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Discussion

The Weaning Out Class!!!!

Over the weekend I spoke with a friend of my family, who just happens to be a Counselor at the school I'm attending. Anyway he told me that Nursing Process I is used to wean out the weak. This is the very first class you take and now I'm nervous:uhoh3: . I start the ADN program in May . I'm not saying I'm weak but I just don't know what to expect:chair: .

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Over the weekend I spoke with a friend of my family, who just happens to be a Counselor at the school I'm attending. Anyway he told me that Nursing Process I is used to wean out the weak. This is the very first class you take and now I'm nervous:uhoh3: . I start the ADN program in May . I'm not saying I'm weak but I just don't know what to expect:chair: .

Typically, the first nursing class IS the time to weed out the students who aren't right for nursing. It's not that they're weak or not smart enough - it's just that nursing requires a different type of thinking - called critical thinking - and not everyone can adapt to that. In most classes, when you have a multiple choice question, only one answer is right. In nursing classes, most or ALL of the answers are right - you just have to prioritize which you need to do first, or figure out what the question is really asking. It's a totally different type of test taking, totally different type of thinking. The students who can't grasp this process typically will not do well in nursing school, so yeah, if they do very poorly in the first class it often "weeds" them out of the nursing program.

This will make a lot more sense when you start nursing school. Good luck, and don't be scared!

  • Author

Okay, so how do I prepare myself? I don't have time to take a critical thinking class. What can I do? I've waited entirely too long to get to this point and I won't be "weeded OR weaned" out.

Okay, so how do I prepare myself? I don't have time to take a critical thinking class. What can I do? I've waited entirely too long to get to this point and I won't be "weeded OR weaned" out.

There is no critical thinking class. You will learn once you start the nursing program. Just be aware that it is a different type of test taking, and listen in class because your instructors will help you understand. Don't get nervous about it now! The nursing student's worst enemy is test anxiety. Just relax and pay attention in class for now.

It's "weeded" out. Like weeding a garden, etc. It's getting rid of things that don't belong. "Weaning" is slowly withdrawing something until it's gone - like when babies gradually stop breastfeeding as they get older.

Okay, so how do I prepare myself? I don't have time to take a critical thinking class. What can I do? I've waited entirely too long to get to this point and I won't be "weeded OR weaned" out.

There are critical thinking exercises. Do a search online and see what you get. I have a box of critical thinking exercises that I use with my five year old. Critical thinking is an excellent skill to have, but some need more practice than others. You'll do fine in your class!!!

  • Expert

First of all, calm down. No one goes anywhere in any nursing program without starting with the first nursing class. Each nursing class builds onto the next one. Critical thinking is nothing more than problem solving. What you are going to be taught to do in your nursing classes is to put a bunch of puzzle pieces together and come up with some solutions to help patients out. There will be an anatomy puzzle piece, a medical puzzle piece, a nursing theory puzzle piece, and so on. You will consider all these "clues" when you are given a problem in order to come up with a correct answer. The reason this is done is because on the job, nurses have to make these kinds of judgments every single day. You will be taught to do this in nursing school. Let me save you some of the mystery and tell you that the answers almost always revolve around being able to answer "why" something is happening. When you can follow the logical progression of someone's disease process and the treatment that has been ordered, everything else we do as nurses kind of falls into place with it all. Because there is so much anatomy, microbiology and chemistry to be familiar with we have to take them in separate classes. However, let me reassure you that you will re-visit many of the things you are learning in these pre-requisite science classes when you get into your nursing classes. Be able to follow the lines of reasoning and understand why things are happening (the pathophysiology) and being done (medical orders and nursing actions) and you will be well on your way to critical thinking. So much of it is just plain logic--nothing tricky about that. Just like you learn not to place something frozen next to something that is hot because--it will melt, you will learn in your nursing classes things like to wash your hands between patients--or you will spread germs. So, keep working on your pre-reqs and don't fret about that first nursing class. Oh, and, I think that was a very thoughtless thing of your friend to say to you. I would suspect that what he has heard has been water cooler gossip (complaining) from the nursing instructors. It is more likely that what was really meant was that the nursing students who get immediately weeded out are those who refuse to change their attitudes and have a lot of difficulty facing all the new things they have to learn with a positive outlook. Attitude is 95% of learning. If you demonstrate your willingness to learn and the eagerness and common sense to match it along with a positive and cheerful attitude, you will do just fine. Don't think for one minute that any of the pre-requisites you are taking are unnecessary. Everything is part of the larger picture and critical thinking is the glue that will hold all the pieces together.

Personally, it's my belief (or at least my hope) that faculty in nursing school (or any other academic program) want you to do well. They are not making the class extra hard so no one passes. It's just a very different way of looking at things. You don't memorize facts.. you learn WHY the facts are true and then utilize them in a clinical situation that draws on everything you know. Some people have trouble doing that, but again, that's why you have a support system of faculty, students, tutoring services, etc. to help you do what you need to do.

Lots of people get through nursing school, I tell myself. So why can't we?

Good luck, and RELAX!

For the most part, your instructors do want to see you do well! Unfortunately, every semester in every program, many students do disappear into a black hole. Especially the early ones. Consider:

1. Most students weed themselves out... they realize that nursing is not for them and either outright leave or are uninspired enough that they let their grades slip and fail out. I remember classmates who "obviously" (to us, anyway but I still believe it" did not "belong" in nursing and many classmates would have loved to weed out but the instructors carefully guided and counciled to the end.

We lost 3 students in orientation!! "oh, we have to take MATH classes?! I'm outta here!"

2. If you were a history major (for example) you would never even notice your co-majors leaving the program. Nursing programs are set up differently so you all meet in the beginning and share classes throughout so the missing faces are noticed in every new class. Makes it seems "worse" than it actually might be.

3. Some students do not do well in a class or semester and can't progress on with the rest of the class because they are continuous classes. Still, many of them do become nurses by joining the next year's class or transferring schools. I know many of my classmates were lost that way. We did gain a few students from our schools other track or the previous year's class but not as many as we "lost".

4. Does anyone know what the attrition rate of Allnurses.com students is compared to students at large? I'll bet it's higher due to more contact with other students and with graduates, more awareness of what nursing is really all about (the "good, bad, and ugly") and, most importantly, the mindset of the student who tends to join- it seems that most are the go-getters who have an idea what their goals are (note I didn't say sure of their goals, I've been an RN for years and am not sure what I really want to do, :D I do have ideas!) You are probably one of those students, right?

Good Luck! If you ever feel weeded, the other Allnurses are here!

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