Should, I giveup?

[cjp1994]

I'm really worried that, I might be too stupid to continue on with nursing school, there were a few incidents earlier on in the week and they way, I answered and the questions and what, I said made me feel that, I'm really stupid.

The first question, I answered incorrectly class was about a 78 year old patient who has lung cancer and he was saying that "he wasn't going to have surgery and it was god's will that he die". I stupidly said that we have to respect his wishes not to have surgery while, I missed the point that the reason he could be refusing is because he is depressed.

The second one the scenario was there was a patient that was suspected of being intoxicated but the teacher didn't specify what he was intoxicated with so, I assumed alcohol and the answer i gave was checking the patients blood alcohol when doing an assessment and the correct answer was actually checking the patients blood sugar. The entire class laughed at me, I feel like such a moron, I should just stay a psw and not bother continuing on with my education because, I'm just too stupid.

The next day, I talked to the teacher after class about a subject that, I thought was a moral dilemma which is parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, when, I asked the teacher if he thought it was child abuse he rolled his eyes at me. He also then asked me how likely it was percentage wise for a nurse to die working at home or working for the military, I once again said something incredibly stupid, I said 25% of dying when working at home and 75% working for the military.

I should've realized, I'm just too stupid and not cut out for nursing or really any career that requires a brain.

[VetRobRN]

Listen, the people in your class are not your friends move on. You can be a nurse, you're just behind the spectrum. Big deal, how bout you study harder and longer and become the best nurse you can be for your patients. Those questions are tough and include subjective data that you need to interpret. You need to prioritize what is best for the patient. It is not your place to judge you patient, however, blood sugar values can drop if someone is extremely intoxicated. those would not be the first things i would check. Try and use the nursing process in these kinds of questions. Seems like you have a terrible instructor. Go above him or to another one to get help on how to interpret these questions.

[Ndoht, BSN, RN]

I completely agree with VetRobRN. Don't let the negative things in your environment drag you down. If your classmates laughed at you, ignore them. If your instructor rolled eyes on you, find another instructor. I would say the trick is to do endless practice questions. Once you answer enough practice questions, you will get the hang of things, have a much wider knowledge base, and many times automatically know what kind of answer they are looking for with a question.