How much is too much?

saamaanthaa · Oct 29, 2013

It definitely doesn't take me that long to complete care plans. Do you have a nursing diagnosis book? I suggest the one from ackley. It give you interventions and sometimes rationales for each diagnosis, you just have to make sure it is client specific.

elkpark · Oct 29, 2013

That seems like an awful lot of required books; I know that, for myself as a student, and for students when I've been an instructor in nursing programs, we would ask around about which of the "required" texts were really necessary and which were just nice to have available. The texts are usually available in the school library for occasional reference.

Other than that, what you're describing sounds pretty typical to me. Tying scores on outside exams, like the HESI or ATI, to progression in the program is somewhat controversial but plenty of schools do it.

Nobody said nursing school would be easy (or, if someone did, you can see now that that person was wrong). :) Best wishes for your journey!

sunbaby0811 · Oct 29, 2013

My program made us buy that many books but it's for the entire program. I pretty much feel like I'm drowning 95% of the time. It's a tonnnnnn of work. I'm having to learn to prioritize my work and study smart. There aren't enough hours in the day otherwise. What the heck is in a 36 pg care plan??! Ours are like 1-3ish. I'd shoot myself if it took 16 hours to do one.

krisiepoo · Oct 29, 2013

sounds entirely typical to me except you're spending way too much time doing your care plans... I was like that in the begining but can now just spit them out like nothing... personally I didn't buy every book they said to buy until I saw it on the reading list... they listed at least that many books for us, but there was no way I was going to purchase them all.

you're almost done, hang in there

nlynrob · Oct 29, 2013

I'm a junior in a BSN program also and that seems like A LOT to me. Most of the books we had to buy throughout sophomore year carried over- I'm only buying one or two specialty books per course. What the heck are they making you put in your care plans that they are 16+ pages? I couldn't come up with information to fill that space no matter how hard I tried.

For me sophomore year consisted of Foundations, Health Assessment and Pathopharm I and then Pathopharm II and Med-Surg I. The amount of reading and how difficult the tests were took up all of our time. It sounds like your third year classes we do second year. I remember feeling like I was drowning in work last year, and we had to write ONE care plan for foundations and ONE care plan for med-surg. We also wrote one paper for med-surg. You're doing a paper and a care plan every week? Seriously? No one is going to learn anything because everyone must be completely overworked, stressed and not retaining anything anymore. With that much to do at a certain point you stop caring about the quality of your work and just try to get it done. That's not a good way to become a competent nurse.

Now that we're in our third year were doing specialty rotations and it has been huge relief compared to last year. I'm taking seven weeks of pedi and seven weeks of maternity (not at the same time) and Evidenced Based Practice in Nursing; next semester will be Med-Surg II and Mental Health. We have to write one 2-4 page paper for each specialty and we do a care plan for two of the four, I didn't have to do a care plan for peds but have to this rotation for maternity type of thing. And our care plans are no where near 16 pages, thats insane. Ours are Gordons 11 Functional Health Patterns with associated nursing diagnoses if there is one, then we have to choose which nursing diagnosis is highest priority and create a care plan for it, which is in table form and usually takes up 2-3 pages. We have two exams and a final in each class. We take HESI exams but we don't fail the class if we fail, its just worth 10% of our final grade. We do have a ton of reading and the exams are very difficult; its not a breeze to get through but its not the workload you're getting either.

Was sophomore year as difficult as this year for you? Maybe once you get into specialty rotations it will relax a little.

molly12345 · Oct 29, 2013

This seems a little bit exorbitant for books.Quite a bit of time devoted to school but it will be worth it.good luck.

kaydensmom01 · Oct 29, 2013

We had to buy $1200 worth of books the first semester, but then only $200-$400 the rest. Everything else sounds normal to me. We had to do the long care plans also weekly , and it has made me able to see the entire picture of my patients now.

NurseAshley., BSN, RN · Oct 29, 2013

Sounds about right...May I ask what school you're attending?

Peppermint_RN · Oct 29, 2013

That was the norm for me too. I think I spent about $1000 for all my books. There was maybe one or two I never ended up using. We had a care plan due after each clinical, the first two semesters they were between 10-16 pages (included full physical assessment info plus the care plan). I took maybe 10 hours the first semester on them, but got down to probably 4 hours or so by the last semester. We had papers or projects due about every other week or so with big group projects at the end of each semester (that would be worked on almost all semester). Exams every 2 or 3 weeks, over anywhere from 4-10 chapters worth of info.

Yep. Stressful is the word! You just have to work on time management and realize where your focus needs to be. If you can get away with just skimming over the chapters & focus on power points to study, that'll save some time. Invest in good care plan books. Start projects asap and try to get them done & out of the way early so you can focus on other things. And most importantly, breathe and know soon it will be over and you'll be a nurse! :) Good luck!

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Oct 30, 2013

I easily had 16 required books per semester- sometimes more. I either purchased them on half.com or didn't buy them at all because they seemed unnecessary. Most of what you describe sounds typical but I never spent that much time on ANY assignment- and that includes the semester I did an independent study that was one paper.

rubato, ASN, RN · Oct 30, 2013

Everything you stated is completely normal for my program, and I'm doing an ADN program.

We were required to buy 11 books our first semester, most of which we didn't use. Quite a few people risked it on some of the books and didn't buy them. It paid off for them.

We have a minimum of 5 chapters to read per week. I don't read though. I skim over what they recommend, look at tables, and just read my power points.

We have a test every other week.

We are graded on ATI exams, and have 4 this semester alone that count for that grade.

We have clinical paperwork every week that includes 5 different things, one of which is a care plan. Of course, I have learned how to do a care plan in one hour, max, and how to keep it to one page. It shouldn't ever need to be more than two pages.