You know you're a nursing student when...

[Megsd, BSN, RN]

I know we get lots of these threads but I caught myself today doing something very typical of a nursing student. I start in about 3 weeks and I had to order a Skills CD from the bookstore that came in the mail yesterday. There are procedures and videos for several skills like NG tubes, catheters, IVs, suctioning, enemas, etc. I decided to pop in the CD and see what was there.

I started watching a few of the videos and then decided I was hungry. So I went and got a Mountain Dew and some potato chips and sat there and ate and drank WHILE watching videos of people inserting catheters and NG tubes and the like. My appetite was obviously not affected!

[shock-me-sane]

- when you have conversations about the size, color and consistency of your patient's BM over lunch with classmates

- when you pick up random diagnosis to make fun of each other with..."i bet that scratch has MRSA, get away from me!", when someone has a cough you diagnose them as either "a pink puffer or blue bloater", if someone's stomach hurts you inquire if they have had any "fecal vomiting" (and you laugh for 10 minutes with your friend about this)

- when you get excited (and jealous) when your friend's patient coded and they got to do chest compressions

-when you take your own blood pressure and check if you are orthostatic in the morning

- listen to your own (and anyone else who will let you) bowel sounds, heart, lungs, check for edema, skin turgor and reflexes

[Momto3andNurse2B]

When your 9-year-old knows...and uses...medical terminology.

[lindy777]

The day that we sat through a film on parasites and snacked away, we knew that we were all "really" nurses.

My family is mostly medical and law enforcement, so the dinner table conversation might seem a bit odd to the lay person. I remember all of us sitting around discussing the post mortum on a crime scene victim, only to notice my elderly mother (a guest for the day) push back from the table and glare at us. We have really made an effort to be sensitive to our guests since that day.

[jov]

When you get a note that "Judy is in TX," and you think she is in treatment, not in Texas.

[BeccaznRN, RN]

When you remind your fellow nursing students before a flight to drink lots of water and move around as much as possible - we don't want any DVTs!

[summerland5]

when you're working the hardest you ever have-and you're FLAT BROKE!

[jesbaker]

You begin to create or use nursing diagnosis' to describe your fellow classmates or family! Ex: Ineffective test-taking r/t lack of sleep and high stress level!

[SaraO'Hara]

Writing things on the "family bulletin board" in fractured nursing shorthand, eg "Jimmy: impaired ability to visit skateboard park s/p acute bratosis. Recommended tx: spank t.i.d. till clear."

Getting really, really excited about the prospect of going from Jane Smith, SNA... to Jane Smith, CNA... and finally (in May '08) to Jane Smith, LVN.

Disturbingly funny medical stories for all occasions.

[ChadleyNC]

when your co-workers won't leave you alone to do your work for interrupting with questions and exposure of rashes and body aches and pains etc.

when you left the house at 5 am for work, then went to class and came home at 9pm only to "realize" that you "Forgot" to urinate all day long.

when you learn between semesters everything that happened in the world news sector while you were in classes last semester.

when someone at work coughs or complains of a simple stomach ache and your assumption goes immediately to the impossibly rare condition you learned about last night.

[NoWaNrN, ASN, RN]

when your 2 yo son knows where his lungs, heart, brain are and tells people who smoke cig. hurt your lungs! Holding him and reading A&P material through nursing school, you would thing he would have fell asleep fast. Nope he was interested, maybe I got a little Dr. in the making.

[justavolunteer]

I've never been a nursing student, but I've crossed paths with some while being 'justavolunteer'.

You know you're a nursing student when you have textbooks that probably weigh more than some of the little old ladies you will see in your clinicals.