Failed drug calculations quiz, need some encouragement...

[Katie803]

:nuke:

Hello all. I am 23 year old student and mother of a toddler. I have been in school for two and a half years and have finally reached my second clinical semester...well, was in it anyway. I failed the drug calculations quiz for the third time and was told I would recieve an F for the course. It literally broke my heart. I am a good student, have never failed ANYTHING before, even before the nursing program. In introduction to pharmacology where we learned to do drug calculations, I never made anything less than a 96, even on the final. I had to make 90 or above to pass the quiz, and on each try I missed one too many (20 question test, missed 3 each time). It's not like I went in there blind, I studied really hard and refreshed myself. One day I studied calculations for 4 hours straight with no breaks. I had my first ever panic attack only moments before turning in the third test. I am so mad at myself, the question involved grains and the instructions said to round off to the nearest 100th. I got 1.802, answered it 1.8, and was told I was supposed to round up to 2. The answer form was tablets, and while I know it's not really possible to give 8/10s of a tablet, I was afraid it was a trick question, like maybe if I put 2 tablets it would have been wrong because that would exceed the safe dosage or something. The worse part about it is that I may have to wait a whole year before I can retake the class. This means I will have no classes to take, which means my grants will stop and I will have to begin paying back my student loans if I am not enrolled at least part time.

Lately I have been really stressed. My husband and I are having problems and are going through an on and off trial separation. I feel overburdened between bad financial struggles, lack of time to study without interruption from my three year old, an inability to keep the house from looking like anything less than a disaster (it's either clean or study) and a kind of quarter life crisis. I'm a 23 year old mother in college with no time to myself to be a young adult. I'm terrified I'm wasting the only chance I will ever have to enjoy my youth and have had a hard time coping with all the stress.

I'm really hoping for some words of encouragement, maybe some stories from people who may have failed a class before and everything turned out for the best. I can't stop crying and any advice on how to deal with my stress in a healthy way would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance and send a prayer out for me please

[Flying ICU RN]

am 23 year old student and mother of a toddler.

Your fist line and foremost on your mind, as it should be.

If for some reason Nursing school does not work out for you, there will be some self questioning on your part as to whether or not you had done your best.

I would suggest that anyone who always puts their child's interests first, will have always done their best.

Good Luck!

[nursingstudent_88]

Hey there,

Im sorry to hear that you are experiencing A LOT! Let me tell you my story,I got in to nursing school last fall 2010 and I was really happy the day I got my acceptance letter.It's been a crazy journey,from taking all my prereqs,applying to different schools and getting rejection letters. I got into the school I really wanted and when i opened that letter,I couldn't talk .I was just smiling the whole time while I was reading it..Now that I am in my semester 2 of nursing,im taking pathophysiology,geriatrics but NOT MY CLINICAL AND MED SURG THEORY=(WHY? because i failed the drug calculation exam,3x. On the first try,I went over the practice exam they gave us.However when I took the 1st exam, I failed..We need 85 % to pass and move on to clinical rotation. Before the 2nd try, I studied like crazy, went online, practically finished the whole book. I still didn't pass. Although i did better than the 1st one. On the third attempt, i was waiting for my other classmate to finish his exam and heard my teacher call another professor.When I heard the term "withdraw" I got nervous,started freaking out. I knew something was wrong. I knew he didn't pass the third time,meaning he can't take clinical. When it was my turn, my teacher went over some problems and I answered most of them correctly. After that,she asked me if I wanted to schedule my 3rd attempt on another day or take it then..I said I'll take it. I had 45 mins to answer 20 questions. I failed the 3rd time,when she told me my score, I was in denial at first.Later on I cried:crying2: While crying I told her I had never gotten an F in my entire life and I am the first one to graduate with a bachelors in our family. Right now,I dont even know if I will ever graduate.I was very upset and frustrated that because of this, I can't do clinical (which is my favorite part of nursing school) . She told me I can take med surg theory and pass this along with my other 2 classes. She told me not to give up and that nursing needs more people like me..

A week after, she emailed me and said the director mentioned that I can't take the theory class after all. Two weeks after this, she called me and said there has been a miscommunication and I can take the medsurg lecture. This call was made 3 days before our 1st exam. What is she?nuts? I can't fail any of my classes because if I do, I am out of nursing school. I decided to withdraw from the class, which is taking forever. I had to go back and forth to get signatures from important people. And everytime I see those documents about my withdrawal, I am reminded of my failure and it makes me sad. I am very frustrated on how things have turned out for me. I also filed a petition for reinstatement because I get an F for failing a drug calc exam.Now I am still waiting for them to email me if they will let me in next sem or not. I understand the importance of this bec I know a lot of patients get meds that are of the wrong dose etc. I really want to be a pediatric nurse someday! I love working with kids and people in general. Three days ago,I went to my instructors office hours to check in on which mistakes I made for my patho exam, he said I was really getting the information and its just a matter of eliminating the wrong answers.He said I am really good. Then he told me "you are doing great,you will be a nurse". I started crying and he asked me what was wrong.I told him a ll about it. he said "give yourself credit" and don't ever give up..SOmetimes I think to myself,yeah sometimes being good at something isn't really enough:scrying:

I just want to finish nursing school,,graduate and help my family. My parents,friends and bf are very supportive of me. However, not finishing school would be a disappointment. I feel like Ive been in college too long to not graduate. By the way I am 23 years old and I live in California. I am looking for other ways on how to get my RN license,if in case they don't let me back in.

[Katie803]

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

The amount of support from the people who have read this was overwhelming and GREATLY encouraged me. I am back in clinicals now, having just started back to where I left off this semester. Everything is going wonderfully, and I am pleased to inform you all that when it came time for the dosage quiz, I passed on the first try with a score of 105, meaning I got everything right including the bonus questions! It took the full year, but it was worth the wait. In the meantime, my husband and I have mended our marriage. He realizes now that while he was supportive of me emotionally, he was lacking in the "physical" aspect. By this I mean taking our daughter off or being in charge while I locked myself in my room and studied, taking care of dinner, and picking up around the house (though his definition of cleaning and mine seem to be very different lol). My family has also stepped up in their support. I have always been very independent, to the point of being just plain stubborn sometimes. They offered to help before by babysitting and such, but I would politely decline and tell them that I could handle it. But now when they offer I accept and use the time proactively to do ANYTHING school related. I guess we all want to be superman/woman, but last year's experience taught me that I do NOT have superpowers, even though my daughter seems to think I do. She can't figure out how I make all of her toys magically disappear into her toybox, nor how I always seem to know when she has done something wrong even when I am nowhere to be seen.

I also learned something very interesting on my first day back to class. After the lecture I went up to my teacher to express my concerns about the quiz and explain the situation from last go round. But before I could do more than introduce myself, she knew exactly who I was and why I was walking up to her. She is the same teacher I had last time for lecture and remembered me, a little too well I thought. Strange. But she proceeded to tell me that last year when I got the test grade from "Ms Jones" (I will use anonymous names for the teachers for this story) she had actually been outside the room while I was crying and begging for some kind of sympathy. Ms. Jones was very indifferent to my pleas, even a little disinterested. I was put off by her callous reaction and said to her "You know, I wanted to do Nursing because it is a field of compassion and caring, but your attitude towards my situation really cuts me to the core. It makes me think that if I am going to get to the point where I react the way you have, cold and indifferent, that maybe I should rethink my career choice". What can I say? I was devastated, angry, and very upset by her unsympathetic attitude. I left the room sobbing and "Ms. Doe" (my lecture teacher) stuck her head in and asked what was going on. Ms. Jones very non-chalantly told her that I was making up excuses, trying to blame it on my social life and my nervous breakdown in the test room. Ms. Doe was a little put off by her attitude as well and decided to look into the situation a little further. She spoke with several of my past teachers who were upset about what happened and all told her how good of a student I was, and how they didn't understand why I failed when it was VERY unlike me.

They took it to the director (the same one who told me I was incompetent, and yes I know she didn't really mean it in a derogatory way) and told her that they didn't believe that it was due to my lack of effort or understanding. The director told them it was out of her hands, that the only thing to do at that point was take it up with the school board. They had a meeting and several of my past teachers and some teachers I hadn't even had yet showed up to speak on my behalf. They argued that the test question about the grains wasn't fair because of the directions to round up to the nearest hundredth, not whole number, so it was unclear that it was supposed to be rounded up. Even though it is common sense that unless it was a pretty big pill giving 0.8 might be impossible, it could still be viewed as a trick question and it wasn't really fair. They brought up the point that the answer I gave, while technically incorrect, was not an unsafe dose, nor was the drug unsafe (it was some kind of vitamin supplement). They argued that I had not been given a chance to review my previous tests, something that is MANDATORY for the teachers to do. The board agreed with them on some points and disagreed on others, but came to the conclusion that it must be a unanimous vote to allow me another chance and the opportunity to come back. All voted yes except one. Can you guess? Yep. Ms. Jones.

My teachers were outraged. They didn't understand why Ms. Jones was being the way she was. She didn't know me, had never had any personal interactions with me, and had only ever talked to me once before for something completely unrelated. I had not been rude or impolite nor had ever given her any reason to dislike me. So why the animosity? My teachers went back to the director and expressed their concerns that I was being treated unfairly, and even the director agreed it was a little strange. So they launched an investigation. They discovered that the teacher had not only not shown the previously failed tests to me, but 3 other girls were in the same position. But some girls had been shown their tests. So why not us? A little more research brought something shocking to light. The teacher, a black woman, had helped all of the black students. But not the white ones.

BEFORE I CONTINUE, PLEASE DON'T THINK I AM TELLING THIS STORY TO START A RACE ISSUE!! I AM NOT, BUT THIS HAPPENED AND IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT IT HAPPENS TO ANYONE OF ANY RACE!!The teachers were stunned and very upset. Ms. Jones got into a lot of trouble and faced some serious consequences of her actions.

[Certifiable, BSN, RN]

You really do have quite a lot on your mind- more than the average student I mean.

In my calculations test we need to pass at 100%--- smallest mistake and it's a fail. I failed twice, but on the last one passed.*phew*

My mistake was: 1st time- didn't take it seriously enough, 2nd- took it too seriously and stressed out big time.

I've never had a panic attack- but I have had a black out--- and I know it was from putting too much stress on myself to understand and remember: I had a great tutoring lesson in chem that I understood, and when I got home I didn't understand a thing! I couldn't remember anything!- i went to the tutor again in tears... he was realy great about it, teaching me ways to relax and study for tests more efficiantly.

I hope everything works out for you like it did for me in the end!

[Elizabeth40]

Hello, I'm a nursing student almost through my first semester. I'm a little discouraged because I failed my dosage calculation by 5 points. I got an 85 and needed a minimum of 90. Now I'm going to retake my pharm class all over again even though I'm passing my pharm class. Has anyone been on the same boat as me I received 100% on my calculations and conversions but made mistakes when reading medication labels and interpreting orders. Any suggestions. I'm so sad and feel so discouraged right now especially since now I will be behind with my classmates and have to repeat a class that I'm passing bc of my failed dosage. Any suggestions are welcomed

[Orion81RN]

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