Nursing school anxiety - need advice!

newohiorn, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Oct 5, 2014

Don't panic. None of us retained every bit of information from nursing school. Cram, take those tests and pass, retain what you can. The truth is most of us really learn how to be a nurse on the job. Commit yourself to being a continual learner. Once you're on the job when you have questions or encounter a particular diagnosis or particular medicine, etc., go home and look it up, research it and you will find that you retain it much better when it's one or two topics at a time that relate to a patient you are currently caring for. To me nursing school was really about getting the basic concepts down. You will learn the complexities once you are working. Use the experienced nurses knowledge (and thank them for sharing it) and do your own research at home. Experienced nurses can be a wealth of knowledge but double check for yourself as well because sometimes practices change.

studentnursefran · Oct 5, 2014

I am in a 4 yr program as well. I have already taken pharm but I haven't taken med surg.basically your going to have to memorize pharm. There are just way too many medications to learn in such short time. I say do the best you can to learn their categories. I made TONS of note cards. They can be helpful later on down the road if you need to reference them. I hope this is helpful! GOODLUCK!

firstinfamily, RN · Oct 6, 2014

Different strokes for different folks!! You need to realize how you learn, be it auditory, visual or mechanical. Take good notes in class. It takes time to study in an effective method. My daughter found that she needed to re-write her notes from class so that they made more sense to her. The instructor was not presenting things in a logical sequence for her. I always wrote class notes, the mechanical activity helped me to learn, some students tape recorded lectures. Most pharmacology is hard, and medications change all the time, you have to learn the "families/categories" of medications to understand what systems they impact. Learn what side effects may be the most common and detrimental for your patient. IE: You are caring for a renal patient who is on lasix, but is not taking any potassium supplement, should you monitor the pt for hypo or hyperkalemia?? This is the type of thing instructors will be looking for, as long as you can logically explain to them the rationale you will be OK. Also, get yourself a good drug book that is easy to use, and you can always ask the pharmacy at the facility you are training for manufacturer's phamplets, I did and that is how I learned a lot of medications by reading these and applying them to the patients conditions. We were required to write drug cards for every drug our assigned patients were on. Although this was a lot of busy work, it did help me learn the categories of medications and what the most common drugs were etc. Use more than one method to learn your meds. I don't know if drug books are available on line or for e-readers, but you should have one at home for a reference.

ALLEYEZONREE · Oct 6, 2014

Relax. You will get through it. It seems like Nursing school is taking over your life, and it is. Just know that in the end it will be very rewarding and you will look back and be so proud that you have accomplished so much. You have gotten this far. Keep going. First of all, HAVE MONTHLY CALENDARS. Write down every single exam you have, every assignment you have due, and any "parties" or events you have going on. That way you can see what days you need to study for what, how much you need to work on a project or if you can even make it to the party or not. Devote your time Nursing school. It's the most rewarding profession ever. You WILL get there and won't have any regrets, I promise. Best of luck to you!

firstinfamily, RN · Oct 7, 2014

Do you get to meet your patients in the clinical site before your assigned day? We use to be able to meet the patient and review the chart before our clinical day and that helped me get organized for the next day as well as take care of some of the anxiety I was having. Clinical is much different from theory and being able to apply the theory is going to take time and practice. Something that is hard to get when clinicals are only once or twice a week. Try to familiarize yourself with the most common types of patients: CHF, COPD, Diabetics, usually their medications are the same for those types of patients. I am not suggesting that these patients get treated the same, just that they are the ones you will most likely see the most often in the acute environment. Once you have worked with these type of patients you can use that as a reference point for other patients. It is like building blocks, each part depends on the other and eventually the entire structure is evident. Maybe change your study methods a little to include an actual pt you have taken care of and quiz yourself about this and that. Medications, treatments, changing insulin doses, labs etc. that pertain to that particular pt. What else could have been done? Were there any side effects of any medications?? How were the electrolytes and blood counts, any cultures etc. This will help you to tie it all together. It is a lot of information, and true, nursing school is only an introduction to prepare you to practice in the field; it is not an end all to the learning you will continue to do!!

Tenebrae, BSN, RN · Oct 7, 2014

Bear in mind that as a student nurse not only are you often doing the equivalent of a full time job, you also have all the other students tasks, assignments related to that. And that doesnt cover the stresses and strains associated with normal everyday life.

As someone said, lists are good. Knowing what you have to do and when it needs to be done by is helpful. And rather than looking at everything you need to do, look at the next task and focus on getting that completed.

Also, don't forget to breath. When things are stressful and anxiety provoking, we can find that we dont breath properly which can further provoke more anxiety. Someone taught me breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth for approx 3 secs for each. I like it, because of the fact that we all need to breath and no one needs know that we feel anxious. Hope that makes sense

pandy4321 · Jan 18, 2015

Hello all! I'm so sorry I didn't get back sooner! I finished my second semester and just started my third semester (Yay!) I definitely still have anxiety but feel much more competent :) Thank you for all your advice!