Nursing School Needs Repair (And Why I Quit)

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I'm a 56 year old former Industrial Engineer and Project Manager who was previously accepted into several accelerated 2nd bachelor degree nursing programs in Florida. Having been a full-time caregiver to my mom for 7 years, I wanted to help people with dementia on a professional level. The problem is I've been accepted into (and dropped) 3 programs. All 3 were disorganized messes with confusion about books, remedial dosage calculation problems where the answer keys were wrong, surprise projects not on the syllabus, and confusion about whether or not we would be injecting each other with solutions that may or may not be sterile??? There has GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY TO EDUCATE NURSES. And there needs to be greater focus on nursing students taking care of themselves rather than being stretched like a banjo wire and expected to take care of very ill patients. OMG. This system is in chaos.

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

Hopefully they're considering the points made, which some may see as unnecessarily harsh, but overall contain the truth from a lot of people who've been there

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Specializes in PMHNP-BC.

Honestly one of the best things I learned in nursing school was how to fly by the seat of my pants!

Comes handy in so many areas of life.

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How did you manage stay in nursing school long enough to drop out..3 TIMES? What sort of time frame was it that you went through the process of admissions, waited 2-3 weeks for an acceptance letter, a month or so to actually start, went THROUGH part of the program, and then dropped out?

On another note...nursing school is like a ferret on crystal meth. It spends most of its time running circles around you until you fall flat on your face or sedate it to get through the day. If you want it badly enough be willing to overlook the disorganization to get through it.

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Specializes in PMHNP-BC.

Thinking about the process for nursing school I find it hard believe they went though the admission process 3x and participated in a portion of it only

To drop out. Either they have serious problems or are making it up.

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Thinking about the process for nursing school I find it hard believe they went though the admission process 3x and participated in a portion of it only

To drop out. Either they have serious problems or are making it up.

Or failed.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Interestingly, the OPs bio does not indicate engineering at all- but banking. And just a few months ago he/ she was 'loving' nursing school.

So there's that...

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Specializes in Cardiac, COVID-19, Telemetry.

I'm surprised after quitting twice that it wasn't difficult to be readmitted a third time? My nursing program is no flattering experience either. There is miscommunication frequently that has been clarified literally 15 minutes prior to an exam via an announcement posted on Blackboard. It happens, it isn't enough to make me want to drop out of my program though. I think it's a user error, rather than a program error.

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Welcome to nursing, where your shift starts with a 89 yo pt on a cardiac monitor running normal sinus rhythm, alert & oriented x 4. Labs were collected right at change of shift. 30 min later, lab calls you with critical lab values of lactate 5.4, potassium 6.0, wbc 18.0 positive UTI. You page the doc. Pt is now running sinus tachycardia between 140 - 160s. Orders are in. You are executing them. Just then you hear hyperacute stroke being called on your other pt. Your third pt is 30 min away, the secretary just informed you....I hope you get the picture I'm painting here. It's complete chaos but we navigate and manage it everyday.

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