Brand new to medical atmosphere ... what to expect.

[vampymegs]

i am starting ns in the fall and was hoping to have some starter questions answered here, orientation is the first day of school so some of this information may be validated in september. i am new to the medical field, i have never worked in a hospital environment.

is medical terminology something that is just 'picked up' along the way or is it assumed by most staff members that this is something a student comes to clinicals with? i'm not so much referring to the things learned in a&p, more so abbreviations you see and here in a hospital setting, procedures, equipment and the like. also my clinical schedule is thursday from 3pm to 10pm, what is expected of a nursing student in her first semester of clinicals?

is it truly impossible to work a full time job and have children and be successful in a nursing program? i do have sufficient support with my children at home, i passed my pre-req's with very good grades as well as the teas and nln tests.

i'm guessing that the instructors will supply you with a list of what is expected for class, lab and clinicals but i don't want to make any assumptions, is this usually provided to the students?

i'm sure i have more questions but this is a good place to start. thank you so much for looking it over.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

I will try to answer some of your questions.

Is it IMPOSSIBLE to be successful with kids working full time in a full time nursing program? Well, no, not impossible, but also not likely. There are only so many hours in the day. You will often have to make difficult choices about how to spend your time if you are going to try to do all three of those. You could do two of them and get through with some stress but probably do fine. All three, something is likely going to suffer, including and most particularly you and your children. Pre-requisites are a completely different ball game than a full time nursing program. You can't judge your performance based on those. Your classmates will be equally as good of students unless you are in a lottery state rather than a merit state for admission into the program. Plenty of people fail out of nursing school. Expect to work harder than you ever have in your life and still not necessarily make the grades you would be used to making prior to nursing school.

In my program medical terminology is not a prerequisite but yes, you are absolutely expected to pick it up, use it and remember it. There is no formal instruction on it. The words are used in the book, in class, in notes and in clinicals.

In my program the instructors definitely spent a good amount of time telling us both verbally and in writing what is expected of us.

I hope this helps.