What does nursing school teach you?

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Hi guys,

I was hoping you could answer one or any/all of these questions I have. ;) I know I am being impatient and will eventually see what nursing school entails on my own, but I am curious. Thank you!!!!

I have heard a lot about enormous amount of care plan writing.. but what does that entail?

As a nurse, do you ask questions regarding all the patients symptoms as you see fit, or do you ask a few standard questions and let the doc get more in depth?

Do we learn about all the different blood tests a doctor can order, as well as what they mean in relation to the physiology of the body?

What does the bulk of the book-learning part of nursing school consist of? (I've heard nursing theory, but what does that really mean?

)

I know clinicals put some of what you learned to practice, so I am looking forward to that part.

Are nursing courses science-based, in that you learn a lot about different diseases/possible causes?

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Care plans are related to the patient's disease/disorder, and any other issues the patient may be having. The nurse writes them to give a structure to the patient care based on the most important negative factors the patient experiences and what needs to be done about them.

Nurses usually do a head-to-toe physical and asks all the questions she or he can think of that might offer information to help with a diagnosis and treatment. Many times a nurse will unearth something a doctor does not. Two heads are better than one.

Yes, you'll learn about blood tests as well as other diagnostic tests and what they mean in relation to physiology.

Book learning consists of patient care from a nursing approach rather than a medical approach. You will learn how to take care of patients of all ages with a variety of diseases and disorders. You will get theory and practice, and the theory includes pathophysiology and pharmacology.

You learn a lot about diseases, their causes, and management of them. Depending on your school you will may a separate pathophysiology course. Other classes will be things like fundamentals-how to bathe a patient, protecting skin integrity, other basic skills like injections, suction, etc. Then you'll have courses based on adult, pediatric, psychiatric, and women's health with classes and clinicals where you will learn even more patho.

Good luck to you.

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Your classes will be quite unique. You should expect both traditional lecture type classes and practical labs. You will begin your courses with foundational material such as basic care, assessment, and learning about the nursing process. Then, you work up to actually covering the human systems and problems with the various systems. Nursing school will cover both the medical science (physiology, s/s, medications, etc) and the nursing theory of care behind the various diseases.

Nursing focuses on how the human responds to illness. The human response to illness is the basis of the nursing diagnosis. While a doctor looks to identify the illness, the nurse looks to plan care around how the patient is responding to their situation. Grasping this concept can be quite difficult. This is part of the reason we call it theory, because what we do is customized care. Just like a theroy that may prove to be incorrect, our plan of care may not work, so we often need to change the way we provide care.Like a scientist who creates, proves, and disproves theories, a nurse must also prove, disprove, and change the way he/she practices nursing. So, yes nursing is very much a science.

You should expect to do many care plans in school. A care plan is a format that will help guide you through the nursing process.A good nurse should be able to perform a comprenhensive assessment. Remember, unlike the physician, our primary goal is not to identify a medical diagnosis. Our goal is to find out how our patient is responding or reacting to that illness. So our assessment should be quite comprehensive.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
i have heard a lot about enormous amount of care plan writing.. but what does that entail?

a written care plan is the documentation of the problem solving process of nursing. it follows the nursing process, which is taught in nursing school. the nursing process is an extrapolation of the scientific process which seeks answers to problems. you can learn more about care plans, although don't expect to understand much of it since you are not in nursing school yet, on these two threads in the nursing student forums:

you can actually link into and see a care plan and some case studies done by nursing students at these two websites:

as part of the nursing process (problem solving), you learn how to do an assessment of the patient. let me explain.

a doctor diagnoses on the basis of the symptoms he observes. he finds these symptoms by questioning the patient about their past medical history and doing a physical examination. this is an assessment and there is a sequence that he follows. he mentally compiles the abnormal data (symptoms) and makes a medical decision (medical diagnosis). in a very similar way, a good mechanic determines what is wrong with your car by the very same process. he goes through a check list of performance indicators, listens to what the car owner tells him and does a physical inspection of the vehicle. he mentally compiles the abnormal data (symptoms),makes a decision and gives you an estimate of the cost. a professional nurse does an assessment of the patient that involves talking to the patient and going through a similar review of symptoms as well as assessing their adls (activities of daily living--something you will learn about in nursing school). we also read the patient's medical record and perform our own physical assessment. we compile the abnormal data (symptoms) and make a nursing decision that is called a nursing diagnosis. this is all something that you will learn in nursing school. you can link into some physical assessment guidelines on this thread for nursing students on allnurses:

yes. it is part of learning about the various diseases and their treatment. you will not only need to know the normal anatomy and physiology, but what happens when a person develops abnormal anatomy or physiology (pathophysiology).

you will have many, many books. some will be nursing textbooks. others will be supplemental references such as medical dictionaries, care plan books, nursing drug references and lab test references. each nursing school will tell you what books they absolutely want you to have. nursing involves learning the things that nurses can do to treat the various problems that patients have. many times this involves carrying out doctor's orders, but it also involves helping people achieve their activities of daily living (eating, toileting, bathing, dressing, moving about). i would suggest that you go to a large bookstore such as a border's or barnes & noble and find their section of nursing books, sit down on the floor and just pull a couple of nursing books and start looking through them. or, go to a public library and find the section of nursing books and look at a couple of nursing textbooks. you can also go online with barnes & noble or amazon and pull up med/surg nursing textbooks and see what the table of contents are. to be a well-rounded rn you must know human anatomy/physiology, some microbiology, some principles of chemistry, basic math, psychology, have knowledge of many medical diseases and how the doctor treats them, knowledge of drugs, fundamental nursing care, the decision making process, and how to prioritize and organize. rns are, in essence, problem solvers and supervisors of patient care.

yes. in order to understand the signs and symptoms as well as the drugs and treatments that are being ordered you must understand the underlying pathophysiology of the patient's disease. there are lots of websites where the public can get loads of disease information as well as their causes.

i think that you should look at the posts and the sticky threads on the nursing student forums, particularly the nursing student assistance and the general nursing student discussion forum. you can link to them by clicking on the "students" tab at the top of every allnurses page.

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I have a patient in private duty who has alzheimer's with a history of falls.

I don't have to do nursing care plans there but if I did I might write as a diagnosis: Risk for falls r/t unsteady gait AEB previous hx of falling....etc. etc. etc.... you can get really elaborate with care plans. Once you learn how to do them they are fun. I wish my husband hadn't mistakenly thrown my nursing care plan guide from school away and I would look up a bunch. There are basically three parts to the care plan. The diagnosis and cause, the as evidenced by and the interventions.

Probably my favorite thing about nursing.

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Care plans are related to the patient's disease/disorder, and any other issues the patient may be having. The nurse writes them to give a structure to the patient care based on the most important negative factors the patient experiences and what needs to be done about them.

Nurses usually do a head-to-toe physical and asks all the questions she or he can think of that might offer information to help with a diagnosis and treatment. Many times a nurse will unearth something a doctor does not. Two heads are better than one.

Yes, you'll learn about blood tests as well as other diagnostic tests and what they mean in relation to physiology.

Book learning consists of patient care from a nursing approach rather than a medical approach. You will learn how to take care of patients of all ages with a variety of diseases and disorders. You will get theory and practice, and the theory includes pathophysiology and pharmacology.

You learn a lot about diseases, their causes, and management of them. Depending on your school you will may a separate pathophysiology course. Other classes will be things like fundamentals-how to bathe a patient, protecting skin integrity, other basic skills like injections, suction, etc. Then you'll have courses based on adult, pediatric, psychiatric, and women's health with classes and clinicals where you will learn even more patho.

Good luck to you.

yay!! I'm interested in all of it!!

I think it is a really good sign that almost all of the stuff I may be learning actually interests me. I want to learn it. ;)

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Thank you so so so much for all of that Daytonite. Seriously, thank you for taking the time to post that. I'm excited when I read what I'll be learning and there has never been another possible line of study that I have ever felt that way abouT! ;)

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
Thank you so so so much for all of that Daytonite. Seriously, thank you for taking the time to post that. I'm excited when I read what I'll be learning and there has never been another possible line of study that I have ever felt that way abouT! ;)

Then you are probably heading into the right career. Before I went to nursing school my mother brought me an older med/surg textbook that I used to read through. You can find these in used book stores at cheap prices. There was also an elderly lady in the town where I lived who was a member of a club I belonged to who had been an RN back in the days before and during WWII. When I was at her home she showed me some of her old nursing textbooks that she still had! They were fascinating to read. Nursing was a tad different back in those days. I must warn you, however, that being a hospital RN in today's world is a very high stress job. You will never work harder in any other job. Pretty much go, go, go, and multi-tasking with no hope of much of a break during your shift. Workaholics preferred. You live for your days off. Still it is a very rewarding career in which you will personally experience a lot of life-changing and personal growth as well as help other people at some of the most critical times in their lives. I've always felt it was very spiritual work.

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