I feel like I just started…oh wait I did. Short week this week (which is probably a good thing!) since Monday was a holiday and I don’t have classes on Friday. But there is only two words I need to describe nursing school (right now at least–I know you oldies [but goodies] might laugh at me when I say these words and say “you.just.wait.”)
TRUE LOVE
Yes, those are two stethoscopes–LOVE IT!
Alright here is the play-by-play. Day 1 I had Professional Nursing Lab and my first math/med class. I was over-prepared for lab (I’m okay with that–better than being underprepared for sure). I had already done the assignments because although they didn’t specifically say to do them I figured I would want to do them beforehand. Turns out this is usually the norm for every week except the first week. So first day they walked us through our hw assignment (just a worksheet and watching some videos on one of the online/software packages we had to buy). So that was a little boring because not only had I seen the nursing videos, but they were just on handwashing. However, I was still just too excited, so it didn’t really bore me too much. So the first hour was introduction and watching the videos. Second hour I learned proper body mechanics. Now I don’t know how much you can tell from my pic but I’m a small girl. I won’t give my weight away, but I’m only 5’3″ in height. Lifting 400 lb patients by myself–trouble. So I basically learned that I will probably usually need help moving patients. Third and final hour of lab I learned about PPE (personal protective equipment-gloves, gowns, masks, goggles, etc.), how to put it on and take it off the right way and how to wash my hands (yes of course we did the glo-gel thing to see how we did haha). Then I had an hour of math/med where we took a pre-test to see where we were. I think I did fine, but I won’t get it back until Monday. It was very basic math–the stuff I mentioned I was going over during the summer.
So a short first day, but that was good because I came home and I screwed my head back on straight and was able to get myself pretty organized, which I was very happy about.
Day 2 was much longer. I had Professional Nursing lecture in the morning from 11:00-1:00. My instructor is awesome! I’ve heard this class can be kinda dull and dry but everyone has to go through it. No! My instructor made it so much fun she’s hilarious, lively, and told really relevant stories to help us learn the info better. I am really excited about this again because I haven’t heard great things about this class as a nursing school class in general. We didn’t get very far because of all the intro stuff, but it was still really good. I’m not gonna lie though–the exams sound hard. I know everyone has to get used to this, but that whole “critical thinking” stuff…yeah…not going to be so easy. I have been using some of the software given to us again for practice of critical thinking questions (and I recommended it to some of my fellow students today because most people don’t know what to do with it since it’s more for a self-help tool not assignments–and they seemed really impressed, which made me feel good about myself) and I’m getting better, but I’m still WAY overthinking everything. I’ll get it…I have faith 
Continuing with Day 2 I had a really long break from 1:00-5:00. So I had lunch then did some work in the library which was productive, but I was tired. (My schedule isn’t ideal because I have late nights on M/W and early mornings on Tu/Th, so it goes late night Monday to early morning Tuesday to late night Wednesday to early morning Thursday–not a lot of catch-up sleep time). Then I had Health Assessment from 5:00-8:00. This was cool I learned how to take radial pulse, apical pulse, and blood pressure and we got to practice on our classmates. I need a bit more practice in blood pressure–strangely I can hear pretty accurately the systolic sound, but I always think the diastolic (when the sound stops) is way earlier than when it actually stops–I realized this not only because my diastolic seemed funny, but my professor has one of those double stethoscopes and she was like “umm it was still going…” We didn’t need to buy BP cuffs for school, but I’ve decided to probably buy one this weekend as I really think it would be beneficial to practice and they’re not terribly expensive. I was good at “palpating the brachial artery” though, so that was good! Apparently that’s difficult sometimes as a new student? Or maybe I’m just making stuff up haha.
Finally today, Day 3. Usually on Thursdays I have clinical. Obviously Week 1 washing my hands and barely being able to take a BP would probably not be so helpful in a setting. So we had clinical orientation (at school). I met my clinical instructor (I think she’s awesome! She seems really laid back, but at the same time really organized, which I think is the perfect combination!) She explained to us her style of teaching which is really hands on. And she was really reassuring too. She’s young, so she remembers vividly what it’s like to be a nursing student and she remembers what she didn’t like about her clinical experiences and what she did and so she’s taken a lot of her experiences and made it into what so far seems like a pretty effective teaching format, although I guess I’ll have to see when I actually get there. Next week we will go to our clinical site (which by the way I am very happy with–good location and good reputation). Per HIPAA I will never reveal what clinical site I am at nor will I talk about patients specifically. If I do want to share some patient experiences information will be changed–I mention this in my blog a number of times and I have a permanent link on the left side of my blog that addresses it. I take HIPAA EXTREMELY seriously and therefore I like to address it fairly frequently. Blogging is a great form of expression and information, but not at the expense of other people’s rights–not cool. Just throwing that out there again. But back to fun now–our floor seems really interesting–kind of a hodge-podge of different things that you wouldn’t think go together, but do. So next week at our clinical site, we still probably won’t be very helpful to nurses, so instead we’re going to have a more specific clinical site orientation and then the following week we’ll finally be assigned patients…or I should say a patient. I hope the nurses on the floor are welcoming to us. We decided as a group to push clinical half an hour earlier, so now it starts at 6:30 AM and from where I live that means I have to get up REALLY early to commute and be there on time etc (and just wait until winter…really early). But it’s for the better-the nurses for our shift don’t get there until 10 of 7:00. So this way we’ll have a chance to sort of settle in, look at our patient’s chart, do whatever we need to do for that half hour or so to set up and feel comfortable and then at 7:00 when the nurses are ready to start we’re ready too instead of coming in at 7:00 AM and trying to get settled when they’re off and running. I like it this way (even if it’s earlier–it’s one day a week) because it’s more comfortable for the students and we’re a bigger help to the nurses–at least I’d like to think so.
So that was my first week. The only class I haven’t had is Clinical Pharmacology because that is a Monday class. That’s also the only class that hasn’t put anything up online for us to look at, so I honestly have no idea what it’s going to be like. I have a lot of work to do this weekend though–Day 3 and I’m completely exhausted.
But oh so happy.
Thanks for reading my long post. I will try (try being the key word–seriously I’m this busy already and it’s just going to get worse) to post at different intervals instead of at the end of the week only so you don’t have to read one long post a week –instead more short ones. I also won’t give a play-by-play every week (my first week was just special to me aww) but will post things I find important/relevant.
Hope everyone else is enjoying the star to their September. All you new students–good luck! It’s going to be an amazing journey!
~love always~
Jen
