What are you most freaked out about learning in nursing school? What makes you the most nervous? I am worried about taking blood. My hands tend to shake a little, even when I am not nervous, but really bad when I am nervous. I plan to take beta-blockers in nursing school so poor patients don't have to see shakes the clown coming at them with a needle.
I have been really trying to desensitize myself to the idea of sticking a needle into someone's vein. I look at people's arms a lot and visualize calmly and gently finding a vein, making the stick, etc. I know that seems strange, but just trying to gear up for it.
For all of you experienced students - do you usually get free time in the labs to just practice and practice on the models?? Do you practice blood draws on your fellow students?
Don't be too stressed about taking blood it is not as bad as you think.
I'm in my third year of nursing (Australia) and last year we had plenty of practice taking blood from the models and fellow students. I promise you once you have taken a few lots of blood you will become a natural. Good luck with the rest of your course and don't give up. you think it's hard now but it does gets easier I promise.
regards
nicole (Aussie chick) :)
The one thing that really sucks about my program is that they don't let us start any IVs, draw up blood, anything like that. Not even at the end of the program. I think we are really being severly short changed with that. Now, we do injections, but not venous access. I hope I get a good preceptor that will teach me all this
I actually heard somewhere that smiling helps to supress the gag reflex.....if that doesn't help then just use the mouth breathing technique.
Gagging too much/at inappropriate times.
I have a bad gag refelx when it comes to certain smelly things.....For instance, now don't laugh, the smell of rotting food, and this is really bad--the other day when I was changing my nephew's diaper (he's not even 1 yet) I gagged so much that I threw up a little in my mouth! This has never happened with my son, who's 2 now. He's even vomitted all over me, and I didn't gag once.....
I've talked to one of my friends who is a CNA and entering the program this fall, also. She says I'll get used to it. She did! I hope so! :barf01:
The one thing that really sucks about my program is that they don't let us start any IVs, draw up blood, anything like that. Not even at the end of the program. I think we are really being severly short changed with that. Now, we do injections, but not venous access. I hope I get a good preceptor that will teach me all this
Hi there,
In our course we don't get the opportunity to do IV cannulation either. but when you get out into the hospital system there are courses that you can do and the hospital guides you thru them. I'm surprised that your course doesn't offer the opportunity to take blood. It is not that hard to learn though when your out on clinicals ask if you can watch blood been taken then if your preceptor allows you to take blood on another patient or practice on yourself.
honestly i'm afraid of stitches!! i dunno why..it just freaks me out
What are you most freaked out about learning in nursing school? What makes you the most nervous? I am worried about taking blood. My hands tend to shake a little, even when I am not nervous, but really bad when I am nervous. I plan to take beta-blockers in nursing school so poor patients don't have to see shakes the clown coming at them with a needle.
I have been really trying to desensitize myself to the idea of sticking a needle into someone's vein. I look at people's arms a lot and visualize calmly and gently finding a vein, making the stick, etc. I know that seems strange, but just trying to gear up for it.
For all of you experienced students - do you usually get free time in the labs to just practice and practice on the models?? Do you practice blood draws on your fellow students?
I'm still an incoming sophomore/second year in nursing school and we have only practiced CPR on a dummy. I know, it's still early to learn more than that, but I'm freaking. What if I make mistakes at everything and get scolded by clinical instructors and doctors? Maybe taking blood from patients will freak me out too (haven't learned and done it yet). What if I made a mistake in inserting the needle and draw out other things instead?
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
Well, it's been awhile since I've been in nursing school, but as I recall we weren't allowed to draw blood. In fact, over my 30 year history as a working RN the only time I drew blood was when I started an IV and I was doing the patient and the lab a favor and drew off the blood before I hooked up the IV fluids. I do remember my first IM injection. We had to give them to each other in the nursing lab at school before we would be allowed to give them on a patient. I was so worried about it that I took a TB syringe and alcohol wipe home and sat with it looking at my bare thigh for a long time before I finally plunged the needle in. (Big sigh!) Didn't even hurt. Next step was I practiced with a 3cc syringe on an orange. I practiced so much on that orange that everytime I injected water into it fluid came squirting out all the other holes I had made. :chuckle I gave my first shot to a classmate just before I went on our Christmas vacation. My thumb shook so badly as I was pressing on the plunger to inject the sterile saline! There was nothing I could do to hide it. But, it was over. Then, my first real patient wouldn't let anyone give him his shot of Demerol anywhere except his arm (Deltoid). All I could think about was accidentally hitting his brachial nerve and paralyzing him. My instructor was with me though and I did it perfectly. That was in 1973 and since it is so clear a memory I guess I was pretty nervous about it at the time, don't you think? I suspect that you'll do OK, too. You are not alone in your fears.
For, me the worst thing has been seeing brain matter on the linens of head traumas being brought in by EMT. It makes me nauseated and I have to fight back the feeling of wanting to throw up every time.
The smell of necrotic tissue isn't very pleasant either. It was pretty hard not to gag when I got my first whiff of it.
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
honestly i'm afraid of stitches!! i dunno why..it just freaks me out
As a nurse you most likely will never put in sutures, so don't sweat it. I had to learn to do skin suturing when I was taught to put in PICC lines at the V.A. hospital where I worked. (Let me explain that the V.A. hospital is a federal institution that can allow nurses to do something like that. Most state nurse practice acts do not let nurses suture.) Anyway, once the patient's skin is numbed with Lidocaine they don't feel anything. It is just like sewing two pieces of cloth together. Really.
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
The one thing that really sucks about my program is that they don't let us start any IVs, draw up blood, anything like that. Not even at the end of the program. I think we are really being severly short changed with that. Now, we do injections, but not venous access. I hope I get a good preceptor that will teach me all this
The reason for this is that most states will not allow this unless you are licensed first. Think of why nursing students are supervised so closely. Every once in awhile a goof ball slips by the instructors and something happens to a patient. Now, think about what would happen if students were allowed to insert IV's or draw blood and one of these goof balls decided to do it without an instructor around, having gotten no permission, etc., etc. This is one reason why the state laws do not permit students to do these procedures. The consequences of the injuries caused to a vein or artery are extremely serious.
yes, definitely, making it through nursing school is fear number one. Also terrified of hitting the sciatic nerve when giving a shot.
Biggest fear though is giving baths and showers. I've been doing it for years as a CNA but I still hate it. I'm so afraid of someone falling. Also in LTC we have to give baths to people that are basically unconscious and even when we buckle them tight into the bath chair they have a tendency to slide out. One time I was doing something at the nurse's station and I heard an aide hollering for help, went back to the bath room and he had a patient in the chair, which was up, who had slid out to the point where he had had to grab the linen bin and stick it under her. Getting that chair down and keeping the patient in it was terrifying. Another time an aide was giving a bath, had the patient in the chair raised all the way up to get out of the tub and the pole snapped and slammed the patient and the chair into the wall. Oh, and then there's the time the power failed on the chair lift while a 200 lb. woman was all the way down in the tub and we had to get six men in to airlift her out. Yeah, I played my "I'm a weak woman" card on that one.
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
Biggest fear though is giving baths and showers. I'm so afraid of someone falling. . .in LTC we have to give baths to people that are basically unconscious and even when we buckle them tight into the bath chair they have a tendency to slide out.
Couldn't resist answering your post! I'll 'fess up. I hate doing baths--any kind. I'd rather be knee deep in body fluids. I can't tell you why either. Maybe because bathing is just a very personal thing. I just am very uncomfortable with it. In your nursing program you will learn to give The Bed Bath. That is the way it's done in the hospital, you'll be happy to know.
I have a story about getting a heavy person up off the floor you might like to hear. We had a 500 pound gentleman on our unit for a month (this was in 1979) because he had three small cerebral hematomas that were causing him to have some weird kind of seizures. The hematomas were too small for the docs to do surgery so he was basically there for care and observation. He was not supposed to get out of bed. But, he did. Said he had to go to the bathroom. He ended up flat on his back on the floor. We were all skinny women wondering how in the blazes we were gonna get this man back in his bed. He was dead weight. We finally got a couple of the security guys and with two people each per limb we got him back into bed at which point he promptly proceeded to have a seizure. I will never forget that.
I'm on beta blockers for life as a precaution, due to a case of peripartum cardiomyopathy I recovered from. You still feel nervous, but your body can't work itself up into panic like it did before. I found that I can give speeches fairly successfully now since I'm on beta blockers! I was still scared, but my hands didn't sweat and get cold and my voice didn't shake. MOST excellent.
I don't know, but I can't imagine a doctor letting you be on a beta blockers to just feel more calm! I mean, these are high powered heart drugs with side effects....if I was a doctor I would just say NO WAY to that. While I was on Toprol XL I did experience feeling "turned off" of the world. I couldn't cry, I didn't feel very happy, I was just BLAH. I would say perfectly horrible things to people and not understand why they were upset. It was terrible. Then I switched to Coreg and it has made all the difference. While I am still slightly "tuned out" in some ways and it is much harder to cry or get very angry, I feel much more normal and enjoy life more on Coreg.
Anyway...just thought I'd toss in my two cents about beta blockers. I like them, overall, now that I don't wander around like a zombie. I mean, I used to have fairly bad temper and not be about to do speeches, and that's pretty much gone. Now I find that Coreg may help me be calm in nursing school. NEAT!
Cara
i AGREE!!! I think if my Dr. had prescribed a b-blocker for anxiety..i'd run out of that office ASAP. Gimme a Xanax!
downbayou
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