Mercer 2012

U.S.A. Georgia

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Hi! I would like to start a new thread for students that are starting nursing school this fall at GA Baptist. Would love to hear any tips from seniors and past graduates! I cannot wait to start this fall!!

for those of you who have already finished the immunization records, do you have to get the mmr 1 &2, tdap, varicella, measles mumps rubella vaccine? cause on the form it says N/A next to them & i dont know what that means?

For your first semester, you have lecture Mon, Tues, and Fri. Then you will be given your clinical day on either Wed or Thurs. For the first part of your semester, you will mainly be in the lab learning skills. Normally this starts at 8am (note that I say normally. Please don't quote me on these times as they may change for yall's class). Then, for the remainder of the semester you will be given a clinical site. Clinical sites are somewhat based on where you live. That way, if you live an hour north of the city, you aren't having to drive that far every week for clinical at AMC, Emory, Piedmont, etc. For your first semester, clinicals are around 6 hrs. I would get to the hospital by 6:30 and leave around 1. However, sometimes, depending on your professor, clinicals can run over for post-conference time, so give yourself a little wiggle room with timing.

So, when I began my first semester, I was excited because it seemed that I had one day off week each when I wasn't in either lab or clinical. Wrong! There are some weeks throughout the semester that something may be scheduled on that "off" day. So for those that have children, make sure you have arranged some sort of "as needed" childcare for that day. I spoke with one of the professors about how I was communicating with yall about this already, and this was a point she wanted me to stress to yall because it is one of the number one questions about your schedules. You should never assume that you have an "off" day.

Hope this helps answer your question. I know it can be difficult as a lot of my classmates have children and have had to work out childcare. But, as evidence by all of them, it is possible!

Congrats to those who will start this fall! I graduated from Mercer in 2010 and absolutely loved my experiences there. Wonderful & caring professors, great classmates.

Word of advice (which may seem like a given): always, always keep up with the material and when you study make sure to understand the entire picture of why you give a certain medication or how a disease functions and affects different systems in the body (don't just memorize - understand how things work) - this will be vital in not only surviving the next few years until graduation, but also when you're an RN at the bedside!

concerning the textbooks, is using older editions going to be a problem?

which textbooks do you recommend we absolutely get the latest editions for?

Thanks!

Some of the books won't have older editions, but for the most part I was able to use older editions (the only problem you might encounter is when the instructors specify a specific page # since those may be off - you just have to compare the content to make sure you're on the right page)

The biggest problem you'll have is with the texts you'll use throughout your 2 years. For instance, for one of our classes we had to do assignments on them based on an online code that comes from your MedSurge book. For the people with older editions, they had different patients and couldn't relate to the assignment once we got in lab with Simman. However, if you absolutely want an older edition, you can always buy the online code separately for the newer edition book, but then again, sometimes you'll end up spending the same, if not more money.

I would say you're say buying older editions for your community class your first semester.

To make things easier, I'd say stick to current editions for at least your fundamentals class. For PathoPharm, the patho book could be older, but stick to the latest edition for Pharm as you'll want up to date info about the drugs you'll talk about in class.

hi!should i print out power point slides before class or do most people bring a laptop or recorder? what brand stethoscope do you recommend? any other advice?! :)

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