Whether is it from a Nursing Instructor or classmate, I keep hearing that Nursing School is HARD, HARD, HARD!!! This is no big surprise to me that is hard, but it seems strange that this is emphasized so much; it seems like people are trying to scare people away from Nursing, or maybe there are other reasons. I've never heard people emphasize this aspect of Medical School to the extent that I hear it about Nursing School. I think medical students know they are doing something hard, and I never hear anyone emphasizing again and again how hard medical school is. Why is Nursing School treated like the most difficult thing to do on the planet? OK, sure it is hard, but to keep emphasizing this makes it almost sound like the person saying it maybe didn't get any respect for how hard they worked, so they want everyone else to be impressed with how smart they are to have made it through. I just never hear Doctors going around saying how hard Medical School was, and I think it because everyone knows it is a hard thing to do. It sounds like Nurses have an inferiority complex. What gives?
My dad is a cardiologist. I'm a nursing student. Medical school is harder to get into. Sorry...but it's not harder to get through, especially if you compare it to a top nursing program that's extremely rigid and competitive. My school has a nursing school and a medical school so we're pretty close with some of the med students...sometimes I feel like they have more free time. Then again, they're only 1st year and concentrating on book work while we're concentrating on book work AND patients from day 1 (quicker pace). I guess that's what makes it "hard."
Nursing is just hard because you need to learn a lot in a short period of time, as stated above, and you need to learn how to take criticism. That's tough. Really tough. We're not always going to do things right, and in such a short period of time you have to learn to jump back up and get things right when it goes wrong...if that makes any sense. You don't really get that much time between learning something and actually applying it, especially when you have an instructor hammering you with questions in front of your patient on your 3rd week of nursing school. :) For me, that's the hard part. Realizing that all of this information being shoved at you will come with time and lots of hard work. You could study for days and days and still not have the critical thinking skills but you'll find as you get through school they really start to shine through.
That's just my opinion. Don't think medical school is harder or easier... in fact, they don't really compare.
Never went to med school, but sometimes I wonder...there were some "not-so-bright" residents making their rounds. They came to my patient's room and I wasn't there right away, but when I saw them by the room I walked over and listened to what they said. They were talking about beta blockers. The attending was asking when you would hold a beta blocker and all of them had blank stares on their faces...then they started to talk about Levophed (norepinephrine), a vasopressor which increases your blood pressure. First the attending asked what Levophed was and what does it do. One of the residents said, "...peripheral vasoconstriction?" and the attending asked, "what type of receptor does it act on?" I'm thinking in my head, "alphas"...no response from the residents. Finally the attending told them Levophed acts on alpha receptors
Then finally they were talking about bradycardia. One of the patients on the unit had a heart rate of 33 :uhoh21: but was asymptomatic. The attending asked what would you give for symptomatic bradycardia. I was thinking in my head "atropine" but again, no response from the residents...and again I was right. But of course being just a nursing student, I kept my mouth shut :)
I never went to medical school so I can't compare... But... I assume that many who go to medical school don't also hold jobs beyond the undergrad degree. I asume most go before starting a family. Most people in nursing school also seem to have jobs, families, and other responsibilities. It is a LOT of info crammed into a short period of time. You can be an RN in just 3 years, including general studies and prereq's. I was a 4.0 nursing student. I worked minimal and chose to go before having a family. So I didn't have it nearly as hard as those who also had to work full-time and deal with babies waking up at night, toddlers crying and clinging while trying to study, toddlers getting into things they shouldn't, figuring out child care arrangements while in work/school/clinical and still having to be the one to do the cleaning and shopping/laundry etc. It was hard, not in the sense that the material was hard, it was difficult b/c there was SO MUCH INFO to learn in such a short amount of time. Then throw in the stress of clinicals! There is just so much info crammed into that 2 years it is crazy!
Totally agree, what is hard is managing study, work and family. Nursing can be quite broad so its like your given a massive amount of info to swallow in that time and then apply it.
I could be way off base here but I heard the other day someone say that med students tend to be coddled through medical school, with their instructors working hard with them to help them through.
This seems to be a very different student centered approach that from what I read here, is totally opposite of what a nursing student experiences. (You know, all the ruthless instructors out to weed out all but the best and brightest students).
Perhaps in a sense, med school is easier because it is a less hostile environment for the student.
One of my friends is in Pennsylvania doing her med school residency and she told me stories about the ridiculousness that they have to go through. It is very very hard but to say one is harder than the other? Well go through both and see.
The very first day of orientation to law school (very hard), the dean told us to look to the student on our left and then look to the student on our right. One of those people will not graduate...he was right.
I could be way off base here but I heard the other day someone say that med students tend to be coddled through medical school, with their instructors working hard with them to help them through.
This seems to be a very different student centered approach that from what I read here, is totally opposite of what a nursing student experiences. (You know, all the ruthless instructors out to weed out all but the best and brightest students).
Perhaps in a sense, med school is easier because it is a less hostile environment for the student.
See I heard the opposite. My SO is a doctor and he said that his professors rode them hard. The professors wanted to see who had the balls and who needed to grow a set (his words, not mine).
I would suggest that the volume of material is much greater, and the medical student is expected to learn much more detail oriented material. First year (basic sciences) is said to be harder than second year (more science). Third year (core rotations) is said to be harder than fourth year (mostly elective rotations). To me, it'd be more interesting, thus easier, to study enzymatic reations than principles of caring. Medical school clnicals aren't quite like nursing clinicals either. There's more to do and more patients to do it with. They come in part with textbooks of many varieties to be read while pariticipating in the clinicals. I was originally on track as a premed in college, but life and the want to wear other hats distracted me. I'd love to go, but I don't feel like the cost/benefit would be good for me at this point. That said, I graduated high school with 60 other people. One is an oncology fellow, another is a chief resident of emergency medicine, and the third is (I forget) a second or third year medical student.
The A&P that we took is no where near the comparison of what medical students will take. There's actually a website I can provide that is a medical school microbiology course. I've looked over it many times, and it is much more in depth than my 3000 level college microbiology class that I took in 2002.
I haven't been to medical school, but I honestly have yet to find any difficulty with nursing school.
The A&P that we took is no where near the comparison of what medical students will take. There's actually a website I can provide that is a medical school microbiology course. I've looked over it many times, and it is much more in depth than my 3000 level college microbiology class that I took in 2002.
See I heard the opposite. My SO is a doctor and he said that his professors rode them hard. The professors wanted to see who had the balls and who needed to grow a set (his words, not mine).
Whether is it from a Nursing Instructor or classmate, I keep hearing that Nursing School is HARD, HARD, HARD!!! This is no big surprise to me that is hard, but it seems strange that this is emphasized so much; it seems like people are trying to scare people away from Nursing, or maybe there are other reasons. I've never heard people emphasize this aspect of Medical School to the extent that I hear it about Nursing School. I think medical students know they are doing something hard, and I never hear anyone emphasizing again and again how hard medical school is. Why is Nursing School treated like the most difficult thing to do on the planet? OK, sure it is hard, but to keep emphasizing this makes it almost sound like the person saying it maybe didn't get any respect for how hard they worked, so they want everyone else to be impressed with how smart they are to have made it through. I just never hear Doctors going around saying how hard Medical School was, and I think it because everyone knows it is a hard thing to do. It sounds like Nurses have an inferiority complex. What gives?
I feel the same way. Honestly, it drives me absolutely crazy when people act like this is going to be the hardest thing I will ever do.
mhinds12
90 Posts
My dad is a cardiologist. I'm a nursing student. Medical school is harder to get into. Sorry...but it's not harder to get through, especially if you compare it to a top nursing program that's extremely rigid and competitive. My school has a nursing school and a medical school so we're pretty close with some of the med students...sometimes I feel like they have more free time. Then again, they're only 1st year and concentrating on book work while we're concentrating on book work AND patients from day 1 (quicker pace). I guess that's what makes it "hard."
Nursing is just hard because you need to learn a lot in a short period of time, as stated above, and you need to learn how to take criticism. That's tough. Really tough. We're not always going to do things right, and in such a short period of time you have to learn to jump back up and get things right when it goes wrong...if that makes any sense. You don't really get that much time between learning something and actually applying it, especially when you have an instructor hammering you with questions in front of your patient on your 3rd week of nursing school. :) For me, that's the hard part. Realizing that all of this information being shoved at you will come with time and lots of hard work. You could study for days and days and still not have the critical thinking skills but you'll find as you get through school they really start to shine through.
That's just my opinion. Don't think medical school is harder or easier... in fact, they don't really compare.