What to expect first semester/first year of nursing school?

twntrbo15 · Jun 12, 2010

I cant speak for other programs, but in mine, we were in class for the fist couple of weeks and then we started doing rotoations in a rehab center. It was good experince, but got old very quickly. As far as textbook info, you are going to learn the FUNDAMENTALS of nursing care. I had a BS in biomedical sciences and struggled a little bit mainly because i "over thunk" a lot of common sense things. You will do fine and congrats!

Faith213 · Jun 12, 2010

We took nursing theory (fundamentals), health assessment, computing for nurses, pharmacology, and our clinical class.

Health Assessment: We went over the assessment of every organ system including abnormal/normal findings and how they tied back to disease states. We had three tests including the final. We also did return demonstrations on exam techniques (using the otoscope/opthalamoscope, draping, direct/indirect percussion, exam positions etc.), peripheral vascular/skin assessment, and landmarks (aortic, pulmonic, erbs, etc areas for auscultation of the heart, C7, T1, T10, location of spleen, and other landmarks you use during an assessment). For our midterm return demonstration we had to do a focused assessment of the thorax, heart, and abdomen. We also had to do a return demonstration for assessing the peripheral pulses (strength, rhythm, and rate for the carotid, temporal, brachial, radial, ulnar, femoral, popliteal, posterior tibial, and dorsalis pedis). At the end of the class we had to perform a head to toe assessment (with vital signs) including the cranial nerves on our lab partner.

In theory, we learned the "why" behind what we did in clinical. We had three tests including the final and five "pop quizzes." This class by far had the highest failure rate because people are getting used to answering NCLEX style questions.

Computing for Nurses was a basic online class that taught us how to use the databases, format our projects, use APA, and went over the rise of technology in health care. We had one online assignment a week which usually took 2-3 hours.

Our clinical was classroom time for about nine weeks and we did return demonstrations on vital signs, medication administration, sterile dressing changes, nasogastric tube feeding administration, PEG/PEJ tube feedings, and female/male urinary catheterization. We had to do an interpersonal process paper where we used therapeutic communication techniques while carrying on a conversation with a visitor at a senior center. We then had to write down our complete conversation with them verbatim (verbal and non-verbal) analyze our communication techniques, write a general survey of our "patient", and do an environmental assessment on the room we interviewed them in. It really made us get out of our comfort zones. We also did a developmental paper the same day on a child we observed in a day care center.

We also had a holistic paper which we turned in at the end of the semester. Mine ended up being 46 pages in length. This paper was very time consuming and we were assigned a patient in our nursing home rotation to do it on. It was basically interviews/complete health history and assessments of every organ system in narrative form, list of 20 strengths/weaknesses of our patient, at least twenty nursing diagnoses that apply to our patient including risk for, actual, and wellness diagnoses, five prioritized diagnoses, and a care plan on one of our five prioritized diagnoses (they required two goals and three outcomes for each goal but a lot of us had at least four goals (with their corresponding outcomes.)

We did a "campus clinical" before we went to the nursing home or hospital where we were checked off on linen changes, bed baths, bed to chair (and vice versa) transfers, and occupied/unoccupied linen changes. We had twelve six hour days even split between the nursing home and the hospital. We assisted our patients with ADLs, did complete bed baths, occupied linen changes, assisted with feeding patients, passed some OP meds, changed briefs, emptied colostomy bags, discontinued/inserted catheters (if you got lucky), did tube feedings, and head to toe assessments every day.

Whew! That was long but I hope it gave you some insight on what you might be doing during your first semester. Of course it will vary a lot among each school. I'm sure there are plenty of typos so please forgive me. :)

guiltysins · Jun 13, 2010

Our first semester is Intro to Nursing w/lab, Geriatrics w/clinical, Pharmacology, Pathophysiology and Dosaging Math.

It would depend on what kind of clinical you have but for the most part if you're doing geriatrics or some kind of nursing home facility type clinical then you'll really just be doing some CNA-ish work and taking vitals. Depending on your program you might be able to do a little more. My clinical is only for half the semester, we do lab for the first half. Some people are nervous about having clinicals after only 7 weeks of practice in the lab.

However my friend who is in a ADN program did Neurology as her first clinical (so jealous btw!) and what she had to do was probably much different, so it depends on what clinical you'll be doing.

At the end of the semester (and every semester following) we have to take a HESI exam and med math exam -_- which is what most people are dreading. Med math requires 100% and I think the HESI exam requires at least an 800. A few of my friends failed the HESI and they have to take a remedial course next semester.

Faith213 · Jun 13, 2010

Our first semester is Intro to Nursing w/lab, Geriatrics w/clinical, Pharmacology, Pathophysiology and Dosaging Math.
It would depend on what kind of clinical you have but for the most part if you're doing geriatrics or some kind of nursing home facility type clinical then you'll really just be doing some CNA-ish work and taking vitals. Depending on your program you might be able to do a little more. My clinical is only for half the semester, we do lab for the first half. Some people are nervous about having clinicals after only 7 weeks of practice in the lab.
However my friend who is in a ADN program did Neurology as her first clinical (so jealous btw!) and what she had to do was probably much different, so it depends on what clinical you'll be doing.
At the end of the semester (and every semester following) we have to take a HESI exam and med math exam -_- which is what most people are dreading. Med math requires 100% and I think the HESI exam requires at least an 800. A few of my friends failed the HESI and they have to take a remedial course next semester.

I forgot the dosage calculation test. We took ours a week after class started. But we had some dosage problems to work in one of our prereq classes so it wasn't completely foreign to us. We also had a med safety quiz.