I am so disappointed in myself

THELIVINGWORST, ASN, RN · May 4, 2011

stop freaking.....you wont ever use that stuff...only gross anatomy and disease processes are resally terribly important! Stop freaking out....an A is an A. trust me

TrinCell · May 4, 2011

Won't ever use? Physiology is very important especially for critical care. If you don't understand how the body works normally then you cannot understand how a disease affects this function. Renal and cardiac physiology are very important especially. Anyway, you shouldn't be freaked out too much about a 90. Not everyone will be a master the first time around. In fact, none will really. You will have more opportunities to learn about disease processes in nursing school and you can read more about physiology at that time. Keep your physiology book handy and go back to it when you need to. In nursing school, you will take pharm and patho and you can continue to increase your physiology knowledge as you understand the effects of drugs and diseases on these processes.

DarkBluePhoenix · May 4, 2011

Since my school does a&p separately, I can answer you what I did for anatomy when I took it in winter intersession (got an A) and for physiology which I am doing now and currently have over 100%.

For anatomy, I did plain old notecards. They work for me as far as the memorizing.

I don't do my notecards like everyone else does. I make what I need to memorize into a question. So they are basically "quiz cards." I put multipart to save as much cards.

For the lab I would take pictures with my phone and them download them on my computer and print them out and put them on notecards. I would label on the cards numbers pointing at various organs or muscles etc...The process of making them is probably what makes me learn 85% versus just going over them and over them. Since I make up questions on my cards, not only making up questions is a good study tool, but also the act of writing the answers down as well.

For physiology I bought a mini white board and it has been the best tool ever! I take notes on the powerpoints. Our teacher normally gives us handouts of pathways or writes them on the board. Right after class I go home and get out my whiteboard and then write as much as I can remember from class on it and then whatever I missed I would fill in. It doesn't waste paper and I can write the pathways over and over and over again. Using this technique alone, I got over 100% on our first exam! (I take the next exam, next week...blah)

That is what helped/helping me right now.

I hope works for you as well!

Good luck

OBplease · May 4, 2011

Thank you all. Cardiac, renal, and reproduction were some of my better points. I seem to be having issue with cell process and hormone order (although I did ok with hormone order during reproduction). The over all picture of how a system works I did fine in. I could give the right name for hormones for the most part. I answered most fill in the blanks and multiple choice correctly. Just some of the matching (usually around 7 step matching Qs) were ordering questions and that is where I faltered because it threw the rest off when I missed one. I am taking pharm. in the fall. It is a req. for my program. Maybe I will pick up patho in the spring, since I will have a free semester before school. Thank you all again.

THELIVINGWORST, ASN, RN · May 5, 2011

Just to clarify...i meant Pathophysiology when I said disease processes. From the experience of my coworkers, superiors, and current nursing students....you learn the basics in AP1 and 2 but you learn all you need in NS so don't worry because when the time comes you will learn what you need to know to be a nurse. I show this to the nurses at my job and they laugh because they never use the stuff we're learning now....except for patho and anatomy. BUT the anatomy becomes second nature during on the job situations.

Dont let the classes scare you. IMHO I believe they are so damn hard because they want to weed out the lazy people. I dont really think it has to be this hard. JMO

soxgirl2008 · May 5, 2011

^^ I agree with slinkyheadCNA. Many A&P professors make it extremely hard on purpose just to weed people out. A 90% in no way means you don't know the information.

Nursing students I've talked to and RNs I've talked to have said they don't remember half of what they learned in A&P because you just learn SO much about so many different things there is no way to retain it all. Most of what they learned that was really important nursing wise they learned in nursing school. Not to say that A&P isn't important, because it is, but a 90% is nothing to freak out about.

DarkBluePhoenix · May 5, 2011

I agree with the two above posters, they baisically over teach these things, like everything else.

They also, as some people mentioned, weed people out (and some professors don't, like one a&p teacher didn't teach the renin-angiotensin pathway! :eek: and another professor at another school left out the chemotherapeutics in micro! :uhoh3: )

So although you are suffering now, and everything seems way harder than it needs to be, your primary goal is too just do good enough to get into the program because, they will go over it again, just not in as much detail as the pre-reqs were!

Wyrm74 · May 5, 2011

You know what they call a 100%? It's called an A. You know what they call an 89.5%? It's still an A. Don't worry about it. Just having an A in the class probably puts you in the top 10-15% in that class. It sure did where I'm going to school!

You'll learn what you need to know in nursing school. That's why they don't let you be a nurse upon completion of A & P, right? There's more to learn! Pat yourself on the back for your A, relax, and tackle what's next.

OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN · May 5, 2011

Relax, if you were at my school you woudn't have gotten that A anyhow, a 90 is a B not even B+ lol :lol2: :lol2: But seriously, you will go over the stuff so much through pathophysiology, pharm., and other nursing classes. In my assessment class every system had an a and p review and we didn't usually go over it but it was there if you wanted to review on your own. Physiology is just hard to understand and I'm sure you'll be a great nurse so don't worry.

blueyesue · May 5, 2011

You know what they call a 100%? It's called an A. You know what they call an 89.5%? It's still an A. Don't worry about it. Just having an A in the class probably puts you in the top 10-15% in that class. It sure did where I'm going to school!
You'll learn what you need to know in nursing school. That's why they don't let you be a nurse upon completion of A & P, right? There's more to learn! Pat yourself on the back for your A, relax, and tackle what's next.

I want to attend your school. In mine you have to get a minimum of 94% for an A.

Selfrespectforwomen · May 5, 2011

To answer your question, the best way to reflect what you know is drawing. The thing is, because society often impressions our more 'analytical' and 'robot' (left-hemisphere) brain we're kind of outsourced. Do this activity for me, look to the side of you, all of around you, and BEFORE you do, try to feel what your brain is trying to do. The first thinig most people will notice (me included) is we associate words, not meaning, and the meaning is subconsciously intact; well, let's tap that neural network! Just draw what you see, you can practice with things you already know first, then try intuitive things, or just encyclopedic knowledge you've learnt. After doing this, try to look at neo-infomartion and open your right-hemisphere, try looking at each individual cut, corner, and surface and sketch that briefly (don't scrutinize yourself so much) and do it until you've holistically portayed the image. You can do this with definitions of things (what they mean to you), and this helps with order of operation I'd say. Just my personal experience. Overall, you seem like a perfectionist, so it's nothing to worry about, just your natural tendency getting the best of you.