Question for a Nurse from a nursing student

luckystudentnurseRN · May 25, 2009

Hello! I am sorry to deviate from you question, but what program are you you in? I'm looking to get into a program? Thanks

nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN · May 25, 2009

Please describe what your nursing education was like and how nursing was influenced by the outside world” in reference to technology

I'm in a rural area, so my "library" during school was the internet and mail order from Barnes and Noble

Enviornment and culture (how did current events effect your nursing education) -- I was sitting in class when Virginia Tech happened. I have to tell you, it creeped me out, because we had a couple of folks in class who weren't the sanest of creatures, and the added stress of school was not a good thing for them...I could see them flipping out and deciding to shoot some folks. And for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to be in the ER and get slammed by dozens of injuries at once. At that moment, months from licensure, I made the mental switch in my head from "student" to "nurse." I was thinking, "okay, if this happened to me, would you triage on site, bring everybody from the head injuries to the sprained ankles into the ER, how would you support the staff who would obviously be traumatized about putting dozens of kids into body bags? How about the families, the friends who would descend on you, wanting to know how their child was doing, and you know they're dead, but you can't tell them?" It really was a sentinel moment for me. I'm an LPN, now going back for my RN, but to me, that was the day I became a nurse.

gender and race ( what was the composition of people in your nursing education, were there any men? Yes, we had men, we had hispanics, people born in Nigeria, and a fair sprinkling of different religions. I absorbed what was interesting (Nigerian food is GOOD) and ignored stupidity. I didn't see anything that was a good predictor of success, except for one thing. People with a thirst for knowledge, people with curiosity beyond the book (both LPN and now the RN program) seem to do the best.

Hope this helps, and good luck

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · May 25, 2009

I completed an LPN/LVN program in the greater Los Angeles area in 2005. The class started with 24 students (9 Filipino students, about 8 Latino students, 2 students from Africa, 4 Caucasian students, and I was the only African-American student). Since this took place 4 years ago, modern technology was present, such as computers, internet, cell phones, etc. The environment and cultures were very diverse since I was attending school in the big city. There were 8 men in the LVN class.

I am now enrolled in an RN program in Oklahoma City, where the racial-ethnic makeup consists of mostly Caucasian and African students, with a handful of others. About a third of the class comes from Nigeria or Kenya, so there's some diversity and culture. Again, the modern technology is all there, since it's 2009. There's about 50 people in the class, and I'd estimate that 10 of them are men. All of the males in my class are from the continent of Africa.

iteachob, MSN, RN · May 25, 2009

Hello,

i am in my first semester of an accelerated BSN program. Things are crazy! One of the classes we are taking right now is History of Nursing Ideas. We have an assignment to ask a nurse the following question, and i was hoping someone (or multiple people ) would take the time to answer for me. The question is "Please describe what your nursing education was like and how nursing was influenced by the outside world" in reference to technology (what was available at the time) enviornment and culture (how did current events effect your nursing education), and gender and race ( what was the composition of people in your nursing education, were there any men? minorities?) It would be helpful if i knew the state where you recieved your nursing education and the general year. Feel free to PM me if you feel thats more appropriate, and thank you in advance for your help!

Rookie12

I graduated in December 1983, so technology was in it's infancy. We really didn't have any computers to speak of and the internet was non-existent! We had to do our research in the stacks (of journals)! How things have changed, and may I say, what an advantage you have in this area! My BSN program was the University of Texas El Paso, so there was a HEAVY hispanic cultural influence. Also, there is a large military base (Ft. Bliss) there, and we did a lot of clinicals at William Beaumont Army Medical Center. My fellow classmates reflected this in that there were quite a few (>50%) hispanics (I am anglo), and several members of the military. By the way, you might find it interesting to note that in El Paso.....non-hispanic whites are the minority! We had (if I remember correctly) 3 males in a class of about 35.

One thing that stands out in my mind that greatly impacted nursing at the time was the arrival of HIV/AIDS on the health care scene.

Hope I have been of help (with maybe an older viewpoint)!

Be_Moore · May 25, 2009

So I graduated in 2007 in Mississippi with my BSN. Our class was roughly 75% female, 25% male, 9% black and 91% white, 0% other.. We started with 64 and graduated 47ish.

As far as technology goes, all assignments were turned in electronically via email. Our school has some sort of anti-plagiarism software that essentially prevents plagiarism outright. At some point during my education we recieved on of those $40,000 Sim-Man's that you can start IVs on and such like that..however I never got to use them. Our nursing school had it's own library and dedicated computer lab.

For current events..I was in school at the same time as Hurricane Katrina (August 2005), so as you can imagine, Community Health was a large part of our curriculum. Our sister school was damaged badly so we actually received one transfer student as a result.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · May 25, 2009

it would be helpful if i knew the state where you recieved your nursing education and the general year.

california, 1970s

"please describe what your nursing education was like and how nursing was influenced by the outside world" in reference to technology (what was available at the time)

community college. the program materials were called learning experience guides for nursing students (legs) and are not published anymore. they were packs of objectives we purchased from the bookstore each semester that were divided into legs with about 10 to 15 legs a semester and lists of objectives we had to accomplish per leg with suggestions on where to find the information to complete the objectives. we had no formal lectures at all and only one 3-hour meeting weekly with all our instructors and students who were in the program to discuss common issues. we met with our assigned instructor who was a mentor to us one day a week to discuss our individual progress through the program. we took tests at the end of each leg of the coursework at the library test center when we felt we were ready to take it and our instructor kept track that we were not getting behind. we started with a guaranteed "b" in the course and our performance on tests determined if our grade changed. there were 3 different forms of each test so cheating was discouraged. the legs guides suggested that current nursing journals, audio visual material or one of several textbooks be used to find a lot of the information and that we seek out patients in our clinical experiences with the types of problems or procedures the objectives listed. the learning was pretty much up to our control. our instructors were merely facilitators. we could ask them questions to clarify what we were learning in our 3-hour meeting once a week. i am proud to say that every one of us passed our state board on the first attempt. and that was the reason they had gone to using that program of nursing education.

enviornment and culture (how did current events effect your nursing education),

the viet nam war was going on at the time. illegal drugs were a hot topic. using them was a no-no. i only knew of one person in my class that used marijuana and she was encouraged by everyone else not to do it. narcotics were not counted as stringently as they are today. but, then, there were a lot of older nurses around who seemed really mistrustful of us younger nurses. ha! ha! the kind of nursing that was done was team nursing. the charge nurse was like a god and she ran the nursing unit like a queen. i remember thinking about her as that old lucille march on

general hospital

years ago. you didn't give these charge nurses any trouble and you did what they told you to do because they knew their stuff. they ran those nursing units like precision watches and nothing phased them.

and gender and race ( what was the composition of people in your nursing education, were there any men?

there were 44 people in my class and one-third was male.

minorities?)

sad to say we were all white and caucasian although one of our instructors was black.

CMCRN · May 25, 2009

I graduated from San Francisco State University in 1978. It was the year of the assignation of Mayor Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk, the massacre of Jim Jones and his followers in Guyana, and quite frankly I barely remember it. Too busy to watch TV and when I started working full time nights obsessed with sleeping, paid little attention to the real world. My class was about 75 people, 5% men, 15% asian, the rest caucasian women.

It was before much technology, we used typewriters to write papers.Computers were just coming into style, we had maternity quizzes on a computer, and one student had a tech savy father who tried to help us analyze our data for a research project on his computer but the program crashed and we ended up doing it last minute by hand .

rntofnp2014 · May 25, 2009

it would be helpful if i knew the state where you recieved your nursing education and the general year.

2007, bsn, ohio

"please describe what your nursing education was like and how nursing was influenced by the outside world" in reference to technology (what was available at the time)

in the school i went to, they were mostly against technology. where there are programs for bsns that require the use of pdas for data/books/etc... i found my school was against this. i bought a pda and installed pepid on it. several students inquired as to where i bought the pda and software. i got pricematching at a local store and they agreed that anyone with a badge could receive the same deal. in any case, before i knew it, i received an email from my dean stating that i was not allowed to sell or promote any device or software as it was against college policy and doing so could get me into trouble. ok, fine. so i didn't tell anyone else about it even when they asked outright. but then all of a sudden during the break inbetween quarters, the school published a new policy stating that one could not have a pda at all until the last semester of senior year. crazeeeee.... stupid rules. i kept mine anyway and have used it in a pinch many times whether it was for educating a patient or a physician about a med/dose/route/etc... it's been a lifesaver. i'm glad i have it as a reference tool.

enviornment and culture (how did current events effect your nursing education),

this school i went to typically had 10-15 grads per year. then in 04 they opened it up a bit and by 07 they had 100+ students/class which were then split into 'pods'. i do come from a very small country town and it took them until now to institute computer registration of classes. lol this school used to be a diploma school, then an associates school, and now offers bsns and

rn

to bsn and lpn to bsn. personally i think the powers that be were ancient enough to be intimidated by the technology and therefore slow to embace it. you'll see, tho, that excellent schools of nursing from u of m to mass gen to rhodes to ucla require pdas. i think old white ladies are opposed to it and the younger ones aren't.

and gender and race ( what was the composition of people in your nursing education, were there any men?

at any one time there was at least one male in the class/clinical. no minorities in my part of the country.

minorities?)

sad to say we were all caucasian.

KneKno · May 25, 2009

PA, hospital based 3 year Diploma program, with app 40 credits at a local campus of Penn State integrated into the program. The hospital nursing classes were time intensive, I remember some of the med-surg classes were counted for like 18-24 credits--that's a lot of class time! Clinical were many, and the hospital was right across the street from the school (for OB, we could be pulled from class to be present for a birth). I pulled up my first resume, I had over 800 clinical hours, app 600 in med-surg. Very little exposure to any other hospitals, a few "tours" and 2 days a week for 7 weeks at the closest state mental hospital....

About 20 graduated, including 2 men. Half were traditional (me included), the rest were a little bit older women, most with families, maybe 1 or 2 over 40.

No computers, everything research wise was found in either the school library (nursing and health related texts, journals) or the PSU library. We had a tour of med records where the "new" concept of DRG's was explained, just a few years earlier it was all pay for service! All supplies from central supply was stickered--every time something was used (even a single packet of 2X2's ) the sticker had to be placed on the patient's "charge page." Many of the patients wouldn't even be in the hospital today, they's be at home--2 weeks post op belly surgery, at least that long for a knee or hip replacement, lots of low back pains in traction....

I live in a very un-diverse area, so I had started working as an RN before HIV became an issue, especially in this area. In school, and even during the first 6-12 month I worked, getting gloves required a special trip to clean supply (I don't remember having to get a sticker for the, though). The ostomy nurse told me specifically NOT to wear gloves when emptying/changing an appliance "The pt will get the idea that it's dirty, and not normal--you don't use gloves when you wipe your own stool, do you?" Whent he use of gloves became a requeirement, we had a huge latex shortage--the hospital reccommended that gloves only be worn when necessary, and that they could be washed between tasks.

Also, Boards were a 2 day, 4 test affair, held in only a few places (or only 1 test center) per state. It took about 6-8 weeks to get results. Oh, how much has changed....