LolaVenice

"In Health Assessment lab, for each Assessment we fill out to labwork ourselves relying on our readings and videos. The professor only comes around if we ask or if there is a particular technique she wants to make sure we see in person." My school is like this too and I think it sucks. I'm envious of my friends who are in schools with a more formal, structured lab setting. I don't like that watching videos is the bulk of our instruction. I actually think it's a bit of a rip off, lol!

I know what you mean, but this is just nursing school. We do clinicals in a hospital setting, but that doesn't mean you have to work in this setting once you get out. There are tons of other scenarios you could work in once you get your RN. It sounds like a BSN might be more up your alley, as I believe they are more management and research oriented. But, even as an RN, there are other scenarios other than bedside at a hospital you could find work in. I really want to be involved in nursing research myself so I really hope I can survive all this, too and eventually get my BSN. I am not crazy about a lot of the tasks we do in nursing school either, but try to keep in perspective, that this is just a very small part of it. Hang in there and get through it and I guarantee you will find your niche in nursing once you get out!

PS, I also want to mention that we don't even have a formal lab skills class! We get appointments for supervised practices and then another one for a test off, and if we need a partner for a particular skill, we have to find one. We do not have assigned lab partners. The instructors in the lab are adjuncts, not full time faculty either, so oftentimes when they teach a skill, it's a little different than what our instructors expect from us, but we don't find that out until we are threatened with a clinical deficiency. So that probably has a lot to do with why I'm so uncomfortable. Oh man, I need a hug! lol!

I hear ya!!! But if you made it to your 3rd semester, you're doing something right! I'm only in my 7th week or so and already panicking and feeling like I'm a failure even though my GPA is 88.9%! Good grief, I hope I can make it through this!!

Thanks so much guys for all your input! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Please correct me if I am wrong but from my experience (Unit Coordinator, entering tons of MDs orders) to be able to do anything like that with NG tube you need a doctor order! After placing NG tube xray needs to be done to confirm proper placement of NG tube. Yes, that's what my friend who is a BSN told me, too. So I will be sure not to go near anyone's feeding tubes!! Now, there are things I'm probably just being overly nervous about, so you've all helped me put it in perspective. However, the worst part is feeling like I don't know what is normal and what isn't normal to do without a test off, and feeling like I can't ask my instructors for help! Like, with the feeding tube: I didn't know that you needed a doctor's order for that until my friend who is a BSN told me. So, I'm probably right to feel uneasy about other things. After all, I've only been a nursing student for about 7 weeks now. I don't know enough to know what I should and shouldn't be doing and unfortunately, it doesn't seem like I can count on my instructors to tell me! The attitude is just really negative an un-supportive in my school. I initially felt better about it yesterday, but then came to class this morning and starting hearing these stories from people who had clinicals yesterday. Some of my friends looked like they were about to have a nervous breakdown, one of them broke down into tears when talking about how her instructor reprimanded her for not being able to convince her patient to allow her to do an assessment, which just left me with a horrible feeling. When they said nursing school would be "hard", I felt ready for the challenge, but the hardest part for me so far has been feeling like I don't know what I should and shouldn't be doing, and feeling like I can't ask my instructors for guidance :smackingf

Clovery, thank you for your supportive words! I'm pretty sure, though, that if something went wrong, the teacher and the facility would have no problem throwing some first year nursing student under a bus! I highly doubt they would take responsiblity for it. Thank you everyone for your comments on this. I've been feeling SO uneasy and I'm glad that there are others who agree with me that it doesn't seem right :uhoh21: If I'm asked to do anything I'm uncomfortable with and haven't learned yet, I will be sure to tell the teacher that I haven't gone over it/tested off on it, but would like to learn as long as they talk me through it. Thanks for all your perspectives!

"Some things I would say are ok to do w/o check offs IF the CI is very helpful and genuine. Some of those tricky evil CI may be trying to test you though (you'd think people really aren't that evil and don't want anyone to fail, but there are crazies who will trip up students just to give them the F)." Thanks for saying that Courtney. That's how it's making me feel and I didn't know if I was being paranoid. I don't understand why some of these people decided to become teachers because I do feel like some of them are not interested in teaching at all and they just are on some power trip! I will refuse to do things that I'm not comfortable with, because I know if something goes wrong, it's going to be on my head. Not the school's or the teacher's!

I wish I felt like the CI's in my school were helpful. I guess it wouldn't scare me as much if I felt like our teachers had a supportive attitude. I'm not usually nervous about doing things I've never done before, so it might just be the atmosphere and intimidating attitude I'm reacting to. My issue is that these teachers who are asking students to perform stuff are not being very supportive of the fact that it's skills we haven't learned yet and they are handing out clinical deficiencies to people for not performing skills right. But, that puts it in perspective. I haven't been asked to do things outside of the scope of my knowledge yet, but if I am asked, I will just be assertive about making sure the CI is helping me.

Yes, I agree with those that say it's a way to get into an RN program. I know of a really smart guy who I think would be an excellent nurse who was in an RN program. He was getting straight A's in lecture but his clinical instructor was a jerk and they butt heads. She told him he better withdraw in order to save his GPA b/c she was going to fail him. But, he couldn't get into another RN program right away so he enrolled in an LPN program so he wouldn't have to lose any time getting put on a waiting list for an RN program.

Hi there...I have a question. I'm not sure if I'm over-reacting, so I need some insight here. I'm a first semester nursing student in an RN (ADN) program (just started in August) and wondering if it's normal to be asked to perform skills during clinical that have NOT been demonstrated OR lectured on yet, and skills that students have not even tested off on yet? It was our first week of clinicals and one instructor in particular has asked students to do things that we haven't even learned yet. For instance, a student was asked to change a colostomy bag and the student was just like "I've never seen a colostomy bag in my life". I'm sure the teacher would have helped this person, but this teacher is also known for giving out clinical deficiencies at the drop of a hat. Another person told me the teacher asked to check a feeding tube by pulling it out and putting it back in. Is that even right? Another person had a non-compliant patient that outright refused to have a nursing student in her room and told her she did not want to be a nursing student's guinea pig and did not her to touch her. The teacher reprimanded the student for not being assertive enough and threatened to write her up for not finishing the assessment. Is this normal? I spoke with a friend of mine who has been a nurse for almost 20 years and told her about this, and all she said was "Do you have malpractice insurance?" which made me wonder, is this legal? Is this safe? And then, to make things more confusing, today in lecture someone asked if we were allowed to perform a skill we haven't tested off on and the teacher (who is not one of the clinical instructors, so I don't know if she knows what is going on in clinical) told us that we are NOT supposed to perform anything that we haven't tested off on yet. However, despite what we were told in lecture, some instructors are still pressuring students to do things we haven't gone over yet and giving out clinical deficiencies if they don't perform, or force a patient to consent to an exam. The whole thing is making me feel very uneasy. Am I over-reacting? Are there any skills that are normally acceptable to perform without a test off? And which skills would you consider to be okay to perform without a test off? Has Anyone else experienced this at school and what do you think? Thanks for your input.

Although I had contemplated it many times in the past, it was really the three years I spent working with medical cannabis patients that inspired me to become a nurse. I know it seems an unlikely inspiration, but the reality of what I saw in regards to cannabis as medicine made me realize I had to do something to bring the truth to light. After receiving a Bachelor's degree in New Jersey, I moved to Los Angeles, California where I held various positions as a Medical Transcriber and Administrative Assistant. Between 1999 and 2006, I worked at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center, and various physician's offices. Through various twists and turns of fate, I ended up taking a part time job at an alternative treatment center in West Hollywood, California. It was there that I learned about the healing powers of cannabis. Over the next three years, I got to know hundreds and hundreds of medical cannabis patients. I was astonished at how well cannabis worked for so many different illnesses; from insomnia and anxiety; to chronic pain, AIDS and cancer. It treated a multitude of illnesses safely and effectively, allowing them to reduce their current medications or discontinue them altogether. However, I was also deeply troubled by the fact that so few medical professionals knew anything about cannabis as medicine, and still treated their patients who admitted to using it as though they were drug addicts. It blew me away that I had everything I'd ever been told about cannabis was a lie. However, most of all, I was fascinated! I wanted to talk to every single patient and hear every single one of their stories. I wanted to know how they found out this federally illegal substance helped them and what other medical options they had tried before. I wanted to know what had been their opinions about and attitudes towards cannabis before they had gotten sick and tried it. I was angry that some people had been forced to put off trying cannabis for so long, and had endured so much suffering because this plant was illegal, and they were afraid to try it, or had just believed the lies for so long. I met Multiple Sclerosis patients and watched them, within a matter of months, go from wheelchair, to cane, to walking on their own. I met cancer patients who were in the process of going through chemotherapy, who didn't even look like they were sick. I met diabetics who had begun to develop ulcers from taking so much aspirin and ibuprofen to treat their neuropathic pain, who found that switching to cannabis eliminated their pain better and without negative side effects. I met construction workers who had fallen off ladders, broken their backs and had become addicted to opiates, who were able to get off all of their opiates by using cannabis. I met Gulf War Veterans who swore that the temporary short term memory loss helped them break negative thought patterns related to their PTSD. I met firemen and yes, even local police offers using cannabis to treat injuries they received in the line of duty. I met AIDS patients who were literally given six months to live, and yet, here they were, more than two years later, healthy and claiming that their blood tests were coming back as HIV negative. I met crystal meth addicts who felt, when all other treatments, psychotherapy and 12 steps program failed them, they were able to stay away from methamphetamines when they made a commitment to give up all drugs, "except pot". I met psychiatric patients, who after years of being on an anti-depressant/mood-stabilizer merry-go-round, finally get off all their synthetic drugs by supplementing them with a cannabis-laced brownie or lemonade. And while not everyone reacted so positively to cannabis, what I experienced proved to me that cannabis was an incredibly valuable, safe medicine in general. Yes, it was an amazing experience! In 2008, I attended the Patients Out of Time Conference in Asilomar, California with my manager, a licensed Pharmacist who has also been studying plant-based medicine for about 20 years. I was so inspired by the many medical professionals there who have dedicated their careers against all odds to promote the truth and actual science of medical cannabis, that I decided I must become one of those medical professionals myself!! In April of 2009, I moved back to my home-state on the East Coast and began taking the courses needed to become a nurse. I passed the NET exam with flying colors and hope to begin the actual nursing courses in Fall of 2011 to receive my RN degree. I am committed to learning as much as possible about the medical applications of cannabis, to share that knowledge with other medical professionals, and to support medical cannabis patients in anyway that I can as a future nurse.

If anyone wants some real information on the healing properties of cannabis and research on the endocannabinoid system in our own bodies, and its importance to our health, check out a CME/CEU credit conference from Patients out of Time, which was founded by a Nurse, Mary Lynn Mathre, some 10 years ago: 2010 - Upcoming Conference | Clinical Conferences I attended the last one and it was incredible. Also, there is a new organization that offers board certification in cannabinoid medicine for medical professionals: AACM > HOME Also, they announced at this conference that there is another organization forming for nurses called the American Association of Cannabinoid Nurses. I think it's really important for us as nurses (or future nurses) to know the difference between the facts about cannabis and the politics and propaganda surrounding it. Some 40 years ago, a doctor named Lester Grinspoon set out to write a book on the dangers of marijuana, only to find there wasn't any research that backed up that marijuana was "dangerous" or "toxic". The more research he did, the more benign he found cannabis to be. His book is also amazing and it's called "Marihuana, Reconsidered". It's also important to check out research done by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam. He was the first to synthesize THC back in 1964 and he discovered the cannabinoid receptors in our bodies. He has been doing research on endocannabinoids and our cannabinoid receptors for many years. It's sad that the DEA has scheduled cannabis as a schedule I drug. Calling cannabis dangerous and addictive with no medicinal value, has no scientific basis.

Thanks Kat! This is definitely not 100% about money for me. Yeah, the thought of job security in a solid field is attractive, but I currently work with patients now and I love it. I'm making decent money already, but I'm limited as to what I can actually do for the patients because I just don't have the credentials to do more, basically. I'm not sure what specialty I want to end up in. I've enjoyed working in psychiatric, but also obgyn, and I also loved it when I was working for a plastic surgeon. Sooooooo......

I'm also doing the lpn first, in the event that I'm able to get a job at a hospital and get tuition reimbursement if I decide to go RN. BTW, are there online lpn to rn courses? Just curious. on line school doesn't really appeal to me, but I've seen rn to bsn, and wondered if one could do lpn to rn. I imagine that would be super convenient if you could.

Right now, I'm studying as much math as possible, because I know it will help with the chemistry. That seems really intimidating. I've also heard before A&P is hard. I didn't hear it was hard to get a job as an LVN/LPN, though. That's sad to hear. I do want to get an RN eventually, but I'm not getting any younger and don't want to take too much time off of work. I have an opportunity to live with my father for free while I'm in school. I'll be going to school in New Jersey. I'm in California right now and I always see a lot of ads for LPN/LVNs out here. However, I know I'm sort of moving laterally, pay wise (as a medical office assistant manager/executive assistant, or transcription, which I've been doing for a long time). But I really want to do more patient oriented work. Thanks so much for the replies! Oh, do you guys happen to remember which entrance exam you had to take for LVN/LPN program? I'm wondering which ones are used the most. Planning on beginning studying immediately! Thanks for the encouragement!