phelipa

Mrsshifflette09: Everyone else in my program never seems to study! I don't understand it! I'm terrified to use any other method because this has been working for me - a friend just reads her notes a couple times and goes from there. I wish easier methods worked for me but oh, well, what can you do? Congrats on graduating - that is awesome! I still have two years left but we're really into clinicals now so I'm hoping to have more fun this year than the last tow :)

To Browning20 - there really is a huge difference in quality. Half the stethescopes sold in other stores don't even have the bell on them which makes it hard for extra heart sounds because it's different amounts of pressure that allow you to hear different frequencies of sound. The others aren't great quality and you end up replacing them quite a bit - I found it more cost efficient and beneficial to just buy the best one up front and have it for a while.

I had the same issue last year and ended up getting the Littmann Cardiology III for about 180$CDN. It is absolutely great - I love it! I have never had a problem with it. We were told by our clinical instructor that by hanging it around your neck the oils from your skin tend to make it stiff so I bought a stethescope cover for mine and it works really well. I was told not to get the Cardio III because it's heavier/it'll make your neck sore etc...but I have never had a problem and really? It's not that much heavier...I love it, and because I got that one first I'm hoping I won't have to replace it for a while. Almost all of my classmates bought the Classic II and that one is really good as well - it's a little lighter and comes in colours that are much more fun In our program we needed at LEAST the Classic II. In terms of a BP cuff, I bought a general peice of crap one just to have to practice at home. They have wall mounted ones at labs so I only used it to practice before exams. Half the time, clinical settings have the electronic ones and you don't even do a manual BP. It was nice to have one just to practice but I wouldn't reccomend getting a pricey one unless your clinical proff says you need it to take to clinicals with you. Good luck :)

In terms of what to bring to clinicals I bought two pairs of plain coloured scrubs, a littmann stethescope, completely white running shoes, a penlight (it was eight bucks and I was the only one with one in our group - it was constantly being borrowed so I'd reccoment one!) and also brought our school name tag, prepared med cards, drug guide and physical assessment manual (plus extras like stickers/crayons for school clinicals and things like that). I could not live without my drug guide, and a day planner/agenda to make sure all clinical/lab/exam days are sorted out without conflicts. I didn't really get anything extra other than what they reccomended - ie. care plan books, and I did fine. I do love my laptop because I can take it to every class and open slides/look up resources while they're talking about it in class etc... For studying I don't use cue cards or anything like that - I rewrite all my notes, then read over them several times, then go through and memorize. The rewriting takes a lot of time but I find it's worth it to have everything in a little compact package to look over. Congrats on being accepted, should be a lot of fun

Personally, I gather up all of my notes in date order and rewrite everything (either based on a review given by the proff or all notes from the entire semester). After that I have everything I need to know in one package which is handy and helps keep me organized. After that I take a couple pages at a time, read them over twice in detail and then start reciting things pack/memorizing specific things. Usually I get the notes done a week or two ahead of time and because I have reviewed it already it only take me a couple days to memorize everything. For clinicals/labs I find it much easier because I've had hands on experience and don't need to go over everything again. Good Luck :)

Thanks so much :) I wasn't so fond of LTC either so I'm hoping to enjoy these ones more. I'll definitely have to review lab values and look into the pocket book. I do have a pocket drug guide and one with really basic assessment info so I'll have to take another look at important info.

1. The faculty make your schedule for you, in my case I ended up with all of my classes in one day - 12 hours with 2 additional transportation hours. That makes it rough for the following day, especially if you have clinicals at 7 am across town. 2. Clinicals start early and do require a lot of prep which can be taxing if you have several clinical days in a row. Some clinical days are also just hard, either emotionally or physically depending on your patients. I had a patient for several weeks and some days were just emotionally exhausting while others were much easier. 3. There is a LOT of reading for classes, labs and clinical. I find that really stressful because there is ALWAYS reading to be done and some of it is pretty heavy, especially after a day of clinical or classes. Still, with all the work it is a lot of fun! Hard work pays off and it is really satisfying :)

We have a couple different times depending on how many days we have to spread the time out. For school and kids we only went 4 hours twice a week but for geriatric we had 8 hours twice a week (up to ten for some people who had fewer days). We start our hospital clinicals this year and they've alloted 12 hours three times a week but I'm not sure if it's going to be the full 12 hours yet.

For clinical we wear scrubs/nametags, for picking up clinical assignments or lab classes we have to wear professional dress (ie. black shoes, dress pants, blouses), but for our other classes where we don't have lab/clinical we can wear whatever we want. Half the people come in sweats or pyjamas - the farther we get along the more clinicals/labs we have so it's kind of nice to have the couple classes to look like crap

Hey everyone, I just happened upon this site - what a great resource! I'm going into my third year of nursing this fall and we'll be starting Med-surg/Psych rotations first. All we've done up to this point is geriatric nursing so I'm just wondering what is actually done in Medsurg and Psych. I'm trying to brush up on skills before going back so that I'm not completely bogged down with the workload and having to deal with re-learning skills from last year at the same time. In medsurg is it work on a general medical floor or is it watching surgery or dealing with patients in post op care? Our course instructor is quite vague so we really don't have much information on what's going to happen. I was just wondering if you could tell me what you actually do as a student nurse in Medsurg and Psych (and Peds and OB if you feel so inclined, because that's coming second semester ) and which skills I should be re-learning to make this easier. I have a tendency to get flustered and feel faint (that topic is actually how I ended up on this site!) if I'm not doing something correctly or am put in a situation where I don't know what to do, so I'm hoping that preparing ahead of time will help relieve some fear and reduce my chances of passing out . Thank you all so much :)