Worried about retaining it all

[scoley]

Hi again everyone... For those of you that have just graduated and passed the NCLEX.... Are you worried that you will forget some of what you've learned?? There's so much to retain, and I'm a little worried that I will forget something once I have a job somewhere.... I guess I'm getting a little stressed..There's so much studying involved and I'm a little nervous about the NCLEX... I start my prerequisites next month, so I have plenty of time to relax and prepare myself for the nursing program...

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

You retain the things that you need, sometime consciously, sometime un-consciously.

I took a class at the Amer. Assoc of Critical Nurses' annual conference (NTI) in May about critical thinking skills and I thought this was cool:

Progression from new nurse to experience nurse:

1. Unconsciously incompetent: You don't know what you're doing and don't know enough to know you don't know what you're doing.

2. Consciously incompetent: You don't know what you're doing but you know you don't know, and you know when to seek help.

3. Consciously competent: you know what you are doing and you know why you're doing it.

and finally,

4. Unconsciouly competent: you know what you are doing but don't always know why.

This last, most experienced nurse: you ever know nurses that can pick up on things hours before they show as symptoms: they know something's wrong even if they can't put their finger on it. I have a nurse friend, that when she looks at a patient and says, "she ain't right", it's time to start looking very hard for very subtle things, cause if you don't catch what's going on, it'll catch you!

I thought this was a very interesting class and it relates: as you become more experienced, the things you need to know will imprint on you.

And this is why your instructors tell you not to out-book smart the nurses on the units when you're in clinicals.