What surprised you most in nursing school?

[jessiern]

When you were a nursing student (or if you still are), what did you learn about nursing that surprised you the most. I was providing a DM patient the other day with patient education, and I recalled how shocked I was to learn "patient education" was a nurse's role. I had always assume the doctor taught the patient about disease process, medications, and ect. I can remember being amazed that a two year degree qualified me to teach ANYONE, much less the person that had to live with a disease. And to this day, I still feel very inadequate in that role. I usually take time to "re-educate" myself on things before going to the patients.

Did any of you experience any thing like this in school? What surprised you most about the nursing role?

[linzz]

That I was really not a very good judge of character. It is really hard to tell who is trustworthy and who is not. So I learned never to say anthing to a student or teacher that you would not want to be said in public and to give it lots of time to decide who to trust because often those who are the most friendly and interested are the ones to worry about.

[RNmom08]

I am surprised at how poorly some instructors treat students. In my school I learned really quickly that asking questions is a direct challenge to an instructor's intelligence and they will snap and bite you quicker than a rattle snake if they feel you "should know this already". I also learned that a monkey can do this job. (No, really, she told a student a monkey could do the skill she was struggling with.) Many seasoned nurses have told me that they felt they lost some right to speak during nursing school, too. It is very disheartening.

I must agree with you there. With our instructors, the only one that seemed to care for us was ONE instructor who taught us for about a month in the last semester. By that time and all the struggles we had been through with instructors not caring about not only what we say and what we would like further instruction on but also about us as people we were fed up. Hellllloooooo. Just because we were students doesn't mean we aren't people too.

I say to my mom all the time (jokingly of course) "You'd better watch how you treat me now because I might take care of you when you're old and I might not be nice to you if you're not nice to me!" ~~ I say to my old instructors now -- "Remember when you were mean to me and didn't care?? Well, I do!!" (not joking of course... hehehe) **kidding**

[Nursetastic]

Something else that really gets under my skin is how we are always told to question orders if the do not make sense...better than hurting the patient, right? So why can't we clear up confusion with an instructor without them getting defensive and trying to make us look stupid? I've been asked "Why do you want to know that?" when I have asked questions. Why? SO I DON'T CAUSE ANY HARM!!! Isn't that what you've been stressing all semester? Learn rationales? Then TEACH me the darn rationales!

Thank goodness for our CI, she's the only one worth her weight this semster...and there is a lot of weight going around. (oh, goodness...did I just say that out loud?):uhoh21:

[hpcat]

I was surprised that nurses aren't subservient to doctors, you can disagree with them and be an advocate for your patient's care and be fairly autonomous - I'm in my 40s, and the image of nurses in the "olden days" was from the old hospital soap operas and other TV stereotypes.

I was very surprised at how much nursing overlaps with social work - which makes me very happy. I originally wanted to be a social worker, but decided I couldn't live on the low salaries.

I was surprised to find very excellent classmates who are also going thru career changes later in life. I was disappointed to find that some classmates never progressed past high school mentality and are still in clique mode.

I was surprised at how much technology has changed nursing and how tech savvy I need to be to handle IV pumps and funky beds and computerized vitals machines...

I was pleasantly surprised at all the cool new ways medical supplies are made or packaged to make it easier for us to use - like complete all-in-one kits to do Foleys so you don't forget something and pre-filled syringes that reduce the risk of med errors.

I was amazed at the variety of ways I can use my nursing degree. I will never have to do another career change again because nursing offers a hundred different career paths to suit virtually everyone!

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

I was surprised at how little I used what they taught. It took about a year after school to build upon what was useful (about half of what was taught) and ditch what wasn't (about half of what was taught).

I like to say that nursing school doesn't make you a nurse. It arms you with some basic knowledge so that you can learn to be a nurse, on the job. It's just a shame that they waste half of that education time on junk.

~faith,

Timothy.