Any Motivational Stories?

ReWritten · Apr 14, 2010

I failed Med-Surg 1 the first time. I felt pretty defeated and upset about it because it was the first class I had ever failed in my entire life and let nursing school be the best time for that to happen! It wasn't the fact that I didn't know the material, but because of my horrible test anxiety and my professor made the tests ridiculously hard. I think about 10 of us failed that class?

Anyway, the awful point of that was I had to wait an entire year before I could retake the class again, since it was only offered in the spring (but now they've started fall admits so the class behind me was able to be just a semester behind rather than a full year like me). So I worked on a minor in psychology and finished that.

The following spring I took the class again and passed it with flying colors, and felt much more confident in the clinical setting compared to my classmates. I also did much better on my HESIs and even got in an ICU for precepting (hard spot to get in my nursing school), and I'll graduate in 5 weeks.

The moral of the story is: even if you fail, don't beat yourself up over it because things will work out in the end as long as you stay passionate.

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Apr 14, 2010

see our success stories in nursing forum for many inspirational stories.

realnursealso/LPN, LPN · Apr 14, 2010

I was 26, married, with two children, one 5, one 6, when I started LPN school at our County BOCES. I hadn't cracked a book, other than reading for pleasure, since I graduated from high school, 9 years before. The first 10 weeks of school were very hard, and I got little support from my now exhusband. Many nights I sat at the kitchen table studying for hours. I wasn't a very dedicated student in high school, but now I tried to be a totally different person. This cost money, money I had to pay back after I was done. The tuiton and books came to a grand total of $1500. At the end of the first 10 weeks, I had a 74.75 average. You had to maintian a 75 average to stay in school and move on to the next 10 weeks. I tell people now that I got to be a nurse due to one half of a point. I would say the next 10 weeks weren't really any easier, I failed A&P, and had to retake it with the part time night class. That meant getting to school at 8am on wednesdays, and staying until 9 at night to repeat A&P, plus going home after that to study for hours, and then fall into bed until the next morning! I passed A&P, thank goodness, and was capped with the rest of my class. We then were off for the month of July, whew. Clinicals went well, no problems there, unless Mrs. H, had our half of the class. Mrs. H, drove me bonkers, made me very nervous, and I felt like I was incompetent whenever she was around. Mrs. M, on the other hand was much loved by all, she made me feel like I could do anything! When we started school again in August, something changed, it was getting easier. I still studied very hard, and we had a ton of homework, and papers to write, but something was finally clicking. At the end of that 10 weeks, I passed everything with flying colors, I was proud of my grades. The last 10 weeks I did very well. Tests no longer made me shudder and I got great grades. Until, I didn't get my drug cards done on time. We had to take those little rescipe boxes, and for every patient we had, a drug card had to be made for each medication they were on. You had to take a 3x5 card and copy the pertinent information on these cards, by hand. That took forever, because as we got further and further, our patients were sicker and had a ton of meds. One by one, each of us, I think about 5, got called into our directors office, to talk about our drug cards. I was mad and sad at the same time, I had worked so hard, and I wanted that pin so bad on graduation day. Well, to my surprize, she said, "You'll have those drug cards turned in on Monday, so you can graduate with your class, right?" Me being me, answered back, "No, I didn't turn my box in on time, so I can't graduate." Finally after this went on for 5 minutes, she smiled and said, repeat after me, "I'll get them done over the weekend so I can graduate." And graduate I did. After getting our diplomas, they gave out the awards. The last award to be given out , Mrs H. (whom I still didn't like, at all) gave a speech about the award they were going to give out next, Most Improved Student. She must have gone on for 5 minutes praising this student, saying how hard this person had worked, how every quarter their grades went up, their clinical skills were top notch. When she said my name, I just stood there. Finally the classmate next to me said, you won, go get your award. So I don't know how inspiring this is, but it's my story. It all happened 30 years ago, to me.