It's so boring that I've really got a bad attitude about my school work. What I've learned in nursing school since Aug 24: wash your hands, vitals, infection control, cultural differences, theorists, and therapeutic communication.
I heard nursing school is so hard. And maybe it will be next semester. I just expected some harder skills or concepts to tackle..especially skills.
I feel like there isn't much difference between a cna and rn besides meds and charting. Now please don't get me wrong I'm not complaining about cna work. I'm saying I'm surprised.
It doesn't help that at the last minute I made a schedule change and am in a plant biology class..where we learn the parts of a flower (petal....sepal...stem...)
I don't question if nursing is still for me. But is anyone else just starting out too and kind of bored?
Give me someone on ECMO over someone who needs therapeutic communication any day. It's tough to do well with a real person!
But yeah, you have to learn the basics before you learn the advanced stuff. It'll get more challenging, esp. when you start clinicals and have to be on top of allllll those big picture details.
Give me someone on ECMO over someone who needs therapeutic communication any day. It's tough to do well with a real person!
But yeah, you have to learn the basics before you learn the advanced stuff. It'll get more challenging, esp. when you start clinicals and have to be on top of allllll those big picture details.
Embrace "boring." Enjoy it while you can and be flexible! Everyone comes from different backgrounds with different levels of skills and knowledge. No one is better than anyone else. Remember that and you will go far. And PS: It will get harder.
I felt the same way my first semester! You are not alone. I went so far as to call my Dad about the sitch- his response, "Are you getting a 4.0?" HA! Touche Daddy!!
I'm in my 3rd semester now and just watched my first live birth! It is incredible, and it gets more challenging! I promise. :)
A lot of nursing is based on critical thinking abilities. If you came to the conclusion that all nursing work can be equivocated with all CNA work after a few weeks of the first semester, then that's a grand ol' sampling fallacy (using an unrepresentative sample to represent all things) and a compositional fallacy (using a part's properties and saying that the whole will have the same properties).
Soooooooooo basically, you came to an illogical conclusion.
Like everyone else said, everyone needs basics. Even if you know those basics (which I don't actually think you do, but maybe I'm wrong), maybe you should focus on your deficits - like logical reasoning. Without logical reasoning, you won't be a good nurse, and you won't pass boards.
Ok people, I need to point something out: It's not "CNA work". It's NURSING work. CNAs are awesome helpers, but it's called nurse Assistant for a reason. Come into nursing with the attitude that basic nursing abilities are beneath you and I can guarantee that you will be back complaining that the senior nurses are mean to you and the CNAs don't respect you.
I can't stress enough how these "boring things" are some of the most vital elements to what we do to assess and protect patients. I use therapeutic communication daily and because of it, I am often considered to be a senior ER nurse who just magically knows how to handle the tough patients and situations. The new nurses who thought therapeutic communication was stupid and boring ask for help all the time (and still refuse to listen when I talk about therapeutic communication!). There is a reason that this is the first thing they teach new nurses. You teach the most important things first.
Ex. Don't put a foley catheter in my Asian mother with nasty hands and rude comments...
Direwolf, I want you to take a step back and think about your own possible experiences as a patient and decide if these basic nursing skills are important or truly just boring busywork. I know you will be able to go to classes with a whole new understanding.
Ok people, I need to point something out: It's not "CNA work". It's NURSING work. CNAs are awesome helpers, but it's called nurse Assistant for a reason. Come into nursing with the attitude that basic nursing abilities are beneath you and I can guarantee that you will be back complaining that the senior nurses are mean to you and the CNAs don't respect you.
I can't stress enough how these "boring things" are some of the most vital elements to what we do to assess and protect patients. I use therapeutic communication daily and because of it, I am often considered to be a senior ER nurse who just magically knows how to handle the tough patients and situations. The new nurses who thought therapeutic communication was stupid and boring ask for help all the time (and still refuse to listen when I talk about therapeutic communication!). There is a reason that this is the first thing they teach new nurses. You teach the most important things first.
Ex. Don't put a foley catheter in my Asian mother with nasty hands and rude comments...
Direwolf, I want you to take a step back and think about your own possible experiences as a patient and decide if these basic nursing skills are important or truly just boring busywork. I know you will be able to go to classes with a whole new understanding.
Yes.. I know how important what I've learned so far is..and I don't know that I'd call it busy work....just I simply felt bored. But I took elkpark's advice to heart, and I will NurseOnAMotorcycle also. I spent a few hours going deeper into these areas today (of the fundamentals I've learned so far) really became interested.
I've taken all my sciences and think maybe it's like I came down from really hard organic chemistry to wash my hands and take off my cap last. It was my attitude that was wrong though. I need to look at this as important and the building blocks.
Think of a cho-choo train. Starts off very slow and just gets faster and faster and FASTER(Harder!) You will be busy soon enough and be wishing you had time on your hands! I felt just like you and wish now that every semester was like 1! Good-Luck! You will be just fine (With a hearty work load in no time!!)
In my opinion, nursing school content isn't hard. There's just a lot of it and some assignments, like care plans, are very time consuming. I thought nursing school was boring too until clinicals started and i had juggle lectures, labs, clinicals, and seminar plus the studying and assignments. Now I understand how sacred a slow weekend really is.
Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN
5,047 Posts
Give me someone on ECMO over someone who needs therapeutic communication any day. It's tough to do well with a real person!
But yeah, you have to learn the basics before you learn the advanced stuff. It'll get more challenging, esp. when you start clinicals and have to be on top of allllll those big picture details.