Questions about nursing school...

VioletX · Apr 13, 2004

HI- I start my RN program in August and I was wondering a few things:
Do you practice procedures ( needles, etc) on yourself at one time or another?
How on earth do you memorize all the symptoms, procedures, conversions, calculations??
Is there a writing/oral communications portion in nursing school?
Do you have to perform skills in front of everyone? I figure this will be nervewrecking...
Also, does anyone share the same fear of forgetting something that's soo important?? Or does this get easier...
Thank you!

I am a BSN student graduating in about 3 weeks! YAY! Anyway, to answer your questions ... at the school I attend we are not allowed to perform procedures on ourselves or other students as it is seen as "an uneccesary intervention". I won't say I have never done it, but chances are that you will have more than enough time to practice these skills in clinicals on "real people". So don't worry too much about that. I've never had to perform skills in front of "everyone", I have had to do certain things infront of nurses/families/doctors/instructors sometimes it can be overwhelming but once you become comfortable you wont care who is watching, I promise.You will be expected to write papers and speak infront of your class, we didn't have a formal communications class, but these concepts are integrated into the program. Good luck to you, you will do fine.

colleen10 · Apr 13, 2004

Hi there,

We do not practice on each other or our instructor.

In lab we are given an opportunity to practice on gel pads (injections) and the dummies (nasogastric tube insertion, catheter insertion, sterile technique). When we are tested or "checked off" on a skill, our instructor calls us into the lab one at a time. It works out really well this way because she is only concentrating on us and can correct us or answer questions as we perform the skill for her.

After we are checked off, we are then allowed to perform the skill on a real person with the supervision of our instructor. When we learned how to give injections we spent a whole clinical day at a grocery store giving flu and pneumococcal vaccinations. We got a ton of practice in that day.

Good luck,

Col