NVCC First yr students, How goes the battle?

[Flames9_RN]

Howdy. Is it as bad as you thought? lol I hope not. I heard you guys had to give actual bed baths in lab, sweet,lol The course gets better when you start ur clinicals, then you get to make up your nursing plans, joy joy!! There are books in the library that can help you with them. Or check out half.com or ur book stores. Half.com would be cheaper, and havaing a book totally up to date isnt that important. I have "Nursing care care plans 6th ed) ISBN 9780323039543 Its a good book. if your short for cash, it is not a MUST have! check ur local libraries as well. Check ebay and search for "nursing care plans" some older books for like $5!!

As well for ur drug passage exam that you take in LAB, you will get a list of drugs you need drug cards for! Think there was a list of about 30. One can either make them up on ur own, OR buy drug cards! MEC bookstore has them or Borders! if you sign up for a Borders reward card (its free) u get weekly coupons emailed to ya, and quite often they are for 20% off!! And they have the Mosby ones and Med-Deck. i ahve the Med Deeck and i think it was only mssing one of the drugs that we had to know. During the drug passage exam, ur allowed to look at ur med cards if u forget, just like you would on the floor! At least that was the case last yr, things are always changing! Cheers

[naide88]

Is it just me or do some of the professors talk really really fast?

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

better than to slow,lol Lot of information to get covered in lecture in a short while. There are some profs that will just stop at end of lecture and they have only covered half the material!

[mama2_3]

Congratulations on passing that drug dosage exam Flames9! Way to go!

Nursing school is very different than general studies. I personally do not feel as confident. There are so many bright people around me in class. I am sure it helps that many of them have a background in health care.

[NursingGeek]

Do you know people who didn't pass dosage calcs this semester? Everyone I talked to said it was so easy and did fine.

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I have heard rumors of a few, but only know 1 for sure. But I don't chat with too many people. I found it easy, but I studied,lol Their were a few "tricky" questions, but one just had to take a moment and read the question--which is so important to do in drug calculation exams!! Read the instructions and read the questions!! And double check your work. The person that I know that failed, i didn't bother to ask what she screwed up on. Last yr, they (seniors)lost 1 student in the Fall and Spring (final) semester because of the dosage exam.

[mama2_3]

Is it just me or do some of the professors talk really really fast?

I found digital recorder useful for that exact reason. I only used it twice so far and it gave me peace of mind. I have to figure out how to divide the recorded material because I wish I could just fast ford instead of listening two hours straight.

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I record them as well, BUT have never listened to them,lol I found the drug dosage exams in the 1st yr more challenging than this yrs, but I'm not complaining.

[Bpeaceful2All]

Hey Flames9, congrats on passing the dosage test. I'm taking med math and I find it a good refresher until I got to the section on caluclating drip rates and IV calculations. We have math test every semester right?

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Well u dont (at least we didnt)have a drug dosage test the very first semester! We had a practice one, bu tit didnt count. So the first one that counted was in the 2nd semester. But things are always changing!!

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

And I should mention that A LOT of students failed the first "real" dosage exam, and I mean a lot!!! Luckily for them, it got thrown out. Ticked us off that passed,lol The math isn't overly hard, one just has to practice and DOUBLE CHECK ur work!!

[NursingGeek]

I had the same experience with tons of people failing the math exam in NUR118. I think all of them did pass it on the second try, though (at least those of us who took NUR118 in the summer).

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

We had a few people fail the rewrite and got shown the door!! 1 guy had a high 90 avg in the class too!! The reason our first exam was thrown out, they stated it was compromised --to the Arlington Campus (this was back in Feb 2008) I guess everyone( or almost everyone) passed, where as we had huge # of failures!! So they made everyone do it over!! And some that passed the first time, failed the second, DUH!! I guess in reality,one should be able to pass the dosage exam every time!! But its just another stress one doesnt need!