Finished Intermediate Med-Surg!...

[Plutonium261]

So I haven't posted anything in awhile, been sort of busy with school and life and all. The life of a student nurse. Haha. I thought I'd just write and mention that I just finished my Intermediate Med-Surg term in school and I have to say that it was one of the toughest terms/classes that I've ever taken, in this program or any other class, in school thus far. So much information, on top of the incredible amount of critical thinking that goes along with it. Very informative, and a great experience overall, but very tough nonetheless. I did fairly well, but still, we lost a handful of classmates this term. Bound to happen here and there but still sad to see people go when you've been together for a year and a half, some of them longer. Nursing school is no joke!

I wanted to mention though that I recently bought a few books to help out with NCLEX style questions and a book on NCLEX-RN comprehensive review...invaluable so far. Helps out so much with breaking down questions to understand what exactly the question is asking, and how to answer simple and complex questions with rationales for right and wrong answers. We hear it all the time on this forum but I highly recommend getting a book or two to help out with this as early on in your program as possible and start practicing now. I did really well in funds, intro to med-surg, and mental health nursing, but started to struggle a little in the beginning of Intermediate M/S as the exams have progressively harder and different/more NCLEX types of questions in which almost none of them are black and white questions, but almost all critical thinking questions (as it should be). But for mainly this reason I believe we lost a handful of people. That and nursing and/or nursing school is just not for everyone. So when I saw myself starting to struggle, and I felt I was comfortable with the material, I knew I had to figure out my weaknesses and where I was going wrong. My wife who, lucky me, happens to be an RN, sat down with me and helped me figure some things out and we got a couple of these books, and man it opened my eyes up. The next few exams went so much better. I was able to break down questions better, coupled with the material I was already studying my axx off with, and things started making so much more sense again. Not to mention I really have the best group of peers that I'm going through this with. We all help each other, and push each other, and make sure we all are good with whatever class, test, or task at hand at clinicals. They say you don't know or understand the struggle unless you've been there...so true. A nursing program is tough, and such an enormous part of your life (and time), and you'll spend so much time with your peers that you need good (smart) people around you that are just as dedicated as you are to accomplishing your goals and with the same mindset as you. I definitely have that and I'm grateful for it/them. I could have easily blamed my struggles on having to work during this program, and my wife being pregnant and not having the easiest pregnancy in the beginning and wanting to take care of her and make sure she was ok, and spending time helping take care of a good friend who has a very serious illness. But at the end of the day they would be excuses and I'm responsible for what I get out of this. And I know for a fact that there are people with bigger struggles or more going on than that, that get through a nursing program and thrive. I've never been about excuses, so we push on.

If you are struggling, don't panic, I won't say don't stress because anyone who's ever been through a nursing program knows how hard it is to not stress, but don't panic. Sit down, take a deep breath, and take a moment or two, or a whole day, and figure out what is the problem. Figure out what your weaknesses are and make moves to better yourself. Whether it be tutoring, study groups (in moderation) are huge, other outside sources like NCLEX style books, asking for help on sites like All Nurses, time management (huge!), better sleep, better personal nutrition (we all sometimes lack in this department in nursing or nursing school, especially when we're stressed out), or just extra personal non-school time. Whatever it may be and whatever it takes. Just remember, it is doable!

With all that being said, haha, my next rotations are OB, Peds, then Advanced Med-Surg. I'm really looking forward to the latter two as I'm hopefully looking to going into one of those two as a specialty. If anyone has any advice on any of these it would be greatly appreciated. Have a good one!