Cognitive Dissonance

[jmqphd]

On the one hand, students (in our ADN program) complain that they don't understand Med-Surg and care-planning because we aren't giving them enough pathophysiology. But when you actually address pathophysiology, they complain that we are treating them like medical students and don't we know that they just want the stuff they will "need" to give patient care?

There is a cadre of students (and enabling faculty) who want to eviscerate the 3 credit pharmacology course. These are the same people who are lobbying to have a pathophysiology book added to our med-surg texts.

OMG! I gave a lecture and used the phrase "pre-ganglionic fibers" and 20 students almost had a collective seizure in front of me!

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Are you saying they want to get rid of pathophys and pharm as separate courses and put some of their info into med/surg?

I can see where some of that can be incorporated, but it doesn't give enough understanding of it all. In my opinion nurses need both courses so they understand how things work more completely. Otherwise what they do could become based on just following the list of steps. It's a bit like a craft compared to an art...

[jmqphd]

My understanding is that in ADN programs typically do NOT have a separate pathophysiology course. I could be wrong, and if I am, someone with a wider background in education can tell me.

But yes... on the one hand, they want to water Pharm down to the point where it isn't worth the 3 credits they get for it. They typically moan and complain if a Med-Surg lecture has a lot of pathophys in it. But then these same people will lament that they don't get enough "background" to do a competent care plan or understand why we do the interventions that we do.

I just know I can't "think" nursing without wondering "why is this so?" I mean... why get hysterical if a %sat goes from 92 to 86? We don't freak about a drop from 99% to 92%. Well, of course, it has to do with the sigmoid nature of the oxy-hemoglobin dissociation curve. I don't know how to teach oxygenation without explaining stuff like this. Know what I mean?

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

tell them they do not have to learn it. But if they want to pass NCLEX they will need it.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Seriously, they can't pass NCLEX without knowing alot of the "why".

[jmqphd]

HESI scores in the 500's. Happily our current cadre of students are doing better and... believe it or not... think pathophys is pretty neat. But the debate about pharm and patho nevertheless rages across our system.

[A&OxNone, MSN, RN]

At my nursing school, we had a totally different way of approaching the material. Instead of having a patho class or pharm class, we had one big 9 credit hour class that taught all of it. So if we had a lecture about abd disorders, we would have abd assessment lecture close to it, then a "pharm for GI disorders" lecture or two. To tie it all together. I always thought it was kinda odd compared to other programs, but it worked pretty well

But, come ON, you HAVE to know it. You can moan all day long about the class, but if you dont know the stuff, not only is NCLEX impossible, but you're in for a shocker once you get in the field!