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I am planning on attending the nursing program fall 2008...I was wondering....... would be a good idea to go ahead and get my nursing books like off of e bay and such so I can begin looking over and studying what I will be learning once I start nursing or is it better just to wait? Any advice would be a great help !!!! ;) ( I have the ISBN'S for what I will be needing)

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I am planning on attending the nursing program fall 2008...I was wondering....... would be a good idea to go ahead and get my nursing books like off of e bay and such so I can begin looking over and studying what I will be learning once I start nursing or is it better just to wait? Any advice would be a great help !!!! ;) ( I have the ISBN'S for what I will be needing)

The only reason I would say no to this is that fall 2008 is a long way off as far as school goes. The reason I say that is at least at my school, the instructors meet once a year and at that meeting they readjust the material and a lot of times the text books they use for different classes. If your school does this, as I am sure most schools do, you could buy a book now that could be obsolete once you start your program. Now, saying that I would encourage you to maybe look at buying books like Memory notecards, flipbooks, things like that to supplement your studies.

The other thing you can do is contact your school and ask them that very question. Ask them how often they change or update their textbooks. If they use the same books for a few years then you would be ok. You should talk to someone in the nursing program (director) to be SURE. The last thing you need is books that are not going to be used, and money spent for no reason.

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no for the reasons nurz stated.

now if you are just looking to review you might want to look for old editions of nursing books on ebay. That way you can get a feel for the material without the expectation that it will be THE book you use.

good luck

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

rather than buy all your nursing books i would try to get my hands on a copy of the course syllabus from someone who is already in the first nursing class. ask that student what they would recommend you start studying. i would buy, perhaps, one nursing texbook and start reading from that. however, i suspect that some of what you are going to read may be difficult to understand without the lectures to go with it. something you could do is look for a used fundamentals of nursing textbook. it will be cheaper and it will have the beginning information that all nursing students must learn in it. if you are not a cna already, you will be basically learning what a cna does in your first nursing semester. there is a website that has videos of cna procedures that you might like to watch. here is the link to the website:

another thing you could be doing is a self-paced medical terminology course (there are a number of them on the internet that you can do for free) if you haven't done that already either.

you can also explore the sticky threads in the nursing student assistance forum and the general nursing student discussion forum and check out the many websites that are posted there to help nursing students. it would be good to start bookmarking some of these websites now and know that they exist when you need them. in particular. . .fluid and electrolytes and drug calculations.

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OH....I am so sorry I did not give you any of my background....I am a NA II and I just got my Phlebotomy license last Friday...I am taking the Med Aide class in Jan 08 to learn about meds....and I will be taking Med Term I & II this spring online. I am doing and want to do everything I possible can to prepare myself for the nursing program.;)

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I wouldn't buy the books this early. I start in January and my books are going to run about $800. Many of the books I will use for the entire program. That's too much to spend, have the instructors change editions, and then, have to buy again.

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Hello some schools offer book bundles which usually will include a CD Rom of the book (which really cuts the research time down). They also are generally cheaper then buying books individually. I would make sure that your school wasn't going to offer that before I went and bought individual books. Also since it is so early maybe there are newer editions. Also one last suggestion maybe there are people in the classes before yours that would be willing to lend you their books until you purchase yours? Best of luck to you.

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I agree with those who said that you should contact the school and make sure that nothing is going to change by the time you start. And I also would not buy everything but do as Daytonite said, start with the fundamentals text and perhaps the pharmacology text. Also be sure to find out about that bundle of books in a box thing. That is a new thing since I went to school and from what I've read, others have said you have to buy the entire box, as is, from the bookstore. So make sure that is not the case. You don't want to spend more money than you have to. Good luck in your nursing program.

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I forgot to add a story about the strange thing that happened at my school. We, of course, were divided up into several groups for clinical, etc. based on the fact that there were too many for one group. Each group had a different Med Surg text! If they ever explained why I wasn't listening. But that is another reason to make certain in advance. The instructors committee can always change the texts and you want the correct ones!

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It would be cheaper to get them from Ebay or even most bookstores (other than ones on campus). Just make sure they won't pick different books before your semester begins. It seems like my school changes publishers and editions every semester. Also, the bundle thing can be a problem. I looked into getting my books for Spring '08 at Barnes and Noble and it would save me half of my book costs. However, they couldn't give me some of the book bundles I needed. In the end, I got some of my books there and saved a nice amount. The rest I had to buy at school.

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My school has advised us to not buy all of our books in the beginning. They gave us a list of what we need for 1st semester and then will give us a heads up when it's time to get others. They said book revisions happen so frequently they found that to be the best way to make sure we have the most up to date materials. I would hate to spend the money on something you may or may not use or be studying outdated info.

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