Are you expected to know how to take BP and heart rate right away?

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I remember doing this in maybe 2 or 3 labs in A & P II, but I took A & P II years ago. So, I'm wondering if you're expected to be able to do this fresh into nursing school or if they go over it again and let you practice it prior to doing it in clinicals. Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but I'd rather know now and spend extra time physically practicing it with my nursing friends rather than be surprised and feel like an idiot in clinicals! :D TIA!

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It depends on the school. Some require students to take CNA training before beginning clinicals and vital signs would certainly be covered in those classes. Other schools don't have this expectation and they would start from scratch.

Either way, it might be a good idea to practice now. Then you'll have a little bit of a comfort level no matter where you learn these skills.

Best wishes with your education.

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Not really, but looking back, most students already knew how to do it the first day of class since apparently everyone is apart of EMT.

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My nursing school does not require you be a CNA prior to enrollment.....

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I know we're not... it's the first thing we're going to learn though. You could always practice a little beforehand to be ahead of the game either way. There are many helpful videos on YouTube too, in case you need a reminder. Good luck :)

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Specializes in General Nursing..

well here in my country, Fiji, we dont need to know that.. as it is the first procedure we learn during our FNP ( Fundamental of Nursing Practice) lab. since we do general nursing, it is expected of us to know how to take vital signs during our first clinical attachments......:up::up:

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I didn't need to know it going in. It was our first return demonstration in our first semester.

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Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but I'd rather know now and spend extra time physically practicing it with my nursing friends rather than be surprised and feel like an idiot in clinicals! :D TIA!

It is a good question. We had to have a CNA cert before nursing school, but early in lab after school had just started we were trained and checked off on taking vital signs. We practiced a lot on each other. It wasn't funny at the time, but we laugh about how freaking nervous we were during checkoffs.

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At my school they taught us everything from the ground up. They expected you to know basics, like where the brachial artery is and such, but I'm sure they will train you. We had videos to watch that came with the texts and they were assigned to watch prior to lab. But still watching and doing are totally different. And it's going to take you many times doing BP's to feel comfortable. Relax, your a student, let um teach you =)

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Specializes in Psych.

We were not expected to know how to do vitals when we first started. It was covered in one of our labs and we had to demonstrated taking a set of vitals during a skills check off before we were even allowed to do it in clinical.

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

They tried to teach our class but you still see half the people doing them wrong anyways. People rely way to much on the auto pressures to really get the concept of a manual BP

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