Help! How do I make it through Nursing school even though I hate it?!

[steven007]

Alright, So I'm a second year nursing student in the BSN program. I always thought I wanted to be a nurse until I got here, now I just want my degree and I want to move on. I've already made it to my second year (out of 4 awful years) and.. I'm doing great as far as sciences go, but mediocre in actual nursing courses. I can't bring myself to study for courses like Maternity and Family nursing, so usually I just try to pay attention in lecture and I get by with 3.0s/4.0 ish. Which isn't bad I guess, but this year is no different, only, I have awful clinical rotations. I have AWFUL clinical instructors which just make the experience so much worse.

Let me just give you an idea of how dumb this one instructor is, we were given a scenario and the scenario was a 62 year old, Obese client presents himself to the hospital. He states he has not voided in 3 days and has apparent peripheral edema in his legs. Upon auscultation of his respiratory sounds you hear crackles. Blah blah blah blah to the point, the doctor apparently orders 2 units of insulin via IV because he has a CGL of 12. So the instructor informed us that we should give him 82 ml/hr of IV infusion. I said that this is unacceptable, he shouldn't even be getting insulin via IV has he hasn't voided in 3 days, he clearly has pulmonary edema starting and he has marked edema in his legs!! He is clearly in renal failure and this, excuse me for saying, ***** wants to give him 83 ml/h?!?! God have mercy on anyone who has this woman as their nurse.

The other instructor is just absolutely equally awful! She contradicts herself so often and gave me hell because I didn't put my pillow opening facing away from the door. God forbid! Sorry, but that'S very 80s nursing. Oh, and I got scorned on by her because I didn't comb my clients hair to her liking, and I didn't shave my client even though whenever you go to touch his face he flails his head back and fourth.

There is so much more I could tell you about how awful this is, like how there's always a power struggle between RPNs (LPNs in the states (I'm from Canada)) RNs, Doctors and Paramedics. And the animosity and cruelty that nurses bestow upon each other. But I'll just leave it there for now.

So what I need is help. I just... I just need someone to help me find and get the motivation to get me through these last 2 and a half years, because I already feel burnt out. ANd I don't plan on being a nurse, I plan on going back to school after this for Medical Laboratory Technology, but I want my degree first, and i've already put so much financial and mental effort into this program, why turn back now. Can people tell me how they got through?

Thanks!

[ParkerBC,MSN,RN, PhD, RN]

Administrators manage the organization’s resources and day to day operations. It is not required to have compassion or even to touch a patient. You can also do case management. If it doesn’t sound good, then withdraw from the program and find something else like computer science.

[jjjoy, LPN]

Re your patient treatment example - There are many reasons for decreased urine output and fluid imbalance. . . your reasoning is simplistic but a natural reflection of your current level of education. It is disconcerting that you (a student) apparently did not stop to think that maybe you did not understand everything. A bit more humility would made your life easier as a student.

Humility and asking for clarification is very important. And so is the instructor's ability and willingness to discuss the student's questions about it. It's not helpful for students to come across as know-it-all's who don't respect the instructor's experience and knowledge, and it's not helpful if instructors seem to discourage the kind of critical thinking that would lead a student to question the insulin order.

It seems to me that a good instructor would appreciate the confusion the student was experiencing and either be able to explain it satisfactorily to the students or simply admit they didn't have an answer (and would look into it, encourage the student to look into it and report back to the class, make it a class project to find the latest info, use the question to acknowledge that even as an experienced nurse you may run into orders that don't make sense and how would you handle that, etc). When an instructor seemed to rebuff reasonable questioning as in OP's case, I had to wonder if perhaps the instructor was avoiding discussing it because they didn't really understand it either or wasn't able to follow the student's logic to see where the student's reasoning may have wrong... or where the student may in fact have a valid point.

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

Even if you're a clinical director, CNO, or any kind of executive..you are still a nurse and in certain cases, you might have to touch or talk to a patient. What are you going to do if a patient codes and you're the only one around??? You can't say, "Oh ummm I'm the clinical director, or case manager, or educator, or some administrator..this isn't what I do, get someone else". In order to be a good leader, you have to be able to relate with who you lead. If you don't understand the work your workers are doing, it's hard to do your job. My clinical director will stop by and help turn patients or answer the call light if she's around. No matter where you go in nursing, nursing will be nursing and patient care will be there. Sure you can become a dean of a nursing school, or some job that does NOT ever see a patient..but in order to get to that level, you work your way up(meaning you see a patient from time to time in some way, shape, or form)

And a word of advice, I'd be careful about calling an instructor dumb on here. And if they want to teach you a certain technique(whether it's how to fold a sheet, or which way to put a pillow), then pay attention. They're there to teach you, and you're there to learn..not say "that's 80's of them, or get ****** about whatever"

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

And FYI..don't assume someone is in renal failure based on those little symptoms. They may have a post renal blockage keeping them from peeing, their prostate might be enlarged, they may have some kind of neuro problem causing them to have a decrease output. They might just have some SIADH. You can also have edema like that from heart failure. And if your heart isn't pumping blood to your kidneys, well they won't exactly work too well. Are you sure it was TWO(like 1 less than 3) units of insulin? 1 unit of insulin is 0.01 ML(not even a tenth of an ml).

[Fiona59]

Uhm, the OP is Canadian and the only way to become an RN up here is to complete a four year degree.

He's also in Ontario because the rest of the country uses the term LPN.

Just goes to show Ontario thinks they are the centre of Canada's universe.

[BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN]

And a word of advice, I'd be careful about calling an instructor dumb on here. And if they want to teach you a certain technique(whether it's how to fold a sheet, or which way to put a pillow), then pay attention. They're there to teach you, and you're there to learn..not say "that's 80's of them, or get ****** about whatever"

Agreed. I can't help but wonder why some students feel this constant need to 'one up' their instructors. Does it make you feel better? I see it here, and in real life. I see it with basic things (like a student telling me how to disconnect the venti mask adaptor (that was basically GLUED on). I became a nurse when you were still in diapers, I've done it a few times (I said 'here, you try it, and he could not do it either ).

I even see it with nurses on the floor. Just this week, I was explaining something to a couple of my students (regarding pediatric drug concentrations, and figuring out how much you dilute the medication in when adding it to the buretrol), and the nurse is standing behind us, and asks if she may chime in. I say yes, of course (thinking maybe she has an easier way of explaining it), and she completely discounts what I am saying. She says, "we just do it this way here". Thanks for trying to make me look incompetant. And thanks for not giving them the rationale of what the drug reference says, and what they were taught in theory.

I'm going to let you in on a secret: I am NOT perfect, I DO NOT know everything. There are plenty of times where I do NOT know the answer to a question, and I have no problem admitting it. I don't feel that it makes me a bad instructor. I have not worked in every specialy, nor have taken care of every type of patient. In the case above, I am a Peds nurse, so I really know what I am talking about here (many instructors are thrown into Peds even if it's not their specialty), and just because this is the first time you've ever seen me, don't make assumptions about me. But the fact of the matter is I know more than you (the students, and not YOU, the OP, specifically). With few exceptions, nursing professors and instructors are chosen based on their proven abilities and experience. They are interviewed, references are checked, and they are regularly evaluated (by their superiors, peers or students, or all three in some cases). Even if this is not the case, and they just graduated nursing school last year (which is highly unlikely, since in my area of the country you need a masters degree to teach), they have more experience than you!! They passed NLCEX already. Even with the nursing faculty shortage, I have seen faculty let go after the semester, b/c of poor evaluations.

vent over.

[jjjoy, LPN]

With few exceptions, nursing professors and instructors are chosen based on their proven abilities and experience.

My nursing instructors may have been awesome clinicians but that doesn't mean that they were good instructors, either for theory or on the floor. I'm also sure my preceptors were good at what they were doing. But few of them had the patience, time, and/or teaching ability to explain things - such as why these two different ways of doing something were *both* okay. Mostly, they seemed irritated if you didn't accept whatever they told you at face value. If you couldn't figure out the reasoning for yourself, then maybe you just weren't smart enough to be a nurse!

Still, I can see where the "one-up" attitude of some students would get really old really fast. I just hated when my sincere, well-thought out, well-researched questions were responded to as if I were one of those loud-mouth, know-it-all, just-trying-to-make-the-instructor-look-dumb students.