jhawk07

We are beginning to learn ECG/EKG interpretation in nursing school and they carry out the teaching over our 2 years. since my Pathophysiology teacher is greatly inept at actually knowing anything (she pretty much just reads us the book) and has gotten many things wrong (such as the conduction pattern through the heart) I just dont trust her to teach me ECGs correctly. I may one day become a cardiac nurse and I find it very interesting so I want a book that will explain me to in simple, but not too simple of terms ECGs how to read them, measure and analyze them, do 12-Leads, etc. and recognizing abnormalities. What books do you suggest? They dont necessarily have to be FOR nurses, just any inparticular. Thanks, Meg

I just finished doing a distance learning course for Physiology even though I am in a 4yr program I wanted to avoid the stress of a large lecture class. Even though in the end it wasnt much less stressful probably. I think I got a B or a C, but at least I passed I'm sure of that, but not sure on the exact final grade yet. Physiology is hard there is a lot to learn, a lot of new vocabulary, complicated processes that you get confused with each other, the things I remembered best were the things I actually found interesting all the rest was so boring and uninteresting to me that I easily forgot it and had to make myself work to remember it. I studied by making flashcards, the writing of the flashcards themselves is what mostly helps me. Sometimes I dont even read them after I've made them because the writing down of the subject matter helped enough. I also try to answer questions that might be similar to those on the test. If you understand the vocabulary understanding the rest is a lot easier, its hard to understand a processes if you dont know the vocabulary (for example the menstural cycle if you dont know what a follicle or the corpus luteum is). I'm glad its over, I have to take pathophysiology next semester, which I think will be more interesting then just regular phys. because its more applicable to what I'll actually be doing as a nurse. Also my next semester classes are at a different school then I took my prereqs at and its a smaller school so the initmacy will help. Never take a hard class like phys. online either!!! because you have no one to talk to and help you with it.

I would get the AP Chemistry book. It is designed for students taking the AP test but it has a great basic review of all aspects of chemistry along with good questions that you can answer and explanations of the right answers to help you learn it. Either that or a Petersen's Handbook for Basic Chemistry that is a good brand to buy too.

umm I wouldnt do Fort Hays personally. I would do Baker or KU. I know they both have programs. The univeristy of Colorado also does. I am going to Baker Univeristy in the spring in Topeka as a BSN student. I think Baker requires mainly theory classes. Bakers website is bakeru.edu, I love the atmosophere there. It is really friendly and helpful. KU is a bit more overwhelming because there are more students and not enough teachers so they dont seem or cant be as helpful as the smaller schools.

I HATE Chemistry labs. In my school the labs dont follow the class so they dont help just create more hassle. If yours does follow the class and it does help you learn the material i would take it but if it doesnt just avoid the hassle.

I would only do the LPN if I was in need of having a job and money faster. If not I would do RN and i would do BSN. I am getting my BSN right now. It will provide me with more opportunity for advancement, some hospitals do pay BSNs more. And I can get my masters someday and become a supervisor or become a midwife and open my own birth clinic.

The only medical shows I like are Scrubs and ER. They both put nurses in a good light (I love Carla and the older nurse on Scrubs). and on ER they have attitude and do a lot of things. Scrubs comes back on in January yeah!!!! I've been missing it SOOO much.

Be yourself and be confident. They asked me how i studied, why I wanted to be a nurse, etc. There is a thread on the general nursing student forum that is about interview questions, it is directed towards getting a job but a lot of the questions apply to school interviews. I went over those before I went. Ask them a lot of questions right up until they say the interview is over, keep on talking, make them know that you are REALLY REALLY REALLY interested by asking tons of questions, think about what you want to ask, I asked them everything from PDAs to class comaradie to study hours, etc.

its not necessary, I got in with very little hospital experience! I have volunteered a bit, so that is all I would do if I were you and save the $900 bucks or so it takes to get a CNA. Anyway after your first semester of nursing school you are not only qualified to be a CNA, but a medical techinician and a phlebotomist, in other words you might as well be a nurse but you just don't have the clinical experience to say you are a nurse, doing well in your classes is the key to getting in, if working is dowing your grades, stop working if possible and just focus on school. You can be a CNA all you want, but if you are getting C's in everything you aren't going to get in. Just volunteer, because you will have a more flexible schedule, so on the weeks that school is really hectic you can just not volunteer and on the weeks that it is easy you can volunteer more. Anwya I think volunteering is more fun, you are worried about keeping a job or making money or anything, just enjoying the experience.

I took Anatomy on campus, but I am taking Physiology (my school splits them up) online to avoid a professor with a bad rep. It is actually harder than the class I think because it is all essay questions to turn in, but i think I am learning more than those who are in the campus class, so I don't mind. I already got into nursing school so as long as a I get a C I'm ok. I think I'm going to get a B though.

no you don't necessarily need them for nursing, but you need them for the class, I mean seriously every professor can't expect to remember everything you learn or memorize for his class for the rest of your life, as long as you get a good grade and leave the class knowing where most major muscle are the difference between your fibia and tibia and humurus bone you'll be ok. I took Anatomy a year ago and I can't remember barely anything!!!! I got a 87% in the lab though!!! To get a good grade in the class yes you do have to know everything they tell you to know. We were not asked on our final the small details like indentations and things, just the more major things like blood vessels and know how to tell difference between right and left. you won't remember almost anything you learn now a year from now and even less after that, but you will have gotten the general idea of where everything in the body is and that is what is important. I have also kept my reference books-I sold my textbook kept my Anatomy Atlas-just in case. When you get into nursing you will learn and be reminded of the parts you need to know because you will come into contact with certain parts of the body more than others mattering what your speciality is. A doctor will hopefully not ask you the branchings of arteries off of the aorta, if he does i would be scared and worried that he isn't a very good doctor. Patients will most likely not ask you where something is anatomically, 1-because they most likeley dont have enough knowledge even to ask the question in the first place, 2-they simply don't care as long as they are getting better, and 3-if by the slim chance they do ask and you don't know you can look it up, there is nothing wrong with saying to a patient, "well I don't know, I'll have to go look that up and get back to you on that", its better than saying you know but then being wrong. So my advice is learn what you are told to now, if you need to know the markings on bones for the test, learn them, if not, don't. Just make it your goal to come out of each class you ever take with at the least a general understanding of the concepts covered. So if someone walks up to you and starts talking anatomy to you in all those crazy terms, at least you'll know what they are talking about and can hopefully talk back to them.

probably finite math, it has more to do with patterns and things then pre-calc does, avoid calculus at all costs!!!!!! i did but my fiance had to take Calc 1 and 2 for his major and even him as a math whiz had a hard time taking Calculus, take the lowest numbered class possible and avoid Calc at all costs

about two weeks after i applied I found out i got an interview, then after the interview it was another two weeks until I knew i got in, now i am waiting on my enrollment and information package, I want it SO bad!!!! Because this is all SO exciting!

I will be graduating nursing school in December 2007 (I'm starting in the Spring). My husband is in the Navy ROTC and will be graduating then as well (assuming his classes are when they are supposed to be) and after he graduates we will be moving to South Carolina, Charleston Naval Base for his Navy Training. So my first job will have to be in SC. I will be taking the NCLEX in Kansas though. I am just curious how you switch states in nursing. Do you have to take a test, pay a fee, what? I know the NCLEX is national but I've heard rumors that some people have to take extra classes and/or pay a fee to work in a different state. A year or so after moving to SC we will be moving again to another naval base (hopefully either Kings Bay, GA or Bremerton, WA-assuming he gets on the kind of submarine he wants to be on) so we will have to do it again. Since i will be moving so much between 2008 and 2014 or so I want to know how moving effects your career and how you get new jobs in each state. Also a second question, i want to be a stay-at-home mom for awhile when I have my kids and they are really little. how does this effect a nursing career? and how do you get back in the game after being out of it for a few years? is it possible to work part-time and be a mom? (and have a husband in the Navy who will be gone 2-6 months at a time)? I am not wanting him to stay in the Navy for long unless something happens that we need him to stay in the navy for financial reasons. (I.e. its a really good paying job). Any advice or help for this naive new nursing student and future Navy wife? -Meg

same with me i will be starting nursing school next semester and we have to take: Pathophysiology Transition to Professional Nursing Education (pretty much "how to study in nursing school") Concepts of Health and Nursing Theory I Foundations of Therapeutic Nursing Interventions I w/lab (pretty much the basic procedures a nurse needs to know, how to give shots, take blood, etc.) Health Assessment I think I'm looking most forward to taking Patho and Health Assessment. I think the most boring one will be Transition to Pro. Nursing Education but it will be helpful. We don't take Pharmacology until our second semester.

i had a 3.4GPA with almost all my prereqs done except the ones I'm in right now (Ethics and Physiology and Physiology lab). I had an interview and that is where I think I made my best impression. i also had an A in Microbiology and Nutrition so i think having an A in a hard class where most people in my class got B's and C's helped a lot.

I got in!!! I am going to nursing school in the spring! I was so nervous about getting and I am so happy that I will begin to actually have something more to do than just sit around here. I'm also glad that I don't have to take physics for another nursing school that requires it. YEAH!!! So now I guess i just wait to enroll, buy books and scrubs and get started! Thanks everyone for your support over the past year or so during prereqs. -Megan

I got a B in the class. 1) I never read the textbook except to look at the pictures, reading where things in are isn't very interesting and you easily lost interest and also it doesn't help much, the pictures help 2) I bout the Anatomy Coloring Book which I bought at Borders, you should be able to by it on Amazon and at any large bookstore, it really helped me out, buy a big pack of colored pencils to go with it 3) flashcards! 4) I drew a lot! If I was haviing trouble remembering a system, lets say blood vessles in the brain I would draw a diagram (like a branching tree diagram) telling me how they branched 5) mneumonics, a lot of teachers/TA's can help you on this, my favorite: Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle (it describes the order of bones in the hand) 6) study your little butt off (you should have NO recognizalbe butt by the end of the semester!) I studied for at least an hour a day For physiology I study by highlighting and making a 'dictionary' of all the words I need to know-I do read my book for physiology! I also do the questions at the end of the chapter and many books have online study aids with quizzes and things on it and I use that a lot! good luck

I've noticed a lot of schools say they want a certain GPA but they actually let in the people with the highest GPAs. So just do the best you can. Just because they say 2.0 doesn't mean that getting all C's is ok.

Have you thought about joining the Navy? I read this thing in Parade magazine about the Navy Medical Ship going to help out with the tsunami and other places in the region that needed help. My fiance is in the Navy (engineer though) and I might still do it too someday. I think it would be a perfect fit for you. If you get your BSN you would be an officer and everything. They also pay really well. Look into it!

no all Escort meant where I volunteered was going to patients' rooms and wheeling them to discharge where their family would pick them up, sure if I acutally had more contact with patients and especially nurses (which I don't) then I might like it, but we had little contact with patients and no contact with nurses who I could observe and talk to about their jobs, that is what I really wanted to do, I think I might just see if I can shadow a nurse for a day somewhere and do it in different areas too

I tried volunteering but they only wanted us to do 24 hours of escort services and doing that is SOOOOOOOOO boring!!!!!!!! I didn't want to spend my summer just doing that. I think I am just going to try to volunteer for March of Dimes instead so I am actually doing something more then wheeling people around when most of them just leave by themselves and don't wait for the escorts anyway. I know of people who have gotten into nursing school without ever setting foot in a hospital. It is mostly based on grades anyway so I am just going to focus on that. Even the schools I am applying to said they mainly just look at your grades.

GO TO CLASS!!!! I've been in college two years and all the classes that I went to EVERY class for I got an A or a really good B. All the classes that I skipped a lot I got C's or low B's. Even if you think he is reading from the book and it is not worth going, GO!!! Him lecturing is just another reinforcer. Also FLASHCARDS, FLASHCARDS, FLASHCARDS. At the beginning of each semester I buy three packs of cards and I usually use them all by the end of the semester. Read the book! And while your reading write down notes. Write down a lot! You never know what minute detail the professor might pull out of the text. Also I've realized a great resource that many other college students fail to do, read the introduction/preface of the textbook. The authors offer study tips, how to read the book in the most efficient manner, and offer up websites and other books that might help you with your studies. I have found the websites to be a GREAT resource. They offer practice quizzes, terms, animations, etc. If you are visual (kinesthetic) learning like I am. Draw pictures, color, etc. Anatomy/Physiology and Microbiology have coloring books that you can buy online or at a large book store like Borders or Barnes and Noble. -good luck

We didn't cover those in Anatomy but we did cover Lymphatic and Immune in Microbiology and then Nutrition and metabolism in my required Nutrition class. We covered the immune system (of which the lympatic system is also a part of in its function) in Microbiology is good detail.

I am good at the lecture tests. I got a 82 on my first test and realized that I need to not only study what he talks about but general stuff from the book. he doesn't really test on the nitty gritty unless he talked about it but I noticed that some things were more general things just from the book and that screws a lot of people I think. So on my second test I got an 98 and on my last test (I took on Friday) I got a 90. So am I very good standing for the final. I will definitely get a B and maybe an A if I work hard at studying. The lab is another story. Our lab and lecture are completely seperate classes managed by two different professors who don't really talk to each other. The one for the lab is a witch! Who doesn't teach anymore (TA's teach the classes) and only writes the tests and quizzes. Sense she is SO out of tune with students' needs she writes terrible tests. I have a C!!!! I do well on the lab reports and doing the labs but the written tests are horrible! I feel like she practically wants us to memorize the lab manual!!!! If get an A in lecture that will balance out a C in lab I hope.