lacking common sense...

It takes both. Experience will teach you critical thinking and common sense will come into play here. School is more about book smarts. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is important, and you seem to know that. You'll be fine.

Good luck.

:yeahthat:

I agree with Tweety.

Do you need common sense to be a good/great nurse, or can you get by with being book smart? I think Im more book smart than common sense smart. Im starting nursing school next semester and Im just worried Im going to screw up royaly on something small or stupid...[/quote

I think as you go through school and clinicals you well develop the "common Sense" Just think your way through situations

Good Luck to you in school

God Bless - JHU

Im just worried Im going to screw up royaly on something small or stupid...

Huh, that feeling never goes away, atleast while you are in school. You will have instructors breathing down your neck the whole time making you feel that way. I honestly think if you don't feel that way, something is wrong. If you got accepted into the program, you can do this. Think positive. If there was one piece of advice I could give you, is stay positive, do not hang around anyone that is negative and be prepared to use alot of pens, highlighters and paper.

No joke, in one Day of Maternal Peds, I used up a brand new highlighter.

No joke, in one Day of Maternal Peds, I used up a brand new highlighter.

:rotfl:

Too funny!!

I think that while not everyone who has common sense is born with it, there are some that just can't learn it. I definitely think I hadn't a shred of common sense when first turned loose as a new grad. I think I have a fair amount now. But I know people with 5+ years of nursing experience who just don't "get it." Common sense is the precursor to the critical thinking required to get beyond the most basic level of nursing skill. I think if you're someone who thinks about it, you're someone who will acquire it.

I always took it to be this way...you start out in anything...you hav to have rules right? For us..that is the books and education you start with! Got to know your ABC's before you can go on...and that is what the books are there for!

Then..you start experimenting a bit...learning new connections, finding the way you interpret things and connect it all..it grows with you...just like the ABC's...you go from simply spelling your name or 'cat' or whatever to understanding "endoplasmic reticulium" or "diaphoretic" or "ecchymosis". And it all came from BOOK SMARTS followed by experience, connections and your own personal style of learning! :) The brain is so amazing!

There is nothing wrong with booksmarts as long as you realize that it can be improved with further education, some experience, a look into your own personal learning/applying skills..and well...a lot of trail and error in the right direction...and a LOT OF YOU! That is the ART of NURSING!

Good wording actually...The art of nursing....one can give you the book to learn how to hold a brush, or spin a potters wheel or what not..but you can't be an ARTIST till you actually put yourself into it...and nursing is that!!!!! So much of you!

I always took it to be this way...you start out in anything...you hav to have rules right? For us..that is the books and education you start with! Got to know your ABC's before you can go on...and that is what the books are there for!

Then..you start experimenting a bit...learning new connections, finding the way you interpret things and connect it all..it grows with you...just like the ABC's...you go from simply spelling your name or 'cat' or whatever to understanding "endoplasmic reticulium" or "diaphoretic" or "ecchymosis". And it all came from BOOK SMARTS followed by experience, connections and your own personal style of learning! :) The brain is so amazing!

There is nothing wrong with booksmarts as long as you realize that it can be improved with further education, some experience, a look into your own personal learning/applying skills..and well...a lot of trail and error in the right direction...and a LOT OF YOU! That is the ART of NURSING!

Good wording actually...The art of nursing....one can give you the book to learn how to hold a brush, or spin a potters wheel or what not..but you can't be an ARTIST till you actually put yourself into it...and nursing is that!!!!! So much of you!

Well said, Triage RN!!!!:yeahthat:

Do you need common sense to be a good/great nurse, or can you get by with being book smart? I think Im more book smart than common sense smart. Im starting nursing school next semester and Im just worried Im going to screw up royaly on something small or stupid...

All the book smarts in the world does NOT make up for critical thinking skills and common sense. You'll develop that as you go along. Depend on the books at first and as time goes on, you'll develop the other common sense, as you put it! Good luck!

I always took it to be this way...you start out in anything...you hav to have rules right? For us..that is the books and education you start with! Got to know your ABC's before you can go on...and that is what the books are there for!

Then..you start experimenting a bit...learning new connections, finding the way you interpret things and connect it all..it grows with you...just like the ABC's...you go from simply spelling your name or 'cat' or whatever to understanding "endoplasmic reticulium" or "diaphoretic" or "ecchymosis". And it all came from BOOK SMARTS followed by experience, connections and your own personal style of learning! :) The brain is so amazing!

There is nothing wrong with booksmarts as long as you realize that it can be improved with further education, some experience, a look into your own personal learning/applying skills..and well...a lot of trail and error in the right direction...and a LOT OF YOU! That is the ART of NURSING!

Good wording actually...The art of nursing....one can give you the book to learn how to hold a brush, or spin a potters wheel or what not..but you can't be an ARTIST till you actually put yourself into it...and nursing is that!!!!! So much of you!

You put that very nicely!

Thanks for all the replys, I guess Ill just have to try my best...

You need both, but the common sense is something that comes along with time. They call is critically thinking and gut sense. -Andrea