What was the first thing you learned in Nursing School?

[Murse336]

Hello Everyone,

I just found out this week that I've been accepted into my school's nursing program!

I will be starting my nursing classes in the fall and I want to get a head start. I was wondering what was the first was that you learned in nursing school. I'm asking all current RNs and nursing students. Thanks for your input, I'm so excited.

[Sour Lemon]

We had a drug calculations test within the first few hours of the first day to start weeding people out. That's the first thing I remember.

[smf0903]

How to wash our hands.

[nursephillyphil, BSN, RN]

you'll learn how expensive books are lol. do yourself a favor and just rent them through chegg or something.

[EDNURSE20, BSN]

Ditto. Hand washing.

[MotoMonkey, BSN, RN]

The first thing we learned was basically what makes someone healthy. My program figures that in order to know when someone is unhealthy or ill you need a strong foundation of health and what makes individuals healthy. During that time we were also learning the basics of therapeutic communication.

The program I am in is not designed to "weed people out" so I did not experience any major tests in the first days or week.

[Nature_walker, ASN, BSN, RN]

Hand washing

[ItsThatJenGirl, CNA]

Our first day was hand washing (our hands were sprayed with something and then we had to wash and look under a blacklight to see how effective we were), blood glucose checks (on our lab partner), restraints (on each other), patient safety and general infection control. They also set up a room with a lot of safety hazards and we had to identify as many as we could find. It was a lot of fun!

Edit: we also learned how to don and doff PPE, what diseases were appropriate for which precautions and how to don sterile gloves properly.

[thoughtful21, BSN, RN]

In Health Assessment, we learned the "normals." We practiced assessing healthy people - each other - so that we would be used to normal health assessments and recognize abnormals in real life patients.

And in our first clinical lab we learned handwashing! LoL

[bjwojcik]

If you don't know dosage calculations, you should learn this before you get to nursing school. You can learn pretty much everything you will need in a couple of evenings and then you will be done with the subject and you can spend your time on other things. You might want to look at my post from Feb 8th under Pre-Nursing Students: Master your Drug Calculations Before You get to Nursing School. There is also a book posted in the comments sections the you might find helpful.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

OK- admittedly my 'first day of nursing school' was in 1976. It was an LPN program and after we all introduced ourselves and the faculty was introduced- the Director asked the male students (2) to go into the hall for a few minutes. She shut the door and told the remaining all-female class the following:

"When you have clinicals, you are to come directly TO the hospital and go directly home FROM the hospital. No stops in between. Men are turned on by white hose and uniforms, and I don't want you to get raped."

I am NOT making this up. This is the first thing I learned in nursing school. (The hubs later told me that white hose were NOT a turn-on to him.)

[bjwojcik]

One of the first things I learned in pharmacy school was don't assume anything.