fatrabbit

This "debate" came up in a clinical rotation of mine a few weeks ago. There was a patient who's SBP had been running in the 90s for a couple of days. His SBP was 85. His pulse rate was 80 and his potassium levels were normal. He was taking the digoxin for CHF. He also wasn't symptomatic for the hypotension. His nurse gave him the digoxin but then my instructor told me that the nurse shouldn't have done that. What would you have done? Thanks for the input everyone.

In my opinion, the hardest part about nursing school is the volume of information you have to learn. If you have good time management skills and find an efficient study method (and try not to be so type A), then you'll do fine. As for A&P, I've found that you have to have a good grasp on physiological concepts (not individual facts) to really understand the material in nursing. You don't have to be the best at memorizing facts and regurgitating them on tests. You have to have good critical thinking skills though. You need to be able to take the concepts that you've learned and apply them to individual patients. That's something that you learn in nursing school though (i.e. thinking like a nurse).

Is this a new thing? Do you think a lot of ICUs do daily CHG bathing?

I'm writing a paper for one of my classes. I have to briefly discuss what the role of the nurse was in the 1970s/80s. The only sources I can find talk about events pertaining to nursing in the 1980s. I really want to know the experience of being a nurse in the 80s. How much respect did nurses have? Where they able to question doctors? advocate for patients?

First off, no, mental health isn't considered in the application process. I'd think that if schools did exclude you due to your mental health that you could sue them. Secondly, don't let anyone tell you that nursing isn't for you because you have stress-induced depression. I'm in your same situation. Yes, the first couple of months is going to be difficult for you. The adjustment period was hard for me. But I've found coping mechanisms that have really helped me. For example, I decided not to be so type-A. I say that it's ok if I get Bs in my classes. This took a lot of pressure off of me (plus I ended up getting all A's my first semester). Before you start, make sure that you have good time management strategies and know how to "triage" your studies. Maybe start doing yoga once a week or see a therapist. Anything that'll help you with the stress of nursing school. Also, be aware of the fact that some antidepressants can make you very tired (which probably isn't the best if you're going into nursing school). Good luck!

buy a book of NCLEX style questions and use that for studying. I think that the hardest part of testing in med surg is taking what you've learned in lecture and applying it to an NCLEX style question.

Hang in there; I hated my clinical first semester, especially early on since i didn't have many skills and only one patient. Now, I'm in my second semester and am doing critical care; I love it. At least in my program, you don't really feel like a nurse until the second semester.

For example:NPH insulin my instructor's ppt says onset: 2-4 hrs, peak: 4-10hrs, duration: 10-16hrs my text book says: onset:1-2hrs, peak: 6-14hrs, duration: 16-24hrs UCSF website says: onset 1-2hrs, peak: 4-6hrs, durations 12+ hrs does it have to do with individual patient variation? doses? Sorry if there is an obvious answer to this; we never went too deep into insulins this semester (1st).

-A good pair of shoes (or insoles and compression socks) -hi-lighters and index cards -good frozen meals -mulitvitamin -a watch with a second hand -hand sanitizer -an NCLEX questions book

I'll be honest, this program is really competitive to get into. You definitely want to get at least an 88% on your TEAS test and probably have a 3.7 in your prereq classes. Also, if you're worried about grades, do some volunteer work. CSUS offers a lot of non-academic points on their application. As for the TEAS, I bought the study booklet and went through that. I also liked to save all of my notes from all of my pre-req classes so I could refer back to them (I still refer back to them). I did my pre-reqs at another school, so Idk about teachers. If you're at CSUS now, try to get your upper division GE done before you apply otherwise you'll have to take them during summer. Hope this helps =]

Hi! You get assigned a clinical group, hospital, and unit to work on. You'll be on a med-surg floor taking care of one patient, once a week. You're last week in clinical will be 2 days, with 2 patients each day. You stay on that unit but get other experiences outside of your regular med-surg clinical. You're other experiences are: about 3 hours at a SNF, 1 day of peri-op (pre-op, OR, and PACU), and 1 day of home health. As for switching hospitals after your first semester, it depends on which hospital you start at; some people switch hospitals, others don't. You also get a new clinical group each semester. Second semester you get to do ER and ICU. Hope that helped =]

At my school, pretty much everyone does this. It's actually encouraged. We have a mentor program where upper-classmen help us lower-classmen with things like study tips, how to answer NCLEX questions (all of our exams are NCLEX style questions), and past study guides. It really helps us focus our studying and gets us thinking like nurses right away. Also helps that our whole cohort shares these tips with each other via our Facebook page (and create google doc study guides that everyone contributes to). This isn't cheating because exam questions change. I guess our program's theory is that in the long run, you'll have more success reaching out to more experienced nursing students, and when you become an RN, to more experienced RNs. Seems to work with our program since we consistently have a 98% NCLEX pass rate.

To be honest, I tried Danskos and they just did not work for me at all. Plus, I'm already 5'9" so they made me look like a giant. Right now I were standard tennis shoes with Spenco insoles (only $20 and work better than aetrex, super feet, etc.) https://www.spenco.com/product.aspx?prodid=42&catid=

This was my first time taking care of 2 patients and (at least) from 0700-1000 it felt so hectic. I was late for almost everything- vitals, assessment, meds... I felt so disorganized. When I asked my other cohorts, they said that they were doing fine. I know that I'm catastrophizing here, but I kind of feel like a failure in a sense. Any advice or inspiration, because I'm in desperate need of it.

*is it because we're giving it at a slow rate so the kidneys have time to excrete enough of it? So if you gave 20mEq KCl too fast, you'd kill the patient, right?