tests are all multiple choice and the instructor doesn't try to cram all the material down thier throats:devil: Maybe this instructor is just an anomaly.

I'm going to look into other curriculums also. I think the OB/GYN and Psych stuff might just be for someone else. I can't begin to pretend I'm even vaguely interested in talking, thinking, studying about useless stats pertaining to feelings, anything about babies, Pediatrics, social-anything. How am I going to fake my way through that? All the other classes are very interesting though. I'm taking Honors Anatomy and completing case-studies of the pathological processes of each main topic. I'm taking a comp class that is intellectualy stimulating and I enjoy participating in the workshop. I just finished General biology and Microbiology classes that I was tutoring other students in. Maybe there's another curriculum that plays to those strengths and would be more geared towards subjects of biological and medical importance.

I think if I want to be a nurse I'm just going to have to go through all those classes and pretend I think they're significant and I understand how to visualize it in medical practice, but that's a superficial education. I simply don't want to waste my time in school to find out that I don't like what I've become.

Anyway..this just sucks........... Whine,whine,whine........Blah,blah,blah

Brad

Mkue · Feb 12, 2002

Life Span Human Growth and Development! My instructor was so cool, he told us that we all started with an "A" and as long as we did the work and did well on the tests we would keep the "A". He was a great instructor, so I think the course depends a lot on the instructor, the material does not have to be boring.

I think any course can be interesting if the right instructor is teaching it, just hang in there and do what is expected. Have someone pinch you every so often to make sure you are awake. lol.

mkue

TCW · Feb 12, 2002

I thought it was just me!! my dev. pysch class is the biggest waste of time ever. Perhaps the class could be interesting if it weren't for my instructor, but I get the feeling she stopped caring long ago. For example, she gives us each exam and lets us study from that and then the day of the actual exam she gives us back the EXACT thing we just studied from to take for a grade. What kinda sense does that make????

I am just worried that somewhere down the line I may just need to recall so of this info. Hope not.

Peeps Mcarthur · Feb 12, 2002

Yea,

Speaking of caring.................this woman obviousely thought it's just the greatest thing since paper napkins. She looked like she's right off the campus of some liberal arts college with the mission of teaching these poor little-brained people in the "establishment" what life is all about. There were a couple of psychology majors in the class that were just eating that up with a shovel. I think she has this fantasy that we were all inspired by they're boorish conversations.

One day one of "them" got into a conversation with me about how a baby goes through all this hooey to interact and all this jibberish. I said it feels hunger, although it likely doesn't know what it is, it just knows that when it senses that stimulus it cries. It's a manipulation of it's environment, a learned response to the stimulus from instinct in it's DNA. The hunger is gone because mom can't stand to hear the baby cry(also a component of instict to the point of guilt) not because the baby is going through some "central process" or "crisis" that has a deep meaning, it just feels crap in it's pants and that makes it cry, and that makes the sensation go away. It's synapses arn't even fully developed for gawds sake.

Boy howdy, she sure didn't like that simplistic aproach to her big complicated quasi-science, but she had nothing to say in rebuttal and just ended the conversation(as if we were having one) without a counter-point........dissapointing.

The same student was asking the Anatomy instructor about the case study this next week. She wasn't sure why the Potassium levels would be showing normal in this exotic hematologic dsease she had decided was the topic. The hallmarks weren't all there, but the slide left little doubt early on. I said "you mean it's not Sickle cell crisis?". "Take a look at the image of the slide she gave us" . Trying to be as kind as possible, but doing a poor job hiding my glee.

The instructor looked at the floor trying not to grin so widely. Her point being made. It's just the thing she's trying to get across to Ms Chicken Little.

#1: The sky is not falling

#2: Not every disease process fits neatly into all the hallmarks.(or can be crammed into what you want like psychology)

#3: The "obviouse" is often overlooked in the sea of self importance.

#4: Just because you can sling the BS with Mrs Greenpeace there, and make it appear that you understand Psychosocial theory, don't get "psychology major" confused with "student of the medical art"

Mkue, TCW,

Those are just the instructors I need to find.............That was pretty much what everyone was saying about those classes. I just seem to have gotten an instructor that really thinks all that stuff is valid:zzzzz

I feel a little less retarded now. Thanks everyone.

Brad

mario_ragucci · Feb 13, 2002

Take it easy Peeps!!! I know how you feel. I've had my share of malarkie classes too :-) Think of the situation as a test of your ability to handle adversity. If a patient acts this way, you gonna walk out? What are you gonna do then? Think of these situations as "proving grounds" for you to test your abilities to find good in everything. As a nurse, you will hafta rise above. Now, Mario is not preaching, just helping with some encouraging words.

I am not immune to feeling knocked off kilter. What gets me every time is a day where I pass 100-200 in the hallways or outside and not a single one makes eye contact, or smiles. When that number gets to be >350 I can get panicy. People are supposed to smile, share a smile, show they are alive, that kind of stuff. What am I gonna do if my first job is at a hospital where I work with all zombies? Am a not gonna be a nurse?

delirium · Feb 14, 2002

My advice? Do what I did. Get the "official study guide", memorize it, and clep the class. Pay your $40, take the test, get the credits, no more headaches.