New (old) guy here - LPN student - Tennessee

ColoradoRocky · Jul 12, 2013

Hey, you're not alone. I'm starting the clinicals 2 years of the ADN-RN-BSN programhere in Texas., 53 years old, Army veteran, engineering manager, etc. I am actually REstarting this fall. I basically had to drop late in spring term due to the death of my younger brother, and how that rocked my entire extended family ( I am the oldest of 4 sons, and our dad passed a while back leaving me as the " patriarch").

Here's a bit of advice from an old guy: expect stress likely far beyond anything else in the civilian world you have likely experienced.

1. Do nor get behind. read ahead. Work ahead. Study ahead. Pre-fill as much of your paperwork as possible.

2. Manage your time. Whatever you were doing to keep schedules and appointments professionally will come in handy, use it to book your time for your classes, clinicals, personal study time, projects and group activities. Be sure you have something that can work well on paper for times when electronic and internet devices are prohibited.

3. Get in a study group. Simply put, nursing is a team sport, and nursing school is set up the same way. Get to know your classmates. Be sure to smile and put them at ease, you're old enough to be their dad, so that will make some of your new classmates nervous and hesitant to communicate. After all, you are probably the first older male they

have ever had as a peer instead of an authority figure.

4. Make time for yourself. Make sure you work out, plan ahead so you can eat right, and try to plan to get enough sleep. Put time on your schedule for stress reduction daily, including settings aside cat nap times in your car. We aren't 22 anymore, so a lot of stuff your classmates do, like all nighters, constantly snacking on pocket food or microwave stuff, etc isn't advisable unless you can bear the cost of recovery time. Yes there will be times that your meals are whatever you can grab from the vending machine and stuff into the pockets of your scrubs, and I guarantee you will run short on sleep more often than not. The key is to make sure those don't become habits.

There's a lot more, but for the over 50 bunch those top the list. I've found the easiest thing to ditch was probably the one thing that helped me a ton with stresses: exercise. Don't short yourself even if afoul it ends up being is a few crunches, pushrods and a short jog.

Hope this helps.

aTOMicTom · Jul 13, 2013

Rocky,

Sorry to hear about your brother, and your need to leave school because of it.

Thank you for your lucid and thoughtful reply! You should use it to begin an article on AllNurses. Very well written. I want to read all the rest of your advice!

I'm surprised to hear that school was THAT stressful for you! Although I have heard that nursing school is extremely taxing, I thought that only applied to women, who are less intelligent (statistically) and who are always complaining about everything! Haha, just kidding ladies.

Good point to be cognizant of the younger students' perception of me. I try to be informal and low-key enough that I don't cause any interpersonal friction (for lack of a better term), but I have noticed how differently I am treated now that I'm an old fart as opposed to just a guy with a touch of grey. Sad. The silver lining is that it's made me acutely aware of the plight of the aging, i.e., how older people become "less human" to younger people.

Anyway, thanks for the good advice.

Tom

PS, what is this "Exercise" you speak of?