Vysection

I don't really agree. I sacrificed several weeks of personal life equivalent to you, if not more, and still managed to fail my last test, even knowing the information and facts backwards and forwards. I don't doubt you worked hard and earned your As nor do I submit that there are not those who are currently underacheiving because they place their Nursing School on a lower priority than you did but there is clearly some level of inherent ability too. It isn't really fair to set such a high bar for everybody any more than it would be fair for a male World Weight Lifting Gold Medal winner to say that anyone could lift as much as he did if they just worked at it. The brain is an organ, no different from muscles, after all. As for the OP, I think simply passing with a C+ is quite a feat, really. Nursing is a pretty hard program, so you should be happy you are getting through - you say that is what you want to do so once you get that license and get to work being the best patient advocate you can be, nobody will care what your GPA is. In my class, one of the fellows who is currently really struggling actually tried out at law school and said he finds these tests harder (he may be full of it, as I can't verify that claim, but he is not a dumb guy). Be proud of doing as well as you are.They will care what kind of care you give. You are trying hard, you seem nice enough; I think you are the type who will give great care, from the sound of it. Just focus on what this is all really about: your future patients and you giving them the best, safest care you can. Good luck to you.

Thanks for the compliments. I suppose I came off a bit dire there. The stress is sapping a lot of energy and what little happiness I normally maintain and the studying without break or time for personal activity over the past week left me much darker and more drained than I though. I apologize. I suppose I will have to consider what I really want - I went with Nursing because it seemed to fit and I breezed through the pre-requisites easily, on the first try. Reading around I see there is a degree of passion I might lack that others around here seem to possess. I will talk to my counselor at school to see what my options are. It is what it is. That said, you bring up points I hadn't considered. I don't see myself contradicting a doctor and I tend to shut down when people get angry or aggressive towards me and clam up. I suppose that would make me not well cut out for patient advocacy. I didn't know that about the nurse taking the blame for doctor and pharmacist mistakes though (we haven't covered legal stuff in lecture yet - was coming up near the end). If what you are saying is correct then it seems like nursing is a big gamble as a profession, generally, and not a very good deal - you have to be a doctor, a pharmacist, and do patient care all while making a fraction of the money of the doctor or pharmacist and carrying all of the risk. Are nurses just trained decoys to take hits for the hospital? I suppose that is why they say it is one of the top ten most stressful jobs around. Thanks for informing me. And don't worry; experienced nurse or not, you are in your senior year, practically a nurse already, so your two cents goes a long way. I guess I did predetermine a conclusion. I think I had convinced myself there was some pattern or trick I wasn't seeing to it. I am beginning to think that was in error. I have been pretty good at just acting, though will admit I can get tunnel vision when it comes to problem solving in clinicals that has caused me some issues. I have a tendency to think in terms of what is on the charts and rarely connect knowledge from other potential problems to my current situation. During my second clinical I had an elderly patient who had trouble verbalizing issues admitted for a broken [...] so I became so busy watching for sores, turning, and making sure the dressing and such were up to par I totally forgot about oral care and when [they] didn't want to eat I assumed [they] were having pain and my instructor had to point out that I had forgotten a really basic thing (eg their mouth was a mess and affecting their appetite). The oral care did work. I don't know how to stay open minded enough to remember the little things without getting overwhelmed by the millions of facts and possibilities so I end up blotting them out so I don't become frozen and inactive.

Well, it did seem to go along with my personality at the time (not so much now, of course) but also because I have a mind for memorizing large blocks of facts without knowing what they mean. I was good in Anatomy and Physiology because I could memorize stuff and excel in the class. Muscle groups, bone processes, and so on. The same has held true for Pharmacology; I tend to remember medical names, like Latin and learning what words and stuff mean in it, and have a mind for charts and jargon too. I figured all I was missing was the muscle memory in doing procedures (injections, IV, catheter, and that stuff you have to actually practice to know). I didn't think much of theory, figuring that clinicals would be my main issue and that theory would just be like the Pre-Reqs.

I think many people are like me - if there wasn't the world would be filled with stock brokers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and others who are more assertive and take charge. Leaders need followers. You can't have a whole planet full of leaders; nothing would ever get done because nobody would accept delegation from anyone else. That said, I'd be the first to admit there is no glory in being a follower. You don't think I would be different if I could? I find the insinuation insulting, but understand as this is the internet and my post didn't make it clear that I was unhappy with the way I was. These are my limitations, like someone missing their legs - ones I have had for as long as I can remember. If there were some pill I could take for them, I'd have found it long ago while experimenting with adorall, nootropics, and all manner of controlled substance in my youth. New study habits, herbal remedies, meditation, even self-mortification; none of them worked. If I were giving up I wouldn't be trying to work around my inbuilt limitations.

I suppose I do have the ambition to be comfortable but, outside of that, I have never been one to want to carve my name in the face of the moon. If not nursing then I might choose something that is more organized and less likely to present me with novel situations that can't be handled by memorizing and recalling data points. I can change oil, code a website, and so on following a series of commands or instructions but patient care is too varied and gray. Too much can go wrong. It is overwhelming. That said, everyone on this forum and all over the internet say it is overwhelming for new students, so I am not sure if I am just seeing a normal trend in the training or if this is a warning sign I am not cut out for this. You may be assertive but I am submissive by nature. That said, I can respect you being integral to your team and all of that, I just didn't realize how much responsibility nurses had concerning care. My grandmother and aunt went to school at a Catholic Hospital where they were instructed never to address or contradict a doctor (and if they had concerns to bring them to the head nurse, according to them). It was my fault for not shadowing a nurse prior to school so I take responsibility for going off outdated information.

I never said I needed to be praised to even do a job, only that I have no personal ambition beyond helping other people and making enough money to do the things I enjoy doing without worrying about living on the street. I enjoy working under supervision and with other people but do not like trail blazing and disagree that one needs to do this to do any career in life. I don't think it is unreasonable to be someone who prefers investments to gambles; when you take responsibility on yourself you are gambling, when you work under someone else you are making an investment without the danger of losing everything (because your leader is taking on that risk) - if anything, I am being prudent. That said, I am not all that competitive. I study with a group that makes As and Bs and am always the first there and the last to leave when studying. I have an NCLEX book (a few, ranging from Saunders to others not on the class roster, plus ATI as well) and am trying to memorize all the rationalizations I can read so I can parrot them when needed - it isn't like I'm not trying. I just can't figure out how to problem solve and think ahead like they do. It seems too easy for the others in my study group to pass these tests so this critical thinking and problem solving ability is either inherent or I am an imbecile compared to most the people in my class and got in by a fluke. In which case, maybe I would be better off flipping burgers. Or dead.

I am in first semester Nursing School and need some help. For background, I am the type of person who needs orders to do a job. I see myself as a tool to be wielded by a hand: a natural born servant. I find most of my work related joy comes when being praised by a superior I respect for helping carry out their will. I have no real ambition for it's own sake and chose nursing based on faulty, outdated information concerning it from family (not that I blame my grandmother and older aunt, of course - medicine changes fast and has changed quite a lot from when they were in school and nurses were just helpers to the MD in charge). That lack of personal ambition is proving to be a crippling hindrance, however. I have made an average of D on my exams. I have come to realize that the NCLEX style questions are designed with natural born problem solver type people in mind - those who spot problems before they even start and are always thinking three steps ahead of illness and complications. I am not among those who think this way; I am a reactor who has never been able to think ahead very well. It is a personality that I respect and serve, easily, but is antithetical to my own personality. Does anyone else feel this way? Like maybe you made a mistake or didn't really appreciate the full gravity of what Nursing was before you got into the class? Are some people simply not cut out to be real nurses? Should I expect it to magically click? My aunt says it might just click for me if I stick it out but I am worried about me GPA and financial aid situation if I stick it out and totally fail the course. Even with the stress of the program set aside, studying for three to four hours a night to carry a failing grade is demoralizing enough to make me consider dropping nursing to choose another path. I don't want to sound like I fault my professors either; each is an amazing person who has completely ignited in me a complete respect for the profession of Nursing (more so than was already there). If I am too dumb for this sort of career, it certainly isn't their fault.