Test Anxiety!!

Well, only four more days until the big Med/Surg certification exam......I swear, I'm more nervous about this thing than I was the NCLEX!! Back when I took the boards, I'd been in school for four years and was used to studying and taking tests; but not having set foot in a classroom in over seven years, I'm definitely out of the habit, and I've gotta admit I haven't studied much since signing up for this thing 6 months ago.

Evidently I'm not the only one---almost none of the other 20 nurses taking the exam (including both of our nurse managers!) feels they've prepared adequately. On top of that, several of us are taking a parish-nursing course at the local community college over the next 3 days, and then we've got JCAHO coming in bright and early Monday morning........Stress? WHAT stress?!

Although this test doesn't mean the difference between being able to make a living and waiting tables at the local Denny's until we can retake it, in a way it's a matter of honor......we all are afraid of failing and embarrassing ourselves in front of our colleagues (our poor managers---I can just imagine how THEY feel!!), plus it means a little extra prestige, a new title, and a $0.50 an hour pay raise, which---when the hospital is offering us only a 1% wage increase in January :angryfire--- is not to be sneezed at.

But then, I look at all the reading materials we were given.......300 pages of dry, uninteresting text that brings back baaaaaaaad memories of nursing school.......and all I want to do is sleep, or go play on the computer, or hit myself in the head with a hammer, ANYTHING but read. Going through the chapter on fluid & electrolytes (one of my admittedly weaker areas) felt like slogging through quicksand---I even nodded off in the middle of it!

So I've been trying frantically to cram as much as I can of the IV solutions, meds, treatments etc. that I deal with on a regular basis into my memory bank, and even asking MDs for their rationales when they order something I'm not as familiar with. I mean, I know my job pretty well, and I understand the logic used in many cases, but after you've done it for awhile you kind of go on auto-pilot and just do whatever is needed because you HAVE done it for so long. And yet I really would like to pass this exam, as I'm a hell of a good med/surg nurse and holding a national certification would demonstrate my expertise in the eyes of the world, as well as my fellow RNs.

So, please wish me luck.....I'm gonna need all of that I can get!! :uhoh21: