SO STRESSED!! :(

I feel your pain! I'm in my first semester and it's a lot of work. I spend as much time as I possibly can EVERY day, going over the material we are currently learning...that way, when an exam is coming up, there is no cramming necessary. I'm doing a Medical Terminology workbook even though it's not required; just to brush up on my skills and this also makes it easier when trying to weed out the bad exam questions. I read ahead whenever I have time. Being a little bit ahead means I'm never in a time crunch to get some necessary reading done; and I can use that extra time to study and review. Next week, a few NS friends and I are going to a nursing tutor to review care plans...not because we don't understand them, but so we have a real mastery of how to do them. Getting ahead and staying ahead is the key for me. So far this is what I'm doing and I'm pulling over 90% in lab and theory. Hope that helps!!

I think it definitely helps to stay ahead..I'll admit this semester I haven't been as much as I should, because the amount of materiel to learn gets so overwhelming/stressful at times..I feel like as soon as I'm just *beginning* to almost master something - we're already onto learning something else!

A lot of it begins to "click" (I guess) during clinical when I can actually SEE and assess for myself..but even that is hard to do at this point because we're only there for a few hrs per week..but I know we're still students..lots of the nurses have told me during clinical that you don't ever REALLY get it till your actually working as a nurse, your 1st year..so I'm hoping that will happen for me when I'm finally on my first job!! n that someday I'll be confident enough, knowledgeable and not second guess myself so often..

Thanx for replying/n your advice :)..I was hoping that I wasn't alone in feeling this way!!! Good luck to you :)

Good luck to you too!! We start our first clinicals in a few weeks and then we are in clinicals for at least 16 hours a week from then on. You definitely aren't alone!!

Nursing tutor? Where can I find one? I really need some help with care plans.

Thanks:)

Cindy,

Go to the nursing office at your school or ask at your student center. Our student center is called the ASC and we have a couple tutors that work out of there who are either retired faculty or second year nursing students. They are there almost every day of the week. There's also a really good link on the student part of this site for help with nursing care plans. We're just starting those and we have a joke for the "equation of a nursing care plan: NCP = *****" lol