awsumsaus

This is great, as a student nurse I am really attracted to peds/labor and delivery. My OB professor has been in the field for 30+ years and stated she didn't start in med/surg, but I met an OR nurse who was really struggling because she hopped right into the OR. Just gonna follow this board.....

I'm with everyone else, look into psych nursing. It's amazing how much responsibility those nurses have for understanding the patients, often being the one who calms someone down or treats them during a breakdown. Hats off to you though...even though I have a fascination for what makes people tick and why people act the way they do, give me an arm blown off any day, I don't think I could handle all of my patients had something screwing with their minds.

I remember when I was 11 and visiting my new little brother I declared I was going to be a "baby nurse". Then 7 years ago my grandma passed away from cancer and I saw some of the best nurses and some of the most horrific (with the latter I spent a lot of time thinking how I would be able to take such better care of people in a similar situation). Once it dawned on me that the medical training I was receiving in the military was fascinating to me, and the fact that I'm a bit of an empathetic person who likes to take care of people, I decided to give it a go. Got my acceptance letter last year and still wasn't 100% sure but after clinicals and whatnot, I figure I'm in the right place lol. Congrats on your acceptance! Just keep your head up and keep pushing through, school's a tough cookie but I have yet to meet one nurse who doesn't like their job.

I have not mastered the coordination it sometimes takes to get a BP still so going for the pulse is out haha.

I know this in no way helps...but being as I'm only in my second semester lol I feel like you're talking about an ATI test (Kaplan's sonuvabitch brother). I walked out of my med-surg feeling like I absolutely failed because I knew nothing...but I was able to talk my way through all of the multiple choice answers and actually got an 80 (which is in the 99%) on it. So hopefully if you were able to at least work your way through everything you'll do better than you think. Good luck!!!

I probably should have read some of the other comments before I left mine but I have a tidbit more to add: I was first officially dx w/depression in 2009, and had been suffering for a couple of years before that. That is the only reason I am just pushing my way through...this is the first time I have felt like I am doing something that I should be doing and even though I'm still mentally struggling I recognize it and am figuring out ways to safely practice and take care of others. Please take the advice of some of the others and figure out if this is a temporary phase for you or if you will be able to do the same. Also ignore all the crap about "just study more". We have a test a week, and last week we had 3 tests, our second mental health test, an ATI med-surg final and the med-surg lecture final. Studying until you're cross-eyed isn't going to make you more successful with handling this. I am still managing to pull low A's and high B's but I feel as though every test may be my last. That's just what anxiety is. Let us know how you're doing, I've realized by joining this career I've gained a huge new family online, if this thread is anything to go by. :)

As I near the end of my second semester as well I am seeing the school therapist weekly. I've always had a bit of a fight with depression/anxiety and this stress and the ever-present threat of failing out is bringing out the worst of it. Just having a sympathetic ear has been a huge relief, she can't tell me anything new that twenty other therapists already haven't and she can't prescribe meds but she sits and listens, and lets me cry on her couch. Sometimes it gets so bad that every once in a while if I'm headed to bed and realized I haven't eaten dinner, that negative self-talk will start and I'll be like "who says you deserve dinner anyway". If you have never suffered from anxiety or depression before know that THIS IS HARMFUL BEHAVIOR AND YOU NEED HELP. Even though I'm still occasionally experiencing those episodes they get so much worse if I've missed appointments. Please at least seek out your school therapist, you're probably paying for them with tuition anyway. It sucks to hear that clinicals are going rough. I sure hope that isn't due to hospital staff/other students/your professors. I would try to take a good look at who is making you feel that way, and go from there. If it is only your own mind, then you have some cognitive retraining to do there (a therapist can help you out there, over the past few years it's helped me in a few areas and others I'm still working on). If it's an outside problem then I hope you have someone you can trust to report those *******s to. If you feel like you just need to vent please feel free to PM me. I may not know how to help but I promise I will be here to listen. Who knows maybe I *can* even help you out with some study guides or different tricks I've learned. If you really truly want to be a nurse, please hold on, I have yet to meet one nurse who said they'd do school all over again but they say it is so worth it.

Ah there's that eff'd up sense of humor that we all adopt lol. I think having a pt pass is a valuable learning experience, and providing end-of-life care and watching how the family makes decisions and whatnot. I just haven't developed my thick skin yet. :)

Without violating HIPAA, I was wondering how folks handle the passing of a pt during clinicals. This week was a rough one. I took care of someone who clearly was not going to last the week, and I knew it. I got to know some of the family and the care itself was difficult. This morning before a med-surg test I was informed they had passed. It was naturally upsetting (when you have 1 pt you get kind of close to them in such a short time) but then I kept thinking about it during my test and even now as I'm trying to do the clinical packet I can't help but think of everything I said and did, and wonder if that helped or if I made any mistakes that might have hurt. I know this job is all about life and death, and that this will not be my last. I'unno....maybe just coming on here and typing it out will help. Does anyone else have any stories (remember HIPAA) and how they coped?

Congrats! I'm just going to throw it out right now: nursing school sucks. Go in knowing that it's not going to be a walk in the park, and that you might very well find out what your mental limits are. They're going to pile the work on and if your school will be anything like mine, they'll give you 50 ways to fail out with no mercy. However, the successes you gain are pretty empowering. I am also slowly learning not to look too far into the future...enough to know when the next med surg test is, but not much further, it's very easy to become very overwhelmed and demotivated that way. Instead I'm trying to look behind me more. I am halfway through the 2nd semester, and the things I've learned and done since my first days of Anatomy (when I got super nervous about even looking at a cadaver) in Fall 2014 is amazing. I have had some doubts about if I want to do this, then I will get to see or do something in clinicals and will think "oh yeah, I want this". Be enough of a perfectionist in clinicals to keep yourself motivated on doing things right, but strive to make mistakes. It is the best environment to make them in. Depending on the location for your clinicals, you should not be put down over making a mistake. Your nursing professors should constantly be looking over your shoulder since it is their licenses on the line. You're also human and cannot truly learn without tripping a few times along the way. One last note, be patient with yourself the first semester. We didn't have clinicals until the very end, and spent a large portion of our time in a lab giving mannequins Foleys and giving each other bed baths. So if your school is starting you out on baby steps and you feel yourself getting bored or frustrated, give yourself until the second semester. Last week I spent all day in the OR just watching the nurses, and tomorrow is my fourth round of receiving a pt, doing an assessment, and handing out medications. That is where I'm reminded. Sorry for the book but hopefully you'll figure out something that works for you. :)

Chemistry sucked so bad. Even with attending my professor's weekly tutor sessions and doing all of the homework she assigned and then some, I was still so lost. So you're definitely not alone. Khan Academy was a savior, there was quite a few times where a lightbulb would finally go off for me by watching their videos on YouTube. I also saw this thing where if you Google "site:edu chemistry exam" it'll give you some study guides and whatnot that other schools are using. I haven't tried that yet though so I can't guarantee 100% that it works, but it's something you can try. I would keep pushing through if you really want to be a nurse. I have rarely used Chemistry and I'm in my 2nd semester of school. Some concepts like knowing anions/cations are useful, but you're retaught those concepts during lectures. Other concepts like osmosis I learned more from Anatomy than Chemistry. So Chemistry is not super vital from what I've seen, that just because you struggle now it doesn't mean you're going to struggle in nursing school. Good luck!

I probably wouldn't have survived this long (in my 2nd semester) w/out a planner. I just buy the cheap Target/Walmart ones...but if I don't write every assignment and try to plan every day out, I get so lost. I had a chunk of time a few weeks ago where I passed a kidney stone and was super sick....didn't touch my planner for about 2 weeks and ended up missing two appointments, almost failed a med-surg test, and turned in the wrong paperwork on my clinical packet. Glad I'm not the only one who survives off of a planner haha.

I know you posted this FOREVER ago lol but I politely disagree. I failed my pharm ATI test last semester, and as I was getting ready to retake it I was attempting to look up a few of the questions that I could remember and I couldn't find the answers in the book, or they stated something completely different than the four options given. I won't post any examples as I don't want to be called out for compromising the test, but it was super frustrating to think about what other questions I had missed due to the information not being correct in the book. My professor assumed I misread the question but when those same questions popped up on my retake I was flabbergasted. Thankfully I passed the retake by the skin of my teeth but I'm already having a panic attack over my med-surg ATI that I'm taking in 2 weeks. That book is HUGE.

I was taught how to do Dimensional Analysis in my pre-req Chemistry class and haven't missed a dosage calc quiz yet (we have to get 100% on our quizzes each semester). If you search "Dimensional Analysis for Beginning Nursing Dosage Calculations" on YouTube there's a chick who explains this method pretty well.