Med-Surg I and II in one Semester?

SpamiKicksAssRN · Mar 20, 2009

i have med surg I for 5 weeks. then med surg II for the next 5 weeks. then psyc for the last five weeks...

jjjoy, LPN · Mar 20, 2009

And people wonder why some newbies feel underprepared!!! Seriously, how can anyone seriously expect students to retain all of the content (the thousand pages of reading assignments) supposedly covered in those super-compact terms? What are the realistic odds that most students even have a chance to review all of the material supposedly covered in those classes?

I remember feeling that lectures were rushed regurgitations of the textbook reading... well, 10% of the textbook readings with no added depth presented in class, and with no chance to even ask questions because the instructor was trying to cover so much info. When it came to comprehension, lectures didn't help one bit.

With strong test-taking skills, many test questions could be answered correctly without having specifically studied the content. And then there were those questions that you couldn't be sure what the correct answer was even if knew the content of the material inside and out. In other words, one's score on our test questions didn't necessarily reflect greater or lesser comprehension of the topic of study.

Sigh... I've gone off on a tangent... where were we? Crammed nursing courses. I think there's got to be a better way. Not sure what, though!

determined10 · Mar 20, 2009

I know, I know. I was just wondering if anyone else is going through the same thing! The failure rate at my school is so high, they are changing it beginning next semester into semester-long classes each. Thanks for your replies!

RN2BE1210 · Mar 21, 2009

Yeah at my school it's semester-long classes each. I couldn't imagine it being so rushed like that!!

Journey_On, BSN, RN · Mar 21, 2009

I took med-surg I, med-surg II, and psych over 4 months (one semester), plus clinicals. It was so much information to take in, and I heard it was the hardest semester out of all of them, in my program. It was challenging but do-able.

One advantage is that if your school requires you to take HESI exams. My program requires us to take several, including the med-surg one. All the information was fresh for the med-surg HESI, which we took at the end of that semester. Whereas if we took med-surg I and II separately, we would have had to go back and review all the med-surg I content from the previous semester before taking the med-surg HESI.

I think if I took them separately, I might have retained the information a little better and had more time for it to soak in. No regrets though. :)

NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN · Mar 21, 2009

I have med surg 1 and two in seven week increments. And psych, peds, and more medsurge in a 8 week course.