studentnurse9

Hey, So I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly which textbooks you need, since Humber and Ryerson might differ. Personally, I used: physical examination and health assessment - carolyn jarvis. This book is one that would help you get ahead even if you don't use it at Humber; it shows all the diagnostic tests and normal/abnormal findings during the physical :) Canadian Fundamentals of Nursing- Potter & Perry. This one is also an all-over nursing text, and covers everything from professionalism to immunizations and PPE. It's good, but also contains 1000+ pages and the program doesn't cover all of the info. Human Anatomy and Physiology- Elaine N. Marieb. This book is one that I would borrow and study BEFORE school begins. The anatomy course covers each chapter, and ALL OF THE INFO is essential. It's the one with the diver on the front, blue background. If I was you, I would beging by reading the chapter to absorb, then skimming over afterwards to take notes about the most important points. I think you'll do well in this class simply because you need to know how and why everything works, and thats exactly how you need to study to ace this course. Psychology: the adaptive mind 3rd edition. This is also a straightforward text to study, its basically psych 101. The rest are all texts that you can wait until Sept to buy/read. They are : Interpersonal relationships: professional communication skills for nurses- Arnold & Boggs The Art of Nursing: a practical introduction- Cooper The APA Handbook- 6th edition (done by American Psych. Association). You may think you know your apa, but trust me- I have yet to get a perfect APA score on any paper. Buy the guide- its a MUST Nutrition for your personal life and professional practice- McGraw-Hill. This text was done specifically by Ryerson I believe, so I'm not sure you'd be able to get it. Then there's supplementary texts- medical terminology guides, and medical dictionaries/encylopedias. Do I use them? Sometimes. I usually prefer to look things up on the web, but sometimes with medical jargon they can be hard to find. When in doubt, use your encyclopedia lol. The medical terminology books are good to have though AND do OVER THE SUMMER because there's a LOT of terminology that you will have to know come septemeber and beyond and these books help prepare you. I guarentee you'll be ahead if you learn the lingo now :) Its also important because there is a standard for using short-terms in charting, and you can't make up your own or guess for obvious reasons lol Good Luck to you :) If you have any more questions or need help during first year, feel free to ask!

Oh- and you're very lucky @ Humber. My clinical teacher taught there and she was the best teacher I've ever had :)

Hi! Are you taking the BScN or PN course? They are both difficult! REGULAR university degrees have only 4 classes per semester. The BScN program has 7 in the first semester and 6 in the second semester. In second year, I hear that its going to be 5 courses on top of 16 hours/week in the hospital. PN is even worse- they have 9 classes per semester. Anyways it isn't so much about the difficulty of the work (with the exception of anatomy) as the quantity. You have 3 hours for almost every class, multiplied by 6-7 depending on the semester. After all this class time you MUST study (aka do the readings) on your own time, otherwise you'll have no clue what they're talking about in your classes. (Do yourself a favour and do the readings BEFORE the class each week, you'll thank yourself at exam time lol) I've definitely seen people cry many, many times and am certainly guilty of it too haha. Its just very stressful, I wrote about 16-20 papers this year on top of 26 exams (midterms and finals for each semester) on top of about an hours worth of reading per week per class. In classes like assessment and practice (the "real" nursing classes, where you learn the skills) you'll have competency tests on top of all of this work, which means that you'll have to memorize 2 semesters worth of information and demonstrate what you know in 20 minutes for 15-30% of your mark lol. The purpose of these is to test whether or not you can be trusted with a patient in clinical, lol, but surprisingly a lot of people would have failed clinical if they hadn't been forced to memorize the information for the test, so they're helpful in the long run. All in all you will feel stressed and pushed beyond your limit, but you'll also make some amazing friendships and learn if its right for you by the end of the year. By second semester, our group of friends would go drinking after every test and assignment lol and when you get to clinical it will all be worth it. Clinical truly made me realize and appreciate why I wanted to do nursing in the first place, it was a great experience and I felt amazing to be helping my clients :) (by the way, in nursing school patients are called 'clients' haha). And the prep courses will probably help- I took AP courses in high school and have found that my writing skills are a lot better than many of my peers in some cases, so the extra work does pay off :). I know this is a realllllllyyyy long post but I'm going to finish it with a list of how myself and others survived: - keep on top of assignments and due dates. it sounds simple but a lot of people failed simply because they procrastinated. - the lessons go by chapters of the text in most cases. I would recommend buying the MAJOR texts (ie for assessment, anatomy, and practice) and reading at least the first half of each text BEFORE school starts, or during the first 2 weeks. - The first 2-3 weeks are EASY. Don't let that fool you into slacking! Just stay on top of the readings, or do extra readings during those weeks. - Buy a laptop. Seriously, unless you want your hand to fall off lol. Most people have one. It's also convenient because most of the profs will post the slides on WEBct the week before. Download these so that you can follow along during the lectures :) -When you do the readings, take notes. This way you will have the CORE info that the prof is talking about, plus the details that they don't have time to cover. - Make a study group. It sounds a bit lame, but a lot of us got by this year because we did the whole 'divide and conquer' thing. - start studying for tests a minimum of 1 week ahead. You'll love yourself for it when you have an A! Just work hard and you'll see the rewards when you get to clinical :) Good Luck! If this msg posts twice sorry- my original technically "solicits" selling textbooks and they've taken down my msgs for that before, lol.

My clinical professor actually works at Humber but I'm at Ryerson lol. She thinks that our program is better and prepares us more In terms of professors, in nursing I don't think there's "better" profs in terms of schooling, @ humber they would have their masters and be in the process of getting a phd while at ryerson they have a phd already (most do, but not all). I think what really matters is their experience. I adore my clinical teacher and she doesn't have a phd, yet she's taught me more than some of the ryerson instructors. But I would still go with Ryerson, just because of the electives. If you're going to get stuck taking Liberal arts courses you're going to want to do something that actually interests you, and ryerson has about 100 to choose from while colleges (getting this from students @ gbc) have 10-15? The clinical hours at Ryerson are also excellent and I don't think they can be beat. In first year you only get 2 months of clinical, but starting in second you're in the hospital 2 days a week, ALL YEAR. In third year I believe its for an entire semester and fourth year is like the entire year lol. So good luck in choosing, its a tough choice but I'm sure you'll love nursing either way :) It's very rewarding. Oh and be prepared- nursing school is way harder than a normal undergrad course. You have 7 courses/semester versus the regular 4-5. I'm in first year and my 17th essay is due tomorrow, if you can imagine

By the way, be prepared... high school is like kindergarten in comparison to the program lol

I'm in the Ryerson program, 2010 entry. :)

Like everyone else, good for you for having the courage and integrity to admit to your fault. My program gave the boot to one girl for giving tylenol to the wrong client. I couldn't believe that they'd kick somebody out because of an over the counter med but it definitely taught us to double check EVERYTHING we do!!

Thanks everyone! You were all helpful.

The first thing I did was state my exact question, then elaborated. There is nothing unclear in the original statement.

I'm a nursing student and have a question related to blood pressure: is blood pressure higher when lying down or when standing? I've asked several RNs who have told me that in a normal person it should be slightly higher than at baseline, but research claims that BP decreases from supine to standing by less than 20mg in a healthy patient. Which one is correct? Thanks!