What are Nursing Courses REALLY like?

[nycNurse2b]

I am only in pre-nursing at the moment getting all my pre-reqs out of the way.

Have read descriptions of all the nursing courses an am intrigued as to what they are really like? MAny thanks!

[mitchsmom]

About the tests, I would say that most of mine from actual NUR classes are NCLEX style, these would give you a good idea:

http://www.nclexinfo.com/nclex_practice1-10.htm

We have to do a fair amount of papers, too. We seem to have at least two 5,10,15 page papers per class per semester plus maybe a couple of smaller ones. For example, for pharm we had to do a drug analysis where we had to find someone 65+, on at least 3 drugs and one herbal supplement, write up their history, all about the drugs and how they might interact and how they apply to that person, etc. An example from assessment, we kept notes from each weekly assessment (each week was a different system: taking vitals, heart, resp, abdominal, nervous, etc.) on our lab partners and at the end we wrote up a big history on them. For a rural/cultural class we had to do a cultural assessment.

Patho is like the physiology part of A&P but evaluates what is going on when there is a disorder. What is happening in the body when you are diabetic? What is happening with metabolic acidosis? Multiple sclerosis? etc.

There's more but those are just some examples :)

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

Speaking of pathophysiology, I got a new book that I really like. It's "Diseases" published 2000 by Lippincott. Nice little compact thing that really has a very good scope and is written for nurses. It follows the same type format that our med-surg book does, with a lot less of the colorful pictures. (which are awfully distracting for me when I just want to read) I've been using it for the times I have ten minutes and wanna read about something I've never heard of.

In high school, we often had novels to read for english... remember picking them apart ninety ways to sunday and about destroying any of the enjoyment you'd get out of them?? I would find out what was coming up and read it in my spare time, in order to enjoy it. Well that's what I recommend for pathophys. You're gonna be exposed to all of it, at least in school, so you may as well enjoy it, even in small bits here and there. I remember better what I read in my spare time, it seems.