Worried about retaining it all

You retain the things that you need, sometime consciously, sometime un-consciously.

I took a class at the Amer. Assoc of Critical Nurses' annual conference (NTI) in May about critical thinking skills and I thought this was cool:

Progression from new nurse to experience nurse:

1. Unconsciously incompetent: You don't know what you're doing and don't know enough to know you don't know what you're doing.

2. Consciously incompetent: You don't know what you're doing but you know you don't know, and you know when to seek help.

3. Consciously competent: you know what you are doing and you know why you're doing it.

and finally,

4. Unconsciouly competent: you know what you are doing but don't always know why.

This last, most experienced nurse: you ever know nurses that can pick up on things hours before they show as symptoms: they know something's wrong even if they can't put their finger on it. I have a nurse friend, that when she looks at a patient and says, "she ain't right", it's time to start looking very hard for very subtle things, cause if you don't catch what's going on, it'll catch you!

I thought this was a very interesting class and it relates: as you become more experienced, the things you need to know will imprint on you.

And this is why your instructors tell you not to out-book smart the nurses on the units when you're in clinicals.