Hello,
Not sure if this is the right place to post this but just wondering what the first year will be like..
I completed a LVN program in 2014 where I (personally) feel I made the mistake of accepting a job in plastic surgery after a short time in home health where I actually just did care giving work. Two years went by and I realized that if I got a job at a SNF I would be screwed because I felt like all the clinically significant information I had studied (Tactility) was kind of lost. Similar to the “use it or lose it” saying. So then I decided the way to fulfill my dream of working in a hospital was to get my RN.. I remembered how much I loved Med Surg in my clinical and knew that I needed to get my RN to be able to work on such a floor.
fast forward to now, and I am one year away from graduating my BSN program. I am just concerned because I am realizing that a lot of what fuels my ability to understand what I am learning is depending what I learned in my VN program. If i didnt have that knowledge to support me I cannot imagine how I would keep my head above water in this school.
the BSN program I am in provides (1) 12 hour clinical day a week, whereas my VN program provided (3) 8 hour clinical days a week. We have one day of class a week which is 5 hours long where we are lectured on a ton of information and are tested the next week.
after this term I won’t have a clinical that allows for hands on training similar to what we are in now which is intermediate med surg until my Advanced Med Surg which isnt for 9 months.
I am just wondering if anyone else out there feels like their school is rushing the heck out of this degree? I haven’t practiced as a VN in two years because the program became so demanding and my only previous experience has been the plastic surgery. I do continuing education courses, keep up my BLS and got certified in some skills to keep some knowledge of things but I cannot see myself being able to manage patient care on my own in a year. am i thinking to far ahead?
does anyone have any recommendations as to how to better retain this information and not just lose it the second a quiz is over? How do I hold on to this information without adequate clinical hours and such a high information load? I love nursing so much I want to be a competent nurse more than anything! How did you all (If you felt this way) find the courage to get into your first nursing job while feeling so unprepared? I’m passing tests averaging in high 80’s and getting good feedback from clinical professors but will this be enough? Are there extension programs out there or can anyone explain how new grad programs work exactly? Finding mixed explanations about that too. Sorry for so many questions I would greatly appreciate any feedback
