A&P not really helpful in nursing school!

[bioniclewoman]

I struggled through A&P 1 with an A and now I am stuggling through A&P 2 with a B. After all of this, a classmate tells me that when she was in LVN school there was no point in the program where she needed all this A&P info and she hasn't needed it in the last 5 years she has worked as an LVN. She said that she thinks these A&P classes we have to take are BS because the LVN/ADN nurse doesn't utulize this info. She says the basics make starting out as a nurse easier but that nursing in pracitce doesn't involve you needing to know most of this stuff. Like all the different types of tissue. If your a burn nurse yes you will need to know this, but they will teach you all you need to know when your in training.

Now I feel like I am wasting my time in A&P even though I have to have it.

[Catys_With_Me]

You're not wasting your time. Trust me. In fact, keep your A&P book because you will be using it as a reference when you're in nursing school. It is by far the one pre-nursing text I have reached for on a regular basis in the last year and a half of nursing school. A&P teaches you normal anatomy and physiology, nursing delves into what goes wrong when you have a disease process. How would you ever be able to understand any of that if you didn't have A&P as a foundation? You need it.

[lna2rn]

Some nurses feel this way but I promise you the great nurses do not feel this way! How are you going to anticipate your next step and be proactive if you do not know the inflamation processs, metabolism, angiotensin/renin mechanism, etc? And how can you properly document location of a wound without anatomy, the staging of a wound without knowing the layers of the skin? I could go on but I think you get my point.

[MereSanity]

Are you kidding me? Besides Pharm, A&P I & II were THE most helpful classes I took. Knowing the in's and out's of the body and how and why it works is not important? Please.

[truern]

Omg! Once you're in nursing classes they don't even review A&P because you're expected to know it already. Trust me, you need to know NORMAL anatomy and physiology before you tackle abnormal disease states. Your friend was *wrong*.

[lisamc1RN, LPN]

Your friend was definitely wrong. I open my A&P book all of the time. I think it would be very difficult to understand pathology if you don't understand what is normal. Don't get discouraged. You are doing exactly what you need to be doing.

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

Wow, that is hard to believe. When I was in Physio the nursing students were telling us how much you need to understand physio to do well in nursing. I am in Anatomy right now (my last pre-req) and a friend who is in the program now stopped by class and was telling me that she was having to review her anatomy because you really need it!

[Turd.Ferguson]

Like many students, I sold the A&P book back to the bookstore after A&P II. By the middle of my first nursing semester, I went back to the bookstore and re-purchased it.

I have used the A&P book this semester to fully understand gas exchange in the lungs and cells, acid-base balance, the heart, the endocrine system, etc. Our Med/Surg book assumes you already know this stuff, so it kinda glosses over the details.

I can see that I will need an A&P book for the rest of my life as a nurse. You can wipe butts and pass pills without knowing anatomy, but to fully understand medicine, you must know anatomy and physiology.

[txdude35]

I'm confused. What kind of program are you in? You say you don't need the material b/c an LVN doesn't use it, but your classmate worked as an LVN for 5 years already?

Whatever program you're in, you have to crawl before you can walk. What are you going to say to a patient in renal failure who asks you how the kidney actually filters blood, or to a patient with asthma who asks you why he can't breathe?

"Sorry, my classmate said that information wasn't important so I blew it off. You can look it up on the internet when you get home."

A&P is the basis for _everything_ you're going to be doing in nursing school and in the field. Don't believe your classmate. If he/she wasn't using A&P, he/she most likely wasn't a very good nurse then and most likely never will be.

[austin heart, BSN, RN]

I am curious to know, what area of nursing does your LVN friend work in that he/she does not use A&P?

I also was in a program that A&P was not reviewed in the nursing classes as you where already expected to know the material. There where questions on EVERY EXAM that I took in my nursing classes that covered both basic and in depth A&P. I have been a nurse for many years and still use the condenced manuel that came with my A&P book as a reference. I am sorry, your friend is wrong. Keep studying, it will definatly pay off in the long run.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Wow, your classmate is wrong. Really wrong.

steph

[Achoo!, LPN]

Here for the LPN program A&P is not required, only a body structure class. If you ever go for RN, A&P is the basis of most anything. I am doing pharmacology now and you better remember your stuff or you will have a hard time undertsanding how things are metabolized, why things are affected etc... it comes back in all aspects.