First day of Nursing School

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Hi all :)

Today was my first official day as a nursing student. (whoo-hoo)

Despite my lecture room being absolutely freezing-- it wasn't that bad. We mainly went over the course and spent the last 15 minutes going through the power points. In my head, I was thinking that it was going to be a pretty lax day then.

Later that day I had lab and finally got to wear my uniform (which I was a little too excited about.) Lab was way different. We went straight into skills with little direction. We watched part of a video and then it broke down lol. We had to take blood pressures and I had left my stethoscope at home! :sorry: Other people were nailing the skills so much faster than myself and I had no clue what I was doing wrong. Thankfully, my instructor came over and did it with me--but I just felt so slow.

Needless to say, I have a lot of practicing to do. I already feel behind in lab.

Anywho, if anyone has had their first day already--how did it go?

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Specializes in ICU + 25 years as Nursing Faculty.

Congratulations on surviving day #1!

This is a great time to understand what can be your greatest asset or weakness. It is neither your smarts nor your skills. Your most powerful tool is your emotional intelligence. It is the ability to use your emotions to help you rather than undermine you. How you talk to yourself about this first experience is important. "I already feel behind in lab" is reasonable. But if you let that morph into "I'll never get this" or "I am not as good as the other students"... it can become disabling. Be a realist about what happened and why... and craft a positive attitude and self-talk.

Good Luck!

GrumpyOldBastard

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my first day in lab was similar with BP stuff and bedside manners. Good news is pretty much every hospital has automated BP cuffs and I dont think i've ever seen someone manually check BP's since I've started clinicals 3 semesters ago.

best thing: watch videos of the stuff you will do in lab the night before so you don't look dumb in front of your lab partner lol

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my first day in lab was similar with BP stuff and bedside manners. Good news is pretty much every hospital has automated BP cuffs and I dont think i've ever seen someone manually check BP's since I've started clinicals 3 semesters ago.

best thing: watch videos of the stuff you will do in lab the night before so you don't look dumb in front of your lab partner lol

My first semester of clinical was in a LTC facility and we were not permitted to use the automatic BP machines. We were required to have our own BP cuffs and perform manuals each and every time. Professor wanted us to master the skill and not rely on the machine while we were so new.

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The people who were nailing it probably had previous experiencing taking manual blood pressures. If this is something entirely new for you, it's going to take a second to really get it down, and it's expected you are going to fumble around a bit. Just take as many BPs as you can and use the tips that your instructor has given you to reduce background noise and increase accuracy. As you get into skills that no one has done before, the plane evens out a bit.

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Specializes in ICU.

I started my second semester of my ABSN program on Monday, but the first semester was more pre-nursing as it consisted of nutrition, anthropology of medicinal healers, and bioethics. Second semester consists of nursing fundamentals, health assessments, and research.

I go to school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Monday is lecture day and I am there for 12.5 hours, from 0800-2030 hours. Fundamental lecture we did introductions, talked about the syllabus, and then began basic content such as the nursing process. Health assessments was similar, introductions and syllabus, followed by lecture on collecting and analyzing objective and subjective data, interview and health history, physical examinations, documentation, and vital signs. Research we did introductions, syllabus, formed groups, talked about basic research principles, and began working on a research project.

Health assessments lab was 6 hours on Tuesday from 0800-1400 hours. We did introductions again (as we had different instructors for each lecture and lab/clinical class), then did some interviewing, health history assessments, and documentation stuff.

Fundamentals clinical was 9 hours on Wednesday from 0800-1700 hours. The first seven weeks are in the lab and the remaining seven weeks are at the clinical site. We discussed the syallbus, no intros because my health assessments lab instructor is the same as my fundamentals clinical instructor, watched videos and practiced hand washing with soap and alcohol based cleaners, oral care of a coherent patient, oral care of a dependent/unconscious patient, unoccupied bed making, suctioning, medical abbreviations, and began working on care plans based on hypothetical case studies. We then had to take a hand washing test at the end of class.

Overall a busy week, we were expected to have read 29 chapters for all of our classes before our first day. I'm done for the week now and I'm reading and studying week 1 and week 2 material in preparation for school next week!

In regards to your comment about other people being ahead of you, as someone else mentioned, they probably have prior experience. I have worked as a Patient Care Technician on a medical-telemetry floor, an EMT on an ambulance, and an ER Tech in a busy trauma center. Many of the fundamental type skills, such as suctioning, bed making, vital signs, etc., are things I have been doing for years and so it is easy for me; however, I remember it being new and difficult when I first learned it, which is where you are. Trust me, once you get to things that EMT's, CNA's, PCA's, etc., haven't gotten to, such as injections, foleys, IV's, etc., everyone else will be on the same page as you.

Best of luck and enjoy it!

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Specializes in Critical Care and ED.
Congratulations on surviving day #1!

This is a great time to understand what can be your greatest asset or weakness. It is neither your smarts nor your skills. Your most powerful tool is your emotional intelligence. It is the ability to use your emotions to help you rather than undermine you. How you talk to yourself about this first experience is important. "I already feel behind in lab" is reasonable. But if you let that morph into "I'll never get this" or "I am not as good as the other students"... it can become disabling. Be a realist about what happened and why... and craft a positive attitude and self-talk.

Good Luck!

GrumpyOldBastard

This is awesome. Thank you for that. I'm an NP student starting my second clinical in the ICU on Saturday, and even after 30 years of nursing I can still apply this. Excellent advice.

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Thank you for all your insights. Becoming a nursing student has been a big shock for me. But I've doing my readings, watching videos, and even purchased a cheap sphygmomanometer so I can practice at home. I'm going to bunker down and channel my frustration into studying and understanding all of these new concepts.

Good thing we have Monday off because I have like 20 chapters to read lol

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Specializes in Oncology.

It's awesome that you commented "wooo-hoo" about your first day of nursing school, as I was terrified on my first day of nursing school, however, and I'm being totally honest here, it WILL get EXTREMELY stressful. I''m talking about anxiety provoking when previously having no metal health issues kind of stressful. There will be many times when you will not be able to hang out with your friends, you will miss important events (birthdays, baby showers, I missed a gender reveal because I had to study for 2 tests on the following Monday), your life will eventually revolve around nursing school. Make sure you practice self-care or "stop and smell the roses" as "they" say to avoid burnout, which can happen during nursing school as well. Good luck on your journey to becoming a RN!!!

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And when it gets that stressful... Breathe. Go outside and go for a walk. One thing to remember is that your life isn't over if you don't become a nurse. There's tons of other jobs in healthcare, even other roles in patient care that pay well. There's entire fields outside of healthcare. I'm sure that nursing isn't your ONLY interest.

It's only school, and it's only for a job. It's going to be challenging, that's just the reality of college level classes, but don't let yourself get overwhelmed. Take it one day at a time. If you're struggling, focus on what you can do to fix it. If you need to pass a test in 4 weeks to bring yourself back up to a passing grade, you have 4 weeks to study. It's useless to stress about that test weeks ahead of time, you know you need to study, just study, and you can pass.

And take the horror stories lightly. There isn't anything profoundly different about nursing school compared to any other science major. The learning approach, the application based thinking, that's not unique to nursing school. Even the tests, you'll hear about the NCLEX style questions... Literally every certification and licensing exam uses that style of question. And testing with that style, the guy majoring in physics is doing the same exact thing. The study time is going to depend on you. College is as hard as you make it. If you find a method of studying that works efficiently for you, you might only have to study maybe 2 hours all week for a class, while someone else might have to average 8. It's not necessarily going to consume your life. You might not ever have to miss a single major event because of studying. You might be able to have a night every week that you go out and get wings and a beer with your friends. It's up to you and if you take that time to learn the most effective and efficient way of studying for yourself, and how well you prepare, and how much you actually pay attention in class. Nursing school can be the hardest thing you've ever done, but it can also be so easy that you wonder how other people are struggling.

And for skills, if you have experience things come easier. It's not uncommon for nursing students to have healthcare experience. Don't pay attention to them and how fast they get it, just focus on yourself and take your time. You're there to learn, there's no reason to rush. As you get better with the basics, and get more confident, you'll get stuff quicker. But for now, people expect you to be slow. It's new to you.

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I just survived my first week of nursing school.

I can say there are some differences between our schools, my first day we did syllabus and then went over a lecture. The rest of the week was more lectures, a meeting concerning osha and safety at our local hospital, and we had some labs on handwashing and PPE. (I am there 4 days a week, 2 days of class one lab and one clinical)

We haven't even learned to do a blood pressure yet! But we are required to have our own cuff's and stethoscope (of course!)

I can tell already based on the amount of content that will be on our first exam on Oct. 2nd that there is a reason that they say nursing school is hard, but I have never been so excited to work hard in my life!

It is all so overwhelming, and exciting. A couple of my classmates and I had the opportunity to ask a second year student some tips on how to get through it all. She told us that this big blue book that we get (full of powerpoints to be used throughout the semester) is now our "bible". Our testing is based on that.

This is because I am doing a 2 year program for an associates in nursing to get my RN.

If you have an opportunity to speak to a student that is farther along than you I definitely recommend to ask them questions about how they got through it, and of course study, practice, study some more! If your school provides you with many online resources, or any resources at all for that matter, utilize them! I think it's normal to be slow at first, but with practice and experience we will get better. Also, it's not a bad idea to check out youtube for some extra videos on your skills. Good luck to you!

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Thanks everyone!

After a few weeks in, I'm feeling a little better. Still overwhelmed though lol. I like my clinical and labs for the most part. And I got a 92 on my first fundamentals exam! There's still so much to do, but I'm adjusting.

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