in my first term, now I know what you all were talking about

[chnc1024]

Ok I just started Intro to Nursing in January. I've been reading this site for about 2 years, and heard you all tell the horrors of care plans, the high school drama, and just over all crap that goes along with being a nursing student. Well, unfortunately this all became fully evident yesterday durring clinical.

People want to ask what I made on my test (95, which I'm completely stoked about:yeah:) and then want to get all mad because they barely passed, and want to make excuses for their grade "I didn't have time to study", or "Oh, I had company", all I wanted to say, "Yea, well I have 3 kids under the age of five. My son who's 2yrs old had a seizure and had to go to the hopsital and had fever of over 102 for the past week that won't come down rotating tylenol and motrin. On top of the 4 month old baby I have that still doen't sleep all night, and you couldn't do your work because....???"(and yes that really did happen) Of course I didn't say that, and decided "Oh, that's rough, but at least you passed. You'll make it up on the next test." would be the more therapeutic response. And then said people go and talk about me behind my back trying to pick apart everything I say or do to try to make themselves feel better.

Then 5 people from our group went out to eat at Ruby Tuesdays to drink durring lunch :uhoh21:. Guess who WON'T be asked to help with my patients? Yea, we were only in Lab and not in the hospital (we go for the first time next tuesday) but we are supposed to treat lab like the hospital, and if your going to drink durring lunch you've got bigger problems than the fact that your failing...

Care plans suck! This is the first time I've been confused since school started. My problem I'm told is that I'm overthinking it, but I don't know. I just don't get how you can put a time frame on some things. For example, how can you say you want someone to increase fiber intake to reduce constipation when they are NPO??? The instructor said "well they can do it when they begin eating again", well if you don't know WHEN they will be allowed to eat again, how can I possibly give a time frame for fiber intake???

Anyway, I guess I just needed to vent. I just don't understand why some people have to try to tear others down to make themselves feel better.

Have A Great Day!

Chancie

[kangamangus]

Don't worry about your spelling...I know plenty of nurses and doctors who can't spell...who comes onto a forum to point out someone who has spelling errors??

[RNMom2010]

Congrats on your good exam grade!! And as for those students who are drinking on lunch break.....give them time and they will be out of the program, either by their own hand, or someone elses. That is very unprofessional! Careplans get easier the more you do, so just take a breath and think basic. I tend to overanalyze my careplans as well!

[cursedandblessed]

So you don't have the one who whines about her failing grades, but then informs EVERYONE the morning of every single test how she went out the night before got drunk, and didn't have time to study?? LOL I just let it roll off. I don't have the best grades in my class but they're not the worst either. I figure if they don't care enough about nursing school to bother to study, the whining isn't really worth my effort to worry over. (I'm on a break from studying for my Tuesday final right now.)

[deftonez188]

Having a beer at lunch on lab day isn't a big deal

Also, realize that maybe some people aren't as diligent at studying as you are - it's a good thing you pull it all off with that workload, but then again, I wouldn't go around after every test having a "I have it harder" party because even if you do have it harder, having a gloating attitude (not saying you do) will only alienate you from your classmates.

Then again, i;m nearly done and I study alone myself, so I guess it's not that big of a deal to make a ton of friends

[*ac*]

OP, your writing was just fine. We aren't writing term papers are charting here. Seriously.

[itsmyturn]

Having a beer at lunch on lab day isn't a big deal

Tell this to the group who used to be in my class but decided it was no one's business what they did on lunch and ended up being thrown out of school for it. We were not allowed to drink while on the school's clock. Since they were unable to get rid of the alcohol from their bodies in the hour they had lunch, they were drinking on school time.

There are way too many people in the nursing school line to be a rebel in the class. It is hard when you are put with a group of people that you may have never chosen to be around if not for school. Personalities are going to clash, people will say things that bug one another and everything else you can think of.

[earthcrosser]

Wow...Drinking on school/hospital time is way uncool and dangerous. These are definitely students who don't need to be working with patients.

Nursing school is like high school drama intensified. It generally gets worse and worse the further you get in the program just because these are the only people you are usually around in classes and it can become frustrating dealing with personality clashes so often. Ignore it as best as you can - with kids, it sounds like you have your plate full. At the same time, it's not always best to try and compare what you are going through to what others are - not everyone can handle the same issues (Or handle it while still being successful in school...I once bombed a Chemistry test because I was in the hospital with my friend who kept seizing the day before.) and life often tends to get in the way prior to tests.

Care plans suck. Hardcore. (But as you do them, they become much easier. Work to do as many different diagnoses as possible - variation is helpful to improve your careplanning abilities.) You will find your own style to doing them that works well. I did mine much differently than others towards the end of nursing school, and it earned me very high marks on them (They were ridiculously long, but very detailed). Sometimes, you need to anticipate things. What needs to happen when the patient is no longer NPO? What may happen if you give the medicine? What complications may occur and how can you prevent/recognize them? There generally need to be items addressing assessment, anticipation, prevention, treatments, teaching, evaluation, or things to report in your interventions. Medications are easy because you are doing almost every single type of intervention when passing a medicine.

[chnc1024, ASN]

Thanks for all the support!

As for the beer not being a big deal, in my school we are held to a stict code of ethics that was given to use before school began. Student's that smoke aren't allowed to do in uniform EVER even if they are on their way home because it is unprofessional. Perhaps I just think of things differently because I don't drink, but I wouln't want a nurse to take care of me or my kids after drinking a beer on lunch break.

Also, I don't do the "I have it harder than you do" thing. The only people I told about my son were the people who I know well, and my instuctors since I didn't know what I should do if he were to have another seizure while I'm at school/clinical. The people who came to me and asked what I made were the one's with the sob stories. I just tried to be supportive, even thought it's not easy sometimes.

Again thanks for the support, I don't want them to fail, but I do hope that they have different schedules than I do for summer. But then again perhaps they will be in a better mood once they get the hang of the tests. I'm just one of those people that "gets things" easily and quickly, and for some reason people just want to sabotage me because of it.

I've been doing a little on my care plan and I think I've got it for the most part now, I guess I just didn't get why the instructor chose to do the interventions that she did. It just seemed silly to me have "up fiber intake" on a pt who is NPO, when it would not benifit her NOW and her last BM was 2 days ago. Am I making since? I think it will be much better when I can prioritize interventions in a way that makes more since to me.

Have a Great Day!

Chancie

[Fig77]

Regarding that NPO and fiber intake, won't it depend on how strict of an NPO rule the patient is under. For example, some patients with NPO get ice chips.

Also why is the patient on NPO? Are the medical and surgical team planning on doing surgery or investigate the empty stomach and so on? Or is the patient on tube feeding? If so, fiber intake through the tube.

Regarding the time frame, can't we say like after that many days or weeks or months past the NPO stage, so and so goals (such as swallowing ability) will be achieved.

[deftonez188]

What I said was a beer (single) on lab day (day in which no pt care is done), at lunch = no big deal. We're all grownups - however I definitely don't condone it for clinical, and for that matter - showing up super hung over from the night before isn't safe.

Smoking in uniform, well that's the person's business - unless of course their hospital doesn't allow smoking, in which case you shouldn't.

My peeve is wearing longsleeves in summer to cover a small tattoo on my inner forearm that isn't offensive, /sigh - one day i'll call the shots :)