Learning the Skeletal System

[soingal]

hello, everyone!

i am in the process of entering college this may for my pre-requisite courses (bsn program). i have completed a diploma medical assisting program (another topic).

in nursing school, do most a&p classes require a student to know all of the bones of the skeletal system or just the major ones? i have an "introductory" a&p book entitled the human body in health & disease by thibodeau/patton which seems like a good book, but i will more than likely have a different (possibly more thorough) a&p book when i get into this particular class.

i wanted to get a head start on studying the skeletal system and want to be well prepared.

btw, i'm a 41 y/o mother of 3 children who has had aspirations of working in healthcare for a few years now. the university i'm planning on attending is iupu in columbus, in (they also have campuses in indy and bloomington).

thanks in advance!

hoosier

[Irish_Mist, BSN, RN]

I'm sorry but who in the you-know-what does your instructor think he is? Is he a nurse? As a professor, he should be encouraging his students and setting them up for success. Telling them they aren't cut out for a certain profession is not only out of his scope but way out of line. There is no way to tell if someone is cut out for nursing six weeks into an A&P 1 class. Only you can decide if you have the right stuff. Do NOT let this man decide for you.

On that note, the skeletal system was challenging. Lots of memorization not only of bone names but of markings such as tubercles, trochanters, epicondyles, etc etc. It isn't for the faint of heart or for people who do not have the time to study. Cut yourself some slack. YOU CAN DO THIS. Finish this class. Next semester, find a better professor for A&P 2. My suggestion would be to use ratemyprofessor.com to research good A&P instructors at your school. That is how I chose my A&P professor and I couldn't be happier to be in his class. He is encouraging, he cares about us all learning and he genuinely wants to see us succeed. That is what a true professor is like. Your professor sounds like a pious you-know-what trying to weed out "unsuitable candidates" for his class.

Sorry if I sound over the top but any teacher or professor who says things like this to their students makes my blood boil!

[pmabraham, BSN, RN]

Good day:

Well uploading files didn't work well.

If you go to https://itunesu.hacc.edu/ and then click on Public (free, no login required), then sciences, the BIO 121 Professor Robert Swatski has a lot of good info on the skeletal system including PDF files you can print out with bone markings.

Thank you.

[PurpleLover]

Olivia, I had an AP instructor just like that. I listened to what he said, I knew he was wrong. I did not enjoy being berated and neither did my other classmates. Long story cut extremely short, he is fired. I start nursing school in jan and one of the other ladies he berated started her Radiology program in August. Never let one person stand in the way of your dreams.

[queserasera, RN]

Olivia, thats the most asinine thing a professor could say. It's a terrible use of position for him to discourage any student from doing anything at this point. Fact is, A&P in a lower level course. Students grow academically as they reach upper level classes. Screw him. Do your best and keep at it.

[DadStudentPerhaps]

I had to learn the bones and muscles. There are free websites out there to help you study, just google it. Don't sweat it, it was pretty easy :-)

[DadStudentPerhaps]

To add to my above post, it was A&P lab that required me to learn all the bones and muscles. At test times, the instructor placed different bones at stations around the room... we had to rotate through each station and write down the bones. We had to not only know the bones, we had to know all the processes on the bones. We had to be able to identify all the facial and skull bones... as well as all the bones in the hands and feet. We came up with little quotes to help us remember the foot and hand bones. As for the spine, had to label the atlas and axis, then label the groups of spinal bones.

To me, I enjoyed Lab... it was a lot if fun :-)

[phoenixnim]

My A&P I class we had to know ALL of the bones and all of the parts on the bones, such as fossas, tubercles, condyles, epicondyles, the foramens, etc. We also had to know the tarsal and carpal bone names. Kaplan Medical flash cards saved my life.