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It sounds to me like it was part of a simulation lab, not on a real patient.

I'm not a nurse yet, but I am in my last semester of nursing school. Ask questions in clinical. It's not enough to know how something is done, you need to know why it's done. Space your studying out. Cramming won't cut it at test time. Speaking of tests, nursing school tests will be unlike any you've likely taken before. Straight memorization won't be enough; you'll need to know how to apply the information you've memorized. A good NCLEX study guide with rationales will go a long way toward helping you with this. Most importantly, make sure to take time for yourself. Nursing school has a way of taking over every aspect of your life if you let it, and if you don't take time out every now and then to do the things you enjoy you'll find yourself burned out quickly.

I was lucky enough to be chosen to participate in DEU clinicals 3 times: Med/Surg, Pediatrics, and Mother and Child. It was an incredible experience. The level of autonomy I was given (with support from my preceptor when I needed it, of course) as a DEU student increased my self-confidence exponentially, and that's something I've carried over into even my non-DEU clinicals. I truly feel like I got a much better clinical experience than those in my class who were not chosen. Long story short, I can't say enough good things about the DEU.

I only know of one school that does that, but it's a BSN program. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has a program called Pacesetter that front loads all your didactic classes then the last semester (or maybe two, I can't recall) you take all your clinical work. However, you have to be invited to the program, you ant apply for it. I'm not sure what criteria they use to decide which accepted applicants get invited.

Check with the school and with your doctor, but I can say that when I got mine, I got the first two on schedule, but then life sort of got in the way and I didn't get the final shot until a year after I'd started the series. My school accepted it, but I did have to have a titer drawn to show that I had immunity.

I got in with a 3.1. However, I also had a 96 on the TEAS, and my school puts a lot of weight into the personal statement portion of the application along with interviews. So it is possible, but I'd have to say it depends on the school.

While UTMB is a very competitive school, they look beyond just the numbers. Your personal statement and interview(s) go a long way toward helping you get accepted. On paper, I was only a so-so candidate: while I had scored well on the TEAS (96%), my GPA was comparatively low (3.1), and I had multiple repeat classes/withdrawals. My personal statement and interviews (most people only come in for one, but I was called back a second time) were my saving grace; I was able to explain my previous academic mistakes and reasons for withdrawing multiple classes. Also, it gave me a chance to actually sit and talk face to face with faculty, letting them get a glimpse of who I am and how motivated I am to do well. One of my interviewers told me that while my GPA wasn't as competitive as they like to see, I seemed like I'd be the kind of nurse she would want to work alongside. I'm currently finishing up my third semester, getting ready to graduate next April. I'm so glad I didn't let myself get discouraged.

As said before, it really depends. It depends on a lot of things, really, such as how competitive your particular application cycle is. For example, in one cycle the average GPA of those applying may be high, like 3.8 or 3.9, while in the next cycle it may only be 3.4 or 3.5. It also depends on how your school views applicants. Some schools look strictly at the numbers (GPA, entrance test scores, etc.), and a lower GPA may have less of a chance of being accepted. Other schools look at applicants holistically, so a lower GPA may have a better chance of acceptance. My school is one of the latter. My GPA was decent but not great (3.1 at the time of my application) but my test scores were good (96 on TEAS). Where many schools would just look at those and probably not accept me, my school takes things a step further and asks for a personal statement with the application as well as interviews in which I was able to explain my reasoning for wanting to go to nursing school as well as why my GPA was as low as it was (in my case it had to do with some mistakes I'd made early on in my education when I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life,but once I made the decision to focus on nursing, my grades improved and stayed consistently high). I still had to contend with how competitive my application cycle was, and was rejected the first time I applied, but on my second application I was accepted.

Ooh, I know this one. In my pre-nursing-school life I was a linguistics major, if that gives any weight to what I say. Default/variant choice (in this case a/an) is driven by phonetics. Therefore when you say myocardial infarction, there is a consonant sound at the front word boundary, meaning you'd use "a." However, when you say MI (em-eye), the front word boundary is a vowel sound, which means you'd use "an."

My MacBook Pro is 7 years old and is running as strongly now as it ever has. In that time, the only money I've put into it is $60 for for two operating system upgrades ($30 each). I use a Windows based laptop for school, because some of the software we use is incompatible with Mac, but I hate it. Not only do I hate the operating system (Windows 8), but I'm constantly having issues with freezing and dropping wifi signal, which requires resetting the wifi adapter about 5 times per day. Also, your story about tripping over the cord and breaking the screen is another point in Mac's favor, as Mac charging cables are not inserted into the unit, they're held in place by magnet. If you trip over the cable or it gets pulled on in any way, it immediately disengages without disturbing the unit.

We're allowed calculators, though we can't use our own. The school provides them for any test in which we have calculation questions. That said, it's been rare that I've needed one on any of our doscal tests. Most of the questions are simple enough to do in my head, and most of those that aren't I can do long hand faster than it would take to punch it into the calculator.

First semester, we started clinicals in the 3rd week of classes (after we'd learned/been checked out on assessment and vital signs). We also learned med admin in the first semester, about 6 weeks in, but we weren't allowed to do that until after we'd been checked out. Each semester after the first, we've started clinicals the 1st or 2nd week of classes.

Eh, as with any review site, you have to keep in mind that people are much more likely to leave a bad review than a good one, and take the bad reviews with a grain of salt. Also, when it comes to rating professors, many are unfairly given bad reviews because the subject matter is hard, not because they're bad professors. When I took A&P, it was only offered by one professor at my school, so I didn't have a choice as to who to take. I was nervous going in because this professor had horrible reviews. As it turns out, they were all unfounded. Yes, the class was very difficult and required a lot of work to do well in. Yes, my professor was demanding and had high expectations of her students. However, it was because she wanted us to do well that she didn't make things easy for us. She was one of the best professors I've ever had, and I learned more in that class than I ever had before. And, because I actually had to work to do well, I truly learned the material, I didn't just memorize for the test and then forget it. This has translated into nursing school, where in many of my classes I'm doing much better than some of those students who had easy A&P professors.

I know for me (and I realize my situation doesn't apply to everyone), my wife and I had several long conversations about the kind of time commitments nursing school was going to require and what that might mean for us as a couple. Once I started and I was making my study schedule, I made sure to include time in that schedule for her. I gave myself at least an hour every day to spend with her. Unless I have a late class or clinical, we have dinner together every night. Also, I arranged my study schedule so that needing to stay up late is rare (and I've never had to pull an all-nighter), so we go to bed together almost every night. With careful time management, I've arranged things so that most of my studying is done over six days, so that I have one full day every week with no schoolwork or studying to spend with her. More than anything, though, I think it was important that we both got on the same page, seeing this time in nursing school as a short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. I realize every day how lucky I am to have a partner so supportive, who is my number 1 cheerleader :)

It's possible. Not easy, but possible. My first semester, I got all As, second, I dropped to mostly Bs, just because the the workload increased and I wasn't able to put any more time into studying. They told us at our orientation that if you were previously an A student, expect to be an A/B student in nursing school. If you were a B student, expect to be a B/C student, etc.

We started with around 120, lost about 20 after the first semester. We just finished the second semester, and I know we've lost at least a couple, but I won't know for sure how many until classes start again in a month.

With the caveat that I still have two semesters to go, and realize that there's a very real possibility this could change: Want: Pediatric, ED, ICU, Burns Do Not Want: Psych. That's it. I'll be happy anywhere else, but I hated my psych class and rotation. I realize that I'll be dealing with pysch patients and psych issues in any department I work in, but I couldn't handle the thought of spending all day every day in a psych hospital.

I'll finish with around $85K in debt. Add to that my wife's debt from her degree and we have enough student loan debt to buy a small house (around here, anyway. I know in other areas of the country the same amount would buy a much larger house down to a small apartment). I'm hoping that I can get a decent enough job to pay that off ASAP, and my family has hinted that upon graduation they'll help with my loan debt, at least a bit, but every bit helps.

I have the cardiology III and I live it. On the rare occasions I've had to borrow classmates' stethoscopes, there's no comparison.

Yes, it does. When it comes to a/an, phonetics drive the choice to use the default/variant. Another example (used here: "a" or "an" before a consonant acronym?) would be "a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent" versus "an FBI agent." Since, phonetically, FBI begins with a vowel sound, you'd use "an," just as you would with RN.

I'm just gonna go off topic here a bit a dust off my previous non nursing education in linguistics. The rule governing the use of "a/an" is "a"-->"an"/__[vowel] which would be spoken as "a" (the default) becomes "an" (the variant) when it occurs before a vowel at the word boundary. It's important to distinguish here that we're talking about phonetic vowels, not graphemic vowels. Therefore, it would be correct to say "a registered nurse" because the "r" in "registered" is both graphemically and phonetically a consonant (the phonetic consonant in this case being a retroflex velar approximant). However, if you're using the initials "RN," it's pronounced similar to "arr en" in spoken English. Since the word boundary in this case is phonetically a vowel (a back unrounded open vowel) even though it is graphemically a consonant, "an" is appropriate to use. TL;DR: it's "a registered nurse" and "an RN." *stepping off my soapbox* Thus endeth the lesson :)

What you'll have to change will be different for everyone. For me, I started recording lectures and listening to them on my commute. I also had to start using resources outside my normal classroom resource. The textbook and lectures are great for giving you the information, but they won't necessarily teach you how to apply it. Critical thinking can't really be taught, it's a skill you develop with time. For this I used NCLEX review books (Saunders and Lippincott) and LaCharity's Prioritization, Delegation, and Assignment. In clinicals, get involved with your nurses. Observe what they do and ask them their reasoning for it. If your school offers tutoring, utilize it. Perhaps most importantly, develop relationships with your instructors. Use their experience. Not only can they be of enormous assistance in clarify things you may be unsure of, they can help you understand how and when to apply the information you're learning in class. Also, after graduation they are great resources for finding jobs, providing references, and making recommendations should you decide to go on to grad school.

In my experience, the curriculum in nursing school is much more integrated. By that I mean that unlike the prerequisite courses where you're taking several classes together that are unrelated, or only tangentially related to each other, in nursing school you'll often be studying the same thing across multiple classes, but different aspects. For example, in pathophysiology you may be studying the pathophysiology of the cardiovascular system, while at the same time in medsurg you're studying care of the cardiac patient, cardiac drugs in pharmacology, and cardiac assessment in health assessment. Failure to grasp the concepts in any one of these classes can have consequences in all the others. You'll also have to learn a new way of thinking and studying, because just memorizing and regurgitating facts isn't going to work anymore. You'll have to be able to take the facts you've memorized and apply them, and not just the facts from a single class. In my medsurg class recently we had a test in which I had to take what I learned in not just medsurg, but also pharm, patho, assessment, and psych and put it all together to find the correct answers. Clinicals are going to be different depending on class, location, and instructors. There really is no such thing as a "typical" clinical. And labs are important for learning the skills you'll use in clinical. Take advantage of your labs and lab instructors, get as much practice in as you can. Even if you think you've got it down after just a few tries, I can pretty much guarantee that once confronted with a living, breathing patient you'll forget what you were taught in lab, so you need to practice your skills until they become second nature.