futurenursedd

I had something similar happen to me. I am in my first semester of nursing school and we have a few people in our class that are EMT's or work in the medical field. Most of them like to make it known that they know something about the medical profession and some of them like to step on top of others and put them down while doing that. I was partnered up with one of these people and she made me feel beyond stupid that day it was awful.

After not doing so well on my first exam I picked up a book recommended to my by one of the senior nursing students. Saunders Comprehensive NCLEX review, it is a really awesome book and has a lot of great information on test taking skills and also pretty much everything else covered on the NCLEX. I would highly recommend it.

I LOVE my clinicals. I don't understand why so many people hate them so much. I hear so many people complain about their instructor being too hard on them, but most are just being tough on you so that you can learn better. I tell you when my instructor scolds me on something I never make that mistake again. My clinicals constantly remind me why I work my butt off and have no social life. It's so much fun putting all my learning to work. I learn so much about myself and about nursing. Most importantly the patients are what keep me coming back. Every patient I have talked to so far has a story to tell me and I learn something new from these amazing people everyday. They have truly redefined my reasons for wanting to become a nurse.

You will rarely use the BP cuff. The school will probably have them there for you. Honestly though I have only used mine a hand full of times at school. I mostly used it to practice on my fiance at home. My clinical instructor actually told us the only reason they still teach us how to do BP's manually is because we need to know how to do it an emergency (power outage or something like that). She told us after this semester (our first) all BP's will be done electronically through a machine.

My aunt is a nurse and worked in a doctors office before she switched jobs, she never worked a holiday in her life. I was totally turned off to the idea of working holidays also, till I got a job as a secretary in a hospital. It required me to work every other holiday and I was totally upset, but the money was too good to pass up. Honestly working holidays is not even an issue for me anymore. My hospital actually pays you double on holidays so I volunteer to work as many holidays as possible. If it's a big holiday my family and I celebrate it another day or they just go without me. So there are options for you to be a nurse and not work any major holidays, but I know they are hard to come by and the pay is not very good.

I second the Saunders. I just got it yesterday and it is such an awesome book.

I guess different schools have different rules. Our clinical instructor will assign us to patients on contact precautions, but it depends on why they are on it. I had a patient with MRSA a few weeks ago. We were just instructed to wash our hands everytime we touched him, wear gloves when coming in contact with bodily fluids and make sure to cover any of our open wounds. So as long as you followed standard precautions you should be fine. It sounds like you did everything right. Just watch yourself for the next week or so for anything abnormal, but I think you will be fine.

I am honestly not resentful. I am truly just a little jealous. He works his ass off at 3 jobs so we can pay our bills so he totally deserves to go out and spend some time with friends. After hearing some of the stories about classmates significant others I do consider myself quite lucky to have such a supportive person in my life. I just do get jealous and I was wondering who else has gone through this and what they did to cope. Also to clarify I do not have NO life at all. I do spend time with friends maybe once every other week, but for the post part I spend all my time working and doing school.

Wow that was incredibly rude and judgmental. It's really none of your business, but I did not dump any of my friends for him we have the same group of friends. Actually one of the reasons this is hard for me is because he gets to spend time with all of our mutual friends and I cannot. I have plenty of friends, most of them work in healthcare and are totally understanding of my situation. I also have school friends, but sitting in the library till 1 am talking about nursing is not really my idea of a night out. I see my fiance maybe one day a week and it sucks I DO NOT ever expect him to drop everything and spend all his time with me. Thank you for the unwarranted and unneeded "advice".

I don't know where you go to school, but from everyone I've talked to and my own experience first semester is one of the hardest. Getting used to the testing style and trying to break old testing habits is one of the biggest challenges for most people. Maybe the content isn't the most difficult, but it is very hard breaking old test taking habits and mindsets. I've tried going to school and partying all the time and that didn't work out for me. This time I am doing it right I want to learn and fully understand everything that I am taught. Unfortunately that means sacrificing most of my "partying time". I want to be amazing at what I do. To everyone else thanks for letting me know that I am not alone. It seems like none of our friends ever wanted to do anything when I was completing my pre-reqs, but as soon as school starts everyone wants to hang out. That makes it so much harder. I am so lucky to have a fiance that supports me in what I do and understands that I have to spend all my time studying. It's just hard trying to adjust. Seeing that he works his butt off and gets rewarded by going out to have fun and I work my off and am rewarded with more work. I will admit the silence helps me get more work done, but when I take a study break I do get quite lonely.

I am in my first semester of nursing school and I spend most of my time studying. I don't really have much of a life outside of school and work other than hanging out with my fiance. My fiance has been going out with his friends and family on weekend though while I am left home to catch up on all the work I have to do. My fiance had to pick up a 3rd job to support us while I am in school this semester since my job cut my hours significantly. He is at home when I am at work/school and vice versa so we never really get to see each other since he keeps hanging out with his friends and family. He tries to get me to go with him, but I am literally drowning in work so I just can't go. I am so jealous that he keeps going out and wont ever stay home with me. I hate having no life, and sometimes I just wish that when I had no life he would have no life too. I know that's wrong, but I am so overworked with school that I just cant help but wish he would just stay in with me. Anyone else married/engaged and have the same problem as me while in school? Any advice? Am I wrong for wishing he would just stay home with me?

75 is the lowest grade we need to pass the course. So there are 5 exams plus clinical and some online coursework. I calculated everything and all I would need to get the 75 is 78's on all the exams. The clinical grade and online coursework grade are easy 100's all you have to do is make sure you show up/get the work done by the deadline. I think the testing style was just very different for me. I'm hoping now that I now what it's like this will all be much easier for me. Thanks for the tips also!

I failed my first nursing school exam. I got a 57. I probably could have studied more than I did, but I ended up taking the practice exam they gave us and doing some questions in the book and literally getting every single one right. I guess in my head I thought oh well I don't need to do too much studying I got all those questions right I should be good. I also have adhd and have serious trouble concentrating on something for more than 30 minutes so getting all those questions right was kind of like a "free pass" to procrastinate. I feel awful cause now I have to go meet with all the teachers to discus the rest of the semester. I already calculated that I have to get at least a 78 on every other exam i can pass with the minimum grade. I just feel so stupid right now. The questions were not at all what i expected and it seemed like they put alot in there that were really tricky (ex. Same exact answer written twice just worded differently) Anyone have any good study tips or practice question suggestions?

I had my first day of clinical last week and it involved therapeutic/non-therapeutic conversation. I was dreading this since day 1. I am a little shy and sometimes have trouble starting conversations. So this is going to be the hardest part of nursing school for me. Once a conversation starts going and flowing I am fine, but just starting the conversation is the worst part for me. It was so hard trying to start a conversation and ask patients questions, while not trying to sound like I am interviewing them and trying not to add anything in about myself since this is a conversation about them. I ended up with an adorable little old lady who was not very talkative because she had just spent he past 4 hours in the gym and was tired. I tried using all my techniques I learned and she did give me a little information, but not much. She was just really not talkative and I got extremely nervous and at the end of the conversation I ended up just telling her today was my first day of clinical so i'm a little rusty, she said she was sure it will get better for me and I will be as amazing as all the nurses who have been taking care of her so that was a little reassuring. I am so nervous now for next week. I know everyone else said their patients were alot more talkative than mine, but I am still nervous. I really am a people person and I work in customer service now and have small talk with customers all day long, but when it came to the patient I kind of froze up and got nervous cause it was so different and I was trying to remember so many things at once. My aunt is a nurse and she told me in time it will get better I am still new and being good with talking to patients takes time for some people. I think I may go talk to my instructor and ask her for some tips. I really do love nursing so far and cannot imagine myself doing anything else, I just need to get talking to patients down.