I have researched this question high and low but would love some input from the members on this site.
I finally felt like I had a "calling" and knew exactly what I wanted to do professionally. I have been on the "other side" as a patient and a family member (with my NICU baby and my Mom who has severe health problems) The Nurses I have encountered have motivated me and inspired me to finally take the plunge to go back to college.
I have been dreaming of one day becoming a Nurse Practitioner or even possibly a Nurse educator of some sort.
I am now seriously questioning my decision and wonder if I had some sort of idealistic view.... I am taking Intro to A&P and I seriously do not like it. I hate reading my text and find my lab class absolutely boring. I am able to learn the material and have been making very good grades but, I really feel like I am just memorizing words and nothing is really making any sense (if that makes any sense)
My lecture Professor told our class on the the first day, that if we do not enjoy this course and find it interesting, then we should consider changing our major as this is the foundation for Nursing. We are only on our third chapter so, I maybe jumping the gun as most of the info has been over cell structure and chemistry. I have excelled in my psychology courses and and love reading and learning about it.....
So, is it true, am I really doomed in Nursing if I do not like A&P?
I got one of my worst grades in Anatomy -- dry memorization, and mostly computer-based w/ plastic models. Give me the real stuff, honestly! Know what I LOVED?? Watching surgeries...tons of them...and learning about anatomy in that applied format.
I liked physiology a lot more...and I agree that you should stick it out longer because cell structures and chem can be pretty boring too. However I LOVED microbiology...all those crazy bacteria and microbes in our environment. Amazing!
I also really enjoyed pathophysiology -- once it applied to the patients I was working with & connected to a disease process and how to bring the body back into balance, I found it super interesting and it fit together with the A&P content so much better.
It's important to learn A&P, but for me it really needed to fit together into the dynamic picture of disease process and patient care before it really become something I enjoyed. Books and memorization just didn't do it for me either!! It was all about the hands-on, experiential stuff.
Hold on, hold on, just SLOW down those horses there!
You are only on ur 3rd chapter. If you look at your whole curriculum, there is a reaon you learn cell functions. You won't be able to relate this to nursing yet, but if you scritinise the curriculum you will find things like: your sodium/potassium pump in each cell - why is that important you ask? Well, people are put on fluids such as normal saline if they can't eat/drink etc. So the sodium/potassium pump in their cells must be kept at an absolute balanced for optimum cell & tissue & organ & body functioning. If cell levels of Na+ & K+ aren't balanceed, too much potassium can cause heart arrythmias for example.
You have only just started your studies, give it a chance. I personally found A&P fascintating - that such a tiny cell can do so much is mind blowing!
I would chat to your professor about how you feel. Starting ANY new study is daunting and I tell you, it is SO EASY to just give up, rather than sitting down with someone and working out a plan that is easier and more undestandable, tailored to ur specific learning needs. Something like half our class dropped out in first semester in university, and some actually I met later, and they came back to finish nursing and regretted the wasted time dropping out and not finishing study.
It ALMOST sounds like you want an excuse to drop out and do psychology instead. If so, go see a careers counsellor - maybe nursing isn't for you, but I always say to people do one year first and one clinical, then see how you feel after that.
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I have researched this question high and low but would love some input from the members on this site.
I finally felt like I had a "calling" and knew exactly what I wanted to do professionally. I have been on the "other side" as a patient and a family member (with my NICU baby and my Mom who has severe health problems) The Nurses I have encountered have motivated me and inspired me to finally take the plunge to go back to college.
I have been dreaming of one day becoming a Nurse Practitioner or even possibly a Nurse educator of some sort.
I am now seriously questioning my decision and wonder if I had some sort of idealistic view.... I am taking Intro to A&P and I seriously do not like it. I hate reading my text and find my lab class absolutely boring. I am able to learn the material and have been making very good grades but, I really feel like I am just memorizing words and nothing is really making any sense (if that makes any sense)
My lecture Professor told our class on the the first day, that if we do not enjoy this course and find it interesting, then we should consider changing our major as this is the foundation for Nursing. We are only on our third chapter so, I maybe jumping the gun as most of the info has been over cell structure and chemistry. I have excelled in my psychology courses and and love reading and learning about it.....
So, is it true, am I really doomed in Nursing if I do not like A&P?
I loathed A&P and put no energy into it and passed with a C. I loved pathophysiology which I took later. I had a new appreciation for A&P later but it really had no interest for me. That said, I love nursing and I love what I do and I enjoyed nursing school, the only Science Pre-Reqs I enjoyed was MicroBiology, I found that really interesting.
I hated memorization and one thing I enjoyed about nursing school was the testing. It wasn't memorizing, it was applying. I loved it while a lot of my classmates hated it, lol
To the OP. The short answer to this question is no. Hating A&P will not make you fail as a nurse. A&P is absolutely essential to the nursing profession, in all specialties, HOWEVER, A&P is very diverse and you may want to give yourself some time to see what areas of A&P interest you. You mentioned you like psychology, maybe psych nursing would be more to your liking and you can focus neurotransmitters and anatomy of the brain. Regardless, you are not going to like every aspect of anything that you do.
For instance, I love most A&P with some areas more than others (I love cardiac, GI, and Pulmonary. Neuro is cool, I don't care for ortho, L&D, or OBGYN stuff.). My interests function very well for the area I work in, and I still have passable knowledge in areas of A&P that I don't care for because it helps me provide better care for my patients. Compassion and caring will serve you better in nursing than any strong desire to know every anatomical landmark and physiological process in my opinion. Anyone can study hard enough to be very solid in A&P and they can still make crappy nurses if they view their patients as pieces of machinery with broken parts instead of viewing them as people with needs that transcend their medications and treatments.
Another fun little thought about professors.....especially professors for prerequisite classes....Guess what? Your A&P professor is probably NOT a nurse, so while knowledgeable in A&P they really don't know exactly what makes a nurse a "successful" nurse. Good grades in A&P will be very necessary for you to get in to nursing school, but whether you love it or not isn't as relevant as your willingness to put the work in to learn it.
YOU are really the only one that knows if nursing is the right choice for you, so if you are having doubts than take some time to seriously reflect on why you want to be a nurse and if you are willing to put in some hard work and do some things that you don't like to achieve your nursing goals. I don't like poop. At all. Prior to starting nursing school I had a crippling terror of poop because I was afraid that I would gag right in front of a patient while trying to clean them up and then the patient would feel terrible and embarrassed and I would be the jerk that made them feel like that. By the end of my final semester in nursing school I put a BMS system in a patient (basically a bag that goes into the rectum that collects feces, that you get to insert with your index finger) and during the insertion the patient proceeded to start defecating very warm, and watery stool all over my gloved hand. The nurse with me looked right at me and said "whatever you do, don't pull your finger out! Hurry! inflate the cuff!! INFLATE THE CUFF!!!" so there I stood like some cartoon parody plugging a tiny crack in an enormous dam desperately fumbling with a syringe trying to inflate the cuff so that I could get this horribly warm and moist glove off my hand and wash my hands in boiling water for about three days. After it was all said and done, I washed my hands very thoroughly and ate a sandwich about 5 minutes later. I still don't like poop, but I never hesitate to deal with it because it is part of my job as a nurse and I love my job as a nurse.
You may find that pathophys in the nursing program more interesting because it gives you the hows/whys. You get to piece stuff togther. If not, then go for psych since you find it interesting. There are sooo many different things that you can do with the degree.
I found A&P I was all about memorization and A&P II at my school was much more critical thinking. Probably 90% of us in A&P were hoping to go on to nursing and the other 10% were going into other majors such as dental, physical therapy, radiology etc. The head of the A&P professors was an MD and knew that if he pushed us hard in A&P II we'd be successful in nursing. I took a pharmacology class the following summer and could tell which students had my professor and those who had taken it at another campus. I could make the connection between A&P and the drugs we were studying while some of my classmates couldn't tell you the difference between a kidney and a liver.
Give it another chance. If you've only studied micro-anatomy and micro-physiology (cell and tissues and how they work) it gets more interesting.. When learning about the body systems and pathophys and relating it to actual clinical situations, it gets pretty interesting.
Thank you everyone for the encouragement. Yes, I am dedicated, willing and ready to jump through hoops to reach my goals. I am willing to "pay my dues" and fully expect to.
The Professor really had me worried with saying that we should change our major if we did not basically love this subject. Thankfully, even though I find the subject dreadfully dry and boring so far, I have kept my grades very high. I have every intention to keep going and become successful.
I am SO glad that I have all of your opinions and trust them much more, as you are the people out there being nurses! :-) I feel so much better now!
I admit that I do find psychology fascinating as well as criminal justice. I have researched both degrees and found that the majority of people say there are not nearly as many job opportunities with these degrees compared to Nursing. With a family, salary and opportunities to advance definitely factor into my decision.
I also have to admit that I have questioned my decision to become a Nurse many, many times. Many friends and family members were shocked by my decision and I have even been told that there was no way I could handle the way Nurses are treated. I have been told that Nurses get no respect from their colleagues or patients. I also realize that in any career there are things you have to put up with. I have told my negative friends that there are people in every field who will never be happy, have no work ethic and have a sense of entitlement . I have read so many horror stories about people that hate their jobs and are miserable. I have also worked with people with comfy office jobs that complain about every little detail of the work. Oh the horror of the company requiring you to be on time to work and check your email!
I on the other hand have always strived to be positive and to do my best. I like hard work and want to feel like I have accomplished something.
I have researched Nursing for hours on end and my choice is always solidified by the fact that there are so many different ways you can be a Nurse. I was very excited to read that there are Psychiatric Nurses and even a need for Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners.
I really feel in my heart that this is the right career choice for me.
Hopefully, with time I will gain more confidence in this decision.
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werkinit
75 Posts
I got one of my worst grades in Anatomy -- dry memorization, and mostly computer-based w/ plastic models. Give me the real stuff, honestly! Know what I LOVED?? Watching surgeries...tons of them...and learning about anatomy in that applied format.
I liked physiology a lot more...and I agree that you should stick it out longer because cell structures and chem can be pretty boring too. However I LOVED microbiology...all those crazy bacteria and microbes in our environment. Amazing!
I also really enjoyed pathophysiology -- once it applied to the patients I was working with & connected to a disease process and how to bring the body back into balance, I found it super interesting and it fit together with the A&P content so much better.
It's important to learn A&P, but for me it really needed to fit together into the dynamic picture of disease process and patient care before it really become something I enjoyed. Books and memorization just didn't do it for me either!! It was all about the hands-on, experiential stuff.