Do nurses know everything they learned in NS cold turkey?

[whiteoleander5]

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person but certainly no master mind. I was just curious for anyone who has already graduated RN school & has a job-- Do you ever have to go back & say "HMM what was that again?".. Do you have to still look things up? Do you ask coworkers questions? I feel really scared right now, because of course everything we are learning is important and could save someones life! I cant imagine having that kind of power when I am an RN on a floor. It sounds exhilerating, but also terrifying... I feel like while I do well in school & in class, information doesn't stick to my mind like I wish it would. I could really think I know something very well, not just for "test purposes" but I mean really know something... but if I dont use that information for a month or less, it goes right out the window. I am almost done with my first semester, and I do feel like I learned a good amount already!... I just dont want any of this information to fly out of my head during xmas break, let alone for the future semesters & when I am a nurse. Is anyone else afraid of this also?......... I plan on reading over all my notes during break to keep things fresh. I think I'm just being paranoid. Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who just spent five hours studying electrolytes, so my brain is a bit frazzled... lol

[solneeshka, BSN, RN]

I was in a little training course a few months ago put on by cardiac in a hospital I was working at, a quick course on cardiac catheterization for the ER nurses and techs. Apparently, the idea was to train the ER personnel on catheterization issues so that when they got patients who would need a cath, the ER personnel could better field questions for the patients. The nurse went through what seemed to me to be a *very* cursory overview of heart caths and got to the part about drug-eluding stents. He tossed it out to the room, "Who can tell me what a drug-eluding stent is?" I had just done clinicals on a tele floor, plus we'd had heart cath that same semester in class, so it seemed to me like asking who knows what a toothpick is? But no one answered. It was just quiet and I honestly couldn't tell if no one was answering because no one wanted to be the goodie two-shoes who answered or if they really didn't know. I felt bad for the RN, who was not moving on just kept waiting, so I answered, and then I swear to god, it seemed like the ER nurses were kind of ticked off. Might have been in my head, definitely! But I still honestly do not know if they didn't know what it was or if they just didn't want to answer. Reading some of the rest of these replies, I suspect I know now...But it really hit home to me that it *is* important to keep up with what's going on in other areas of medicine, just to be well-informed members of our profession if nothing else. I say that now, we'll see how much time I have for that after graduation when I'm working full time :chuckle I'll get to it right after reading through my virtually unused copy of "Fluid and Electrolytes Made Incredibly Easy."