Memories of nursing school.....

NurseShell · Feb 15, 2003

I am a current student, does that count?

How about the male student who claims to be a resp. therapist yet know absolutely NOTHING!! Sucks at clinicals and drives everyone batty?!?! He rants on and on about "I failed that test" while all of us are crossing our fingers that he really did fail...then, he claims that his clinical instructor is "a bytch who is deliberately trying to make him fail" - did I mention that he walks in about 20 min late to every lecture???!! Oh, can't forget that he has a pony tail about 3X as long as mine!!

OH!! Then there are the truly stupid questions!!! From various students...for example: (when dicussing patient positioning) "Excuse me, but, when you say 'left side-lying' do you mean placing the patient on their left side?" OMG?!?!?! - (when discussing dosage calculations) "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by 'available'." WTF?!?!

I have more, but I also have about 120 pages of med/surg to read!! YUCK!!

Furball · Feb 15, 2003

One of my worst memories was a nursing student who was a religious zealot. It was awful. He'd try to convert pts while they are lying in a hospital, seriously ill, no escape for them. He was "spoken to" several times but I don't think it ever really stopped and he did end up graduating >puke

justjill · Feb 15, 2003

hmm...so many memories!! and i'm still in nursing school!

how about me passing out the first time i saw an NG tube go down.....i was so embarrassed! i fell right into my friend Lacey's arms.....my face is turning red again already!

and once i had an older male patient say to me "sweetie, i just want to let you know that i just love having nursing students take care of me! i wish all nurses had to wear those see-through white pants." i never bent down in that room again!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 15, 2003

Oh, I went to school with one of those anal nurses too. She took notes and highlighted them multi-colored. He book was color-coded and every single word was highlighted with multi-colors. Was so nervous before a test, she would stay up all night and not sleep. She would keep her test scores to herself mostly, but did confide to me she mostly scored perfectly, but just couldn't stop her compulsiveness.

She's probably way burned out by now, but she was great in clinicials very caring.

MomNRN, BSN, RN · Feb 16, 2003

We had a instructor who would lock the door the minute class started. This was the very first nursing class available - something like Fundamentals 101. We were all scared to death anyway, much less showing up late was close to committing hari-kari!

She loved to make late students knock on the door and wait for her to open it. What a power trip!

mario_ragucci · Feb 16, 2003

As a currently knocked down nursing student, I could not even attempt to make fun of, even in jest, anyone for anything. not saying this is wrong; I like to read this stuff. Having fallen down in nursing school, anything I say I would eat forcefully. Lol. As a hopefully soon re-entry student, I am learning how to show restriant and not fool around. Lol.

passing thru · Feb 16, 2003

I was totally new to nursing. Had no hospital or nursing home experiece at all. I remember how overwhelming it was. All the vocabulary I had never heard before. It was a whole new language; as I recall it took about 6 months to learn the lingo. I bonded with a dozen other students who were as determined as I was to get through and make good grades. We helped each other, 30 minutes a day, we had oral quizzes at lunchtime, asking questions and getting answers. However, most of nursing school is individualized, self-learning, self study. Most of us had kids and part-time jobs. The bonding value was primarily in its' moral support and mutual encouragement. I can't remember any funny stories. We were anxious, committed, studious, "sponges". I'm sure there must have been humorous incidents, I just can't recall. Seems we were always focused on preparation and performance. That's primarily my recollections.

jenac · Feb 16, 2003

I still have nightmares at times about being late- something I dreaded and only happened once. During class time- the instructors would lock the door and refuse to let you in. During clinicals- you were sent home and missed that day-and because of VERY strict attendance policies, you could have very well failed out if you missed a day or two. I lived almost an hour from school- and sometimes it took everything in me to get there on time, but come h*ll or high water, I was there on time! I too had a very close-knit group. We leaned on each other for support.

Aside from that- I have very few "good" memories of school. One instructer in particular was the appidamy (sp) of fear- she was an absolute control freak- do what I say, when I say it, how I say it. Not such a big deal, considering, but an explanation is such a better learning tool. She is well known for making students hate life- and causing alot of them to quit due to the stress of it. I feared breathing in her presence some days! She was the first to tell you that she didn't like me- admitted it freely, sighting "personality differences". Somedays, I think she looked for reasons to yell at me. We would actually watch her at the end of that rotation, come into my assigned pt.s room and literally look for something, anything to yell at me for like the unoccupied bed not being completely lowered (always lowered- just not all the way once, or an extra blanket at the foot of the bed-wasting linen). Not constructive critacism, but yelling- brings on tears type of stuff. I still get a cold sweat when I hear her name......... despite the fact that I am now a licensed nurse. :)

frannybee · Feb 16, 2003

I didn't think I had any doozies, but then I remembered these....

~ The ward sister who pulled me aside, taking me off the ward, and shut the door behind us in her office on my very first prac placement. She told me that I was obese and therefore a candidate for stomach banding, and did I want to give her friend at private hospital X a call about having the surgery? "Oh, and this is our secret so don't mention it to anyone." She even lifted her shirt and made me feel her abdomen to show me where the band would sit and how well she'd done on it. Stupid me didn't mention it til my last day when my mentor went berserk and was threatening to call the nursing council about her - she was not only touting for business, which is illegal, but she also took two nurses off the floor which compromised patient safety.

~ The same ward sister, now on a different ward on my very last placement before graduation...gynae ward, very important to note whether the post-op ladies had passed flatus which would indicate a return to normal bowel function. In handover, I was trying to inject a bit of humour as we'd all had a really rough day and instead of said 'she is passing very large amounts of flatus regularly' as was written in the notes, I said she was farting like a trooper. Everyone laughed but Sister, who dug her fingernails into my arm and yanked me toward her and whispered in my ear "We do not say fart in MY hospital. The word is flatus. If you do anything like this again I will see to it that you never work here". Of course nobody heard what she said to me, so when we came out my mentor asked about it. I told her and she was less than complimentary about the sister. Two weeks later it was revealed that she had assaulted a student nurse (slapped her face for answering back whilst getting told off for something petty) and was losing her licence to practice. I couldn't wait to get off that ward while she was there, but would love to go back now.

~ Student called Greta who ended up nicknamed 'Bimbo' for her stupid questions in lectures. We had a visiting lecturer from Western Samoa who was talking about cultural and nursing differences between Australia and W.Samoa. Greta sticks up her hand and asks, "Is it true that men are allowed to have more than one wife there?"

Lecturer, born and bred in W.Samoa and married to a W.Sam. man, says "No - some Polynesian/Micronesian/indonesian cultures may practice polygamy but it is not part of the W.Sam. lifestyle."

Greta: "But my dad worked there for 3 months and he said that men there can marry as many women as they want".

Despite being told by the lecturer that this wasn't true, and being asked by the rest of the class to get back to the real purpose of the lecture, she wouldn't drop it.

Her misguided beliefs about different cultures astounded me, especially when we went on a rural prac together and worked in a largely Aboriginal community. Every day she spouted racist and just plain wrong statements, yet when we both applied for the same rural nursing scholarship at the end of the year, she got it and I missed out. I can't hate her though, because she made me go to the party where I met my partner, Jim - probably the only good thing she ever did for me!

Our A+P lecturer, a lovely Chinese man, had an idea to create a contraceptive brief (underwear) for men, working from the theory that excessive heat kills sperm. He wanted to call them "Naughty Noodles Pants". I suggested "Toasty Testes" which he loved -giggled for the rest of the lecture.

cokie · Feb 16, 2003

we actually had two female students have a major shouting fight in class, while we were in groups and the teacher had stepped out. i couldn't believe it. there was desk shoving, and yelling, i was in the group and thought i might be the ref if they started to throw punches. this fight too was about this one girl who came in late, when we had already gone over a number of the questions. then her papers were all out of order, so she rustled for a few minutes, then wanted us all to catch her up. someone told her something about coming on time, then she said something about people having notes already and all the answers from the previous semester. wow.....the teacher did find out and they were both cautioned.

P_RN, ADN, RN · Feb 16, 2003

My brightest moment was in Med-Surg class when a STREAKER came through. You hadda be there.