I'm bored

LDAthleteNurse, BSN, RN · Sep 18, 2015

The first semester consists of learning basic skills (bed bath, changing bed linen, performing peri care, etc). I know exactly how you feel, I felt the same way my first semester. You will learn actual RN skills in your upcoming semesters.

Caitlin023 · Sep 18, 2015

Nursing school definitely does get harder!! I'm not sure where you're enrolled, but I can tell you're in your first semester. I also worked as a CNA/ med tech for many years prior to nursing school and for some reason had this idea in my head that nurses had it so easy and just sat on their butts and charted all day- NOT SO! Your school is just trying to be all inclusive for those students without any healthcare experience so that everyone learns what they need to know and are all on level playing field. Take advantage of this "easy material" while you can! In a year, your head will be spinning and you'll be praying for a "boring" day! Furthermore, maybe you can help your fellow classmates who are having trouble or become a tutor if you've got some spare time on your hands. Good luck with your education!!

cracklingkraken, ASN, RN · Sep 18, 2015

When you start learning the lab values and F&E metabolic disorders, you'll definitely not be bored.

mrsboots87 · Sep 18, 2015

I know it may seem boring, but this is vital stuff. It is the basics. They can't just dive into the "harder" material and skills right off the bat. Not everyone has healthcare experience, and many people over look the simple things. This foundation is to teach you how to think. Trust me, nurses do 10X more than ever will be learned in nursing school. Everyone wants to learn IVs and trach care and all the "fun" stuff, but you have to learn the basics before all of that will make sense. Whats the point of knowing how to start and IV if you don't understand why a certain fluid or med is ordered. Learning about appropriate fluids also means learning about the pathologies that require various treatments. Those treatments start with basic care of positioning patients, keeping them clean, knowing their vitals, doing an assessment, knowing their history. You start from the bottom with your learning and work your way up. Whether nursing school will be hard for you or not is subjective, but I can guarantee that by the middle next semester in Med/Surg you will wish that it was boring because a lot of material will be thrown at you very fast. Cherish these last moments of "easy" nursing school.

bunnysanford · Sep 18, 2015

It does get harder, and more interesting, and fast-paced. Plus, as your classes go on, everything builds on what came before, so you can't just learn it for the test and forget it forever. Cement this foundational knowledge in your brain, and even do some extracurricular research to add some depth, if you're bored. Google why a procedure is done this or that way, or get a little history behind a treatment. There are so many cool resources out there to get extra knowledge. I like podcasts, so I sought some out -- nrsng.com has an extensive series, and there's a comedic medical history podcast called 'Sawbones' that surprisingly helped me a lot throughout school.

I had numerous classmates who spent their entire first semester rolling their eyes and thinking they already knew everything. Those were the same students who spent the next semester or three struggling to stay afloat, because in addition to their more challenging reading and clinical experiences, they had to go back and re-learn their first-semester "easy" stuff. They had to hit the ground running because they had become accustomed to not studying as long or as hard as they suddenly needed to. Many of them dropped out or repeated semesters. A lot of them became resigned to the "C's get degrees" attitude, and fell short of the C they were aiming for.

I'm rambling. All I really need to say is don't get complacent. Use your bored time to get a really solid knowledge base, and find the extra resources that will serve you the rest of the way.

elkpark · Sep 18, 2015

Also, nursing students tend to be preoccupied with skills/tasks. There is a lot more to nursing than motor skills/tasks and fancy equipment. I would venture to say (humorously, not maliciously) that, if you're bored, you're not paying close enough attention. Every nursing program starts out with the basics and works up over time. However, while you're doing your fundamentals clinicals, you can be paying attention to and learning about assessment, therapeutic communication, time management, multitasking, and other valuable "soft" nursing skills. Much of what you get out of clinicals (even the basic, fundamentals clinicals) will be a function of what you put into them.

Best wishes for your journey!

bunnysanford · Sep 18, 2015

Oh, and read up a little bit on nursing care plans! That is a big hurdle for a lot of people. I had classmates who still didn't quite "get it" well past the time they were expected to, and had to re-do simple assignments, using up more time they didn't have to spare.

Shagce1 · Sep 19, 2015

You have to start somewhere. And you need to learn to walk before you can run.

direw0lf, BSN · Sep 19, 2015

Thanks everyone for the advice and words of encouragement and letting me just be open and rant!

I gave it a thought and realized yes I am missing some things. We learned skin, hair, and nails assessment, but I can look a lot deeper into skin problems like decubiti or something. So I'm going to put a lot more into my fundamentals.

NurseGirl525, ASN, RN · Sep 19, 2015

Fundamentals is essential. And yes, you are learning what a CNA does right now. Your first clinical rotation, that is what you will be doing, toileting, showering, helping feed, all the good stuff, but you have to learn it. We also did assessment in the first semester and we did assess our patients when we were in clinical. A RN does assess. I think I also may have done a couple of injections for vaccines and we did glucometer readings an insulin injections. That is all in fundamentals. I did not find first semester boring at all. We also learned trach care and how to insert catheters. But we only did that in lab as the place we were at for clinical did not have any residents that needed those done. I did sit and talk to my residents a lot. I learned a lot about therapeutic communication and how to communicate with the elderly. I think that was the most helpful thing I learned first semester was how to fine tune my communication. So, no we were not always busy and doing what people consider "nurse" tasks, but I learned a lot and took away a lot from that semester.

Last semester was the most difficult. We had psych nursing, medsurg II, and pharm. Also medsurg II clinical and psych clinical. It was difficult and more fast-paced, but in my clinical I did mainly med passes and I did some hanging of bags and IV pushes. No insertion of IVs, no trachs, and I did not get to do a Foley although a couple of my classmates did. We were not allowed to do anything without our clinical instructor and she was thinly spread with four of us on the floor. But I got comfortable with Pyxis and med passes.

This semester is OB/Peds. It is much harder and we have several clinicals this semester although I was disappointed that we did not get more time in the hospital setting. But, school is preparing us to take the NCLEX. We will learn the actual skills on the job. I know the basics but the practice and fine-tuning will come.

Be patient. Get the most you can out of nursing school. It will fly by and you will be graduating before you know it.

barcode120x, RN, NP · Sep 19, 2015

Yep, fundamentals part is easy, maybe to the point of boring. Throughout nursing school, I never thought about it as being fun or boring and thought of it more as work. Get to class, listen, take notes, go home and study for exams. Go to clinical, do your job as an RN properly, and go home. That was pretty much my thoughts on school. Now that I think about it, there are some times when nursing school was "boring" ONLY because our program didn't really give us homework or anything to really keep us busy. Yeah, we had care plans, but we only had to do 1 per class (which is basically 1-3 per semester which isn't a lot since a semester is 16 weeks). Aside from that, all we had to do was study for the weekly exam and that was it. So, in that aspect, it was boring if I wasn't studying for an exam. I had a blast in all my clinicals and made some really good friends. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say nursing school was going to be "fun" lol.

In terms of skills, you'll learn more as you move along in the program. I probably learned/did most of my skills during my last semester (which was cardiac/neuro), and more specifically, during preceptorship. Med-surge was mostly dealing with med pass.