mrs.captain.kangaroo

To all except one, thank you for your supportive caring. To one in particular, you are a psychotic bully and need help, please see a counselor and take some meds. How you ever got a job teaching is beyond me except I guess through your contacts. Your intimidating, screaming, and terrorizing students does not make them better nurses. It wouldn't make anyone a better anything.

To my CI: 1. I understand if I am not doing a procedure correctly, you may need to step in. However, I would appreciate you doing it with courtesy as the patient was not in danger and not yelling 'let go of that right now' in front of my fellow classmates and patient and family member. If you had said instead "X, let me do this and I will go over with you later", I could have handled that.. Which by the way you never took the time to do! I had to ask. I would have thought if I had done something wrong, it would be explained to me if it was bad enough to take over from me. 2. When we have a private room to discuss my shortcomings, please use it instead of going over all my shortcomings of off the hall near in the nursing station in a loud voice. Esp. when you know I am aware of these issues and are working on them, it is not that I have denied I have these issues. In other words, you have totally humiliated me and demolished my confidence when if you had handled this in a different way, I would have learned from the experience. Now I just feel crushed and totally incompetent. And just want to drop out right now.

Thanks for all the help. It seems pretty difficult and would require a lot of monitoring day to day with your diets and fluids. 25 years! I didn't think anyone could survive much longer than 5-10 years on hemodialysis?

Hi, when dealing with a hemodialysis patient with fluid restriction of 1000-1500 ml /day, is the fluid in food consumed (esp. those w/ high water content such as fruit and vegetables) considered as part of the fluid restriction? I see recommendations for hemodialysis patients with that fluid range and wonder if that takes into account the fluid in foods or is it just for beverages? Thanks for any help understanding this.

Thanks for all the replies. My therapist is a PhD in psych so I would bet he doesn't have the same experience a medical person such as an RN or LPN would have. I'll ask him though.

I was bullied in clinicals last semester by a fellow clinical classmate. Both she and I are older students, the younger students were great and a lot more mature. She was always full of put downs for my clinical performance but actually she wasn't any better. I confronted this person and told her how her comments made me feel, she said sorry, the next day she came back with some more put downs. I avoid this person whenever possible but it isn't easy as we have a small program. I'm no expert of course but don't see how a bully would be a good nurse. Aren't we supposed to care for our fellow human beings as nurses (and I believe that would include classmates as well) - pretty basic for a nurse IMO. Know you are not alone in being bullied and that bullies have emotional problems.

That's great that you are quitting. Doing it before nursing school is good because I have several classmates who are smokers and did not quit before nursing school and they are having a hard time quitting because of the stress of nursing school. Even if you lapse, any time w/o smoking is good so if you do, get right back on it. My dad died of lung cancer (smoked for years and years) and even though they got his cancer early, his lungs were already in poor shape w/COPD and so he did not survive the surgery.

Hi thanks for the answers. Now I have a question or two: 1. What is a tech, is that a CNA? 2. Is an NA a nursing assistant, like a CNA? Do they have specialized education for psych? And what exactly do they do. I've only worked as a CNA in home health and a nursing home and most of my time was spent helping with ADLs, what do the techs & NAs do?

Hi I'm a student and interested in psych nursing. I decided to go to a therapist myself to work out some issues before entering psych nursing - mainly social anxiety. Do you feel you have time to interact with your patients and help them? My therapist disturbed me when he said that I wouldn't have any time to really interact with my patients in psych nursing and it would mainly be just giving meds. Is that what it is like or is he wrong or would it depend on the facility? I'd really like to deal with the patients personally as one reason I want to go into psych is close friends who committed suicide when I was younger (incredibly sad to see a 19 year old only child kill himself), an anorexic classmate starving herself to death....I'd like to think I could make a difference in someone's life and maybe help them make the decision to turn them away from suicide or destructive choices.

Hi thanks. I guess what really hurt and I don't think I mentioned it before, was that previous to the nasty comments that student made I had tutored that particular student. She had 3 tries to pass the math test (80% required) and she had failed both times. When I tutored her (voluntarily) then she passed with a 91%. I also helped her get her grades up from failing in 2 other classes by tutoring her many hours. After speaking with other students in our program, I have been told they have avoided her because she is a 'user of others.' I even told her how her comments made me feel and she said sorry, then did the same thing the next day. I'm beginning to feel she may have some serious issues. And I was stupid/too insecure myself to put up with it. She even called me this semester because she wanted to study for the final with me. I told her I was busy and couldn't. Our program is so small it is hard to avoid her but I am cordial but avoid her as much as I can. Actually this student also wasn't much better in clinicals than myself either. She even made some inappropriate comments in a patient's room, come to think of it.

It also may be a trait acquired by marriage! Of the older students in my class, almost all of them are married to nurses and are now choosing nursing as a second career. I have to admit I am envious of them as they can go home and talk shop and get good answers to questions that our books make clear as mud! Sometimes I'll ask them to ask their spouse about something and I always get a great answer back that makes a lot more sense than the textbook.

I can definitely relate. One day at a time....I also feel very stressed and most of my classmates do also. My grade philosophy: do the best you can, figure out why you didn't get the trade you wanted (if you can, sometimes our tests are so different from one teacher to another it is very hard to figure out), then move on to the next test. You can overstudy too so stop when you've been reading the same page several times and don't even realize it - I've done that! I feel bad when I see people who I consider would make better nurses than myself fail, but you can't do it for them. You can only control your own life and they are responsible for their own. Most of the folks who failed our program have already applied to other schools and will try again somewhere else. I know it is hard and sometimes I fail at being upbeat, but take time out even for even a short time to do something fun - play with the dog, spend a little time reading something other than nursing, get outside now that the weather is getting more spring like, take a walk, talk with friends, etc.

Hey I am still in my first year of nursing school and am in awe of someone who has passed nursing school! I admire you. Please don't give up on yourself. I'm sorry that families aren't more supportive in this situation when that is exactly what people need. The other posters have good suggestions, since am a long way from being able to sit for the NCLEX I can't give you specific suggestions except to keep faith in yourself.

Thanks to all of you for your support and suggestions. I did talk to my CI and she was receptive, it seems I was giving off 'fear vibes' so she didn't want to overburden me. I realize I am afraid but have to go forward and do these things that scare me or I'll never be a nurse. So I more than anyone have been holding myself back. She let me do IV push drugs and hang IV piggyback and I felt much more confident. In this group, we also follow each other around to learn as the others give drugs and I found that others were insecure and didn't do everything perfectly as well, even those with more drug giving experience than myself. I think I am lucky with my current clinical group and CI and with you helpful people on this board. Now I can have a smiley face thanks to all of you. :)

I am very depressed and feeling like quitting my nursing. My grades are good, it is my clinical experiences that are not going well. I am in my 2nd semester and have now started 2nd semester clinicals. My first semester I was way behind the other students in my clinical group and given much less demanding assignments than the others. By the end of the first semester, everyone else had given shots and passed meds, the only med I passed was tums and that was when we had a substitute teacher. I brought up the disparity in my performance and what I was given to do to my CI - but any kind of my not doing a good job was denied by the CI. Despite this, the teacher passed me and gave me a good clinical rating. I also had a very poisonous clinical classmate who told me that "they are passing you because you get good grades and therefore can help the school get their NCLEX passing rates up" - she told me this more than once. Well now I am starting to believe her that clinical classmate. Here it is the 2nd semester of clinicals, again everyone else in my group is passing meds and even doing IVs, while I haven't passed a single med. I am always given the 'simple' case while others are given more complex cases. Now I am starting to believe my poisonous classmate from the first semester. If I can't do the job, why are they keeping me around? I feel very humiliated when others in my group are progressing and going on far beyond me. Should I just resign from the nursing program? It just seems obvious to me and probably to the other students that I can't do the job so why am I in the program? Would a school really do that? Please help, I just don't want to waste any more of my time and anyone else's time when it seems the clinical instructors have no faith in me.