They make nursing school much harder than it needs to be

[Anoetos]

Feel very fortunate to have gone to a "care-bear" nursing school: small class room sizes, accessible instructors with forgiving grading styles. Everything was taught, but the pressure was to just know the material, and to learn how to think critically, not to jump through hoops, and "prove yourself worthy of the calling" according to some RN's opinion of what that means.

What I read here gives me pause: nursing school, for many students looks like descent into a temporary hell where, like marine corps boot camp, the objective seems to be to tear you down and wash you out, before building you up and equipping you.

It doesn't have to be that way.

No wonder so many nurses are over-competitive and bitter even after they get into the work place; they've been conditioned.

[SoCal student]

As I sit here and read the responses for this topic, I think back to when I was in nursing school (2009-2011). I felt the same way. But now that I have some experience under my belt, you have no understanding of pressure. You may think that the nursing instructor staff is being unfair or extra mean, trust me that they are not. When you have a patient in front of you that is seconds from crashing you may then understand why your instructors were so hard on you. Please understand that you are, at best, receiving a BASIC nursing education. As far as 'critical thinking' goes, you use it all day, everyday! For the moment you clock in until you clock out, nurses are constantly asked to make difficult decisions.

Do yourselves a favor, sit back, shut up and learn!

luvthegsp is obviously an experienced nurse of, well let's see, a year? so listen to him/her - how dare you students (ahem, FUTURE NURSES) take to a message board created for you to discuss what you may see as faults in the current field of nursing education.

Who do you think you are? The future nurses of America? Which, in turn, also means the future nurse educators of America? You know, those whose job it is to seek change for the better in both the fields of nursing and nurse educating, often through analysis and discussion.

So, yea, you should all just shut up and accept things for how they are and will (apparently) always be. After all, that's what luvthegsp has done.

(i remember learning something about lateral violence in my last semester of RN school...)

[cremedelacreme48]

o How i wish my school was a carebare school. My school was not that hard to get into after you pass the net. IMHO the teachers at my school do everything in their power to weed out "the week ones". It's like they don't want us to graduate. I don't get it! Any who I'm in my last semester and I'm so thankful that I'm almost done. I just pray for the future students.

[whipwreck82]

They do make nursing school a lot harder than it needs to be, and in my opinion Nursing education needs to change, but it never will lets be honest. I became an LPN over 10 years ago, and I am ever so thankful that opted to become a Respiratory Therapist instead of pursuing my RN, and I did this because I didn't want to put up with the unecessary Bull that Nursing School makes you go through.

LPN School was rough enough, getting up at dawn and studing until dusk, and working through breaks and hollidays.....yea it was a long one year grind, and honestly I really loved the work when it came to the Nurse-Patient relationship..... There is not a more rewarding profession in the world for that reason, being that caring indivudal, at the bedside for someone who needs you at your best, because thats what nursing is supposed to be all about, not turning it into Military School and a Social Darwinism experiment.

I hated the way we were educated...... the culture of fear and intimidation, and the scare tactics, and the instructors with the ego problem who wanted you to know, they own you. I could have done a 1 year RN transition program, but I choose Respiratory Therapy instead, because I could not take another year of Nursing school, and another thing was, I wanted out of the professsion after 4 years in.

Hey for all you future LPN's and RN's reading, ....dont think for 1 second that survival ends with finishing Nursing school, ....after that you have to survive the profession. Yes I loved the profession when it came to the patient, but I hated the cut throat mentality of some of my co workers, along with the physical grind that it was, and a lot of the other B.S that a nurse puts up with, made me change careers.

You know, I will say this: many people complain about Nursing School being so tough, but when you get in the field, you understand why. In all honesty, no health care field is easy, and if your looking for an easy healthcare school, or program, I sure as hell dont want you taking care of me,..... However even saying that, I still believe a lot of what is done in Nursing School is completelty unncessary.

You know, there where will always be someone who says "well you have people's lives in your hands", yeah true, you do, and tell that to me especially being a ECMO-tech/ Respiratory Therapist ....in my particular position, if I screw up, its likely going to result in a fatal mistake, that I cant correct, but my RT program wasn't driven on fear and intimidation like my PN program, and I had to use "Critical Thinking too", but my instructors would also help me if I had questions, because it's better I ask, and be sure, than not ask and make a fatal mistake.

It was organized, we had 1 to 1 or 1 to 2 clinicals. And for my lectures, my RT teachers actually taught, and guided us in the right directions. How does testing on material that was never mentioned in class help anyone? Hey, they didn't "hand feed" information to us, and we had to read too, but we got more than enough from lecture to get by like it should be because we're paying money to be here. I hear people in RN School all the time say, "If I have to do all the work and self teach myself, then please tell me, what's the point of me coming to class to get a lecture that doesnt even emphasize the majority test content, and listen to an instructor read from a sheet, because I can do that on my own time?"

Unfortunately to me, it seems like Nursing Schools today from what I hear are more about survival of the fittest if anything, and thats a shame because its not what Nursing is supposed to be all about. This is why Nursing School Attrition is so high in many schools, and its ridiculous. Medical Schools and Allied Health programs have peoples lives in their hands too. Yet many of these programs have much lower attrition than Nursing. We have schools that have attrition rates well above 50% or more, while every other healthcare program I know of can graduate 70-80% of it's students, why cant nursing?

Today my decision not to bridge to RN worked out well for me, because I'm currently in school to become a Cardiovascular Perfusionist, and btw...I will always have the highest respect for Nurses....well at least the good ones who are doing it for the right reasons, whom every patient needs!