Science Classes and Core Nursing classes

I do not actually start nursing school until the fall, but judging by the things we are covering in fall quarter I can pretty much guess how each of the prereq classes are going to apply. Micro will be important for understanding the diseases people have, and you will get a good understanding of how bacteria and viruses work and why certain safety precautions are important in preventing the spread of disease (plus it is a pretty fascinating class, at least to me). Chem is going to be hugely important not only in understanding pharmacology, but also because pretty much everything that happens in our bodies is a chemical reaction and we will have to understand how and why things work in order to know how to help people. A&P is pretty self-evident, and basic biology classes and chem classes will help give you the foundation you need to understand A&P.

Use anatomy everyday.

If you know your physiology it can save you in nursing.

Chemistry helps a little in understanding the fluids and electrolytes in the body. You don't use chemistry everyday, but you will be

giving medications all of the time, so a basic understanding helps.

Micro helps a little in knowing about how lab tests are performed, being able to understand which bacteria cause which diseases, and how the bacteria affect the immune system. As a nurse, you would be concerned with preventing, and treating infections.

What is critical in nursing school, is the ability to think on your feet. These core classes have an important side benefit of teaching you how to think, and study on your own besides placing a basic foundation for later.

I too am about to start my some of my nursing prereqs. I hear that mirco is a challenge but is very useful. I was always told that for every hour of class you need to spend about 2 hours studying. Also, reading the material before and right after class will help you retain the information better. Good luck on everything and remember to take things one day at a time.

This is something I always tell my pre-nursing friends, the prerequisites are the foundation for your nursing career. Please do not look at your prerequisites as something you must get "out of the way", and once you are accepted it's all good.

Anatomy - Anatomy is relevant to nursing because you must understand, quite simply put, where things are located. Anatomy is crucial for health assessment and pathophysiology. Understanding the structure & location is a must. For example; you need to know the location of the appendix, spleen, and gall bladder/liver to understand where a patient might complain of pain if they are experiencing appendicitis pain opposed to gallbladder pain or spleenic pain. Understanding the anatomy better helps you understand the MANY invasive equipment your patient may have. You must understand where a colostomy and urinary diversion are made; you need to understand how it's made, you must understand what is normal and abnormal assessment of these diversions, to understand this you must understand anatomy. You must know the GI tract, you must know the urinary tract, you must know the respiratory tract. How will you insert an NGT tube if you do not know GI tract? How will you know and or assess for NGT (Nasogastric Tube) placement if you do not your anatomy? You will learn all this, when you do, it will click and you will understand why the anatomy of the stomach and pH of the stomach mattered.

Physiology - Wow, physiology is extremely important! You will learn many diseases in nursing school, you must must must understand the "normal" to understand the "abnormal", does this make sense? It's extremely important. When you learn the pathway of the blood flow through the heart, please do not discard it, you will most definitely use that again. When you learn all the hormones and their functions, you will need that information, why? It's common sense, if you are deficient in one hormone, if you KNOW the function of the hormone you can already begin to speculate clinical manifestations (signs and symptoms). Understanding physiology will allow you to appreciate and better understand the disease process. You will need to understand physiology not only to understand pathophysiology but to understand PHARMACOLOGY!!! . If you do not know the functions of the parasympathetic and sympathetic system, what good does it to know that this "drug" inhibits sympathetic tone/response? It's a must to understand the bodies function under normal circumstances, in order to under the pathological processes and the pharmacological approach.

Chemistry - This course will somewhat aide in pharmacology, it's greater use might be understanding electrolytes. Some other uses are a good grasp of dimensional analysis (which you can use to solve advanced concept nursing math). Chemistry will help understanding solutions, solvents, hypotonic, hypertonic, and isotonic. You should however touch electrolytes, hypo/hyper/iso tonic fluids in A&P as well.

Microbiology - This course is crucial to understand infections and why we use certain antibiotics over others. It's useful for patient and family teaching about health in regard to hygiene and cleanliness. Understanding the education behind adhering to antibiotics and why, that knowledge will stem from microbiology. The different infections your patient will have, this will stem from microbiology.

In essence, to be quite honest... the most important courses for undergraduate nursing studies are A&P & Microbiology. Chemistry I cannot say is die hard necessary, but it may help. If you decide upon grad school (CRNA/NP), for sure then ... chemistry will be in your future!

The basic chemistry course offered to most nursing students doesn't aide much in linking the chemical reactions in the body, in my opinion. I more appropriate course for nursing school would be biochemistry, but I digress, I do not create the rules.

Your big concerns will be: Oxygen, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Carbon, Hydrogen, Iron, Sodium Bicarbonate, Nitrogen.

What I enjoy about biochem is that it talks about the chemicals of .. well LIFE... A regular chemistry course won't tell you about nitrogenous waste and where it comes from... knowing so helps you understand diseases processes and the diets of patients. A regular chemistry course won't touch the complex bicarbonate/carbon dioxide cycle and balance and compensation. You can apply as much as you want, the more you apply and connect, the more it will make sense ... that is all I can say.

Good Luck.

Don't worry, it is alot of material, but it's all relevant in some way. Hold on to your pre req textbooks so that you can review the summer before you start the nursing program, especially A & P. I'm brushing up on A & P and dosage and calc before nursing classes start in a couple weeks. If you try to understand the body processes as opposed to just memorizing material it will stick with you. I could also suggest that you spend extra time in your labs if you can, especially A & P, going over bones, muscles, organ systems, etc. Some people recommend those A & P coloring books, although I have never used them. drawing diagrams of my own helps me tremendously. Good luck!