Micro, meds, and adult 1 oh my!

mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP · Apr 1, 2005

I wish I had some great advice, but our school doesn't make us learn tons of drugs. We have some major, you'll see all the time, drugs that we learn but that's like 10 or so and we still have to look those up. What they teach us....look it up before you give it to the patient no ands if or buts about it. They said that drugs are too complicated to learn, things change almost daily and we should never rely on our memory when administering drugs. We'll actually get an U for the day if we are caught NOT looking up a drug prior to administration. We also will get a U if an instructor asks us a question about a drug and we don't stop and look it up.

Have you thought about buying those giant index cards and maybe making drug cards that way? Maybe this summer you could test yourself on ones that you see alot when doing clinicals.

Good luck!!!

SKYSTHELIMIT · Apr 1, 2005

I assume that u did not complete all of ur req like micro before u entered MIcro I. Is it possible for u to take MIcro in the summer instead as well as any other classes that u haven't taken so u can just focus on Nursing clinicals only during the regular semesters. See if that's a possibility.

Ok, im talking micro and adult 1 at the same time in my ADN program and I find myself coming home crying from clinical almost everytime I go. I know i need to know my meds, but from the time i get the meds, do pt research, go to micro, get through nursing lab, and drive an hour and a half home I cant think straight much less memorize 50 meds and side effects at 10:00 at night. Then when I get to clinical everyone just yells at me for not knowing my meds I'm so depressed I feel like crying right now. I have a really great teacher who is pretty understanding but I feel like im letting her down. I also have 3 pts at the hospital who im letting down. I need a better way to learn these meds. I cant remember one from the other. An I always look them up I just cant retain the info. I do fine on tests but I think this is my downfall. Next semester I have to know them, and I'm the only student in my group who has had no prior medical exp. which makes me look even worse. Does anyone have any suggestions how to remeber all these meds?

IvoryLena · Apr 1, 2005

Micro is the only pre req I didnt do before entering the program, cause I was put on a waiting list, then I got bumped up for some reason and started right away. I wanted to take it in the summer but for some reason we are not allowed to, im not really sure why because we dont have any classes during summer. I think I will take you advice and get some of those cards. Do you know if the cards have all the info on each drug, or are they just brief summary? cause if they do that would probally cut my time in half! Thanks!