Med/Surg: kill me now
Jan. 24th, 2006 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verushka70Well, I thought I was stressing about nursing school. There is no way in hell I'm going to get all the reading done this week, even if I wasn't procrastinating by writing things like this.
But I had to write this. Because, as stressed as I thought I was, one of the girls (I'll call her Luz-Maria, not her real name) in my clinical group started crying today. In class. Just couldn't help it. Just burst into tears.
She's overwhelmed (which we all are). Fearing desperately that she'll never get the last week's lectures memorized and understood by the time we are tested on the material this Thursday (which we all fear). Fearing that she'll fuck up the IV calculations on tomorrow's math test (which we all fear). I felt so bad. For her. For all of us.
I keep telling my classmates "Don't worry, we'll make it; even Cs and Bs get degrees" -- but I don't feel that way myself. I am just putting on a brave face so I won't bring the group further down. I still don't quite have metabolic acidosis and alkalosis vs. respiratory acidosis/alkalosis down -- let alone have the normal ranges for Na, K, Cl, Mg, and Phosphorus memorized. If they ask "critical thinking" questions on the test -- which they inevitably will -- I don't know if I'll be able to answer them!
And I find myself asking, rhetorically (because I don't want to piss off our instructors by actually asking them), is it really necessary to throw this much material at us in less than a week and a half? I mean, fluids, electrolytes, fluid imbalances, electrolyte imbalances, acid-base, and all types of shock (cardiogenic, neurogenic, etc) and necessary interventions for all of these -- ALL IN ONE WEEK? After which we get tested on all of this as if we're supposed to know it already? What the fuck!?!
I knew Med/Surg would be hard, but I didn't think it would be this hard. The difficulty is not in the actual learning -- well, yes it is, sort of; I'll get to that. The actual learning wouldn't be so bad -- if we had sufficient time to absorb the material! Now I've been reading since I was 4 years old. I read half the Chronicles of Narnia books by the time I was in 4th grade, and I had read Lord of the Flies (Golding) and Farhenheit 451 (Bradbury) by the time I was in 6th grade (not with much comprehension of the adult themes in the books, but at least with comprehension of the action and the characters, to the limited extent that my pre-adolescent life up to that point allowed).
But now I'm reading my med/surg textbook and sometimes I have to read things 4 or 5 times to understand what I just read. At that rate, I will be 10 chapters behind in the readings for med/surg and pharmacology -- in less than a week. I can't read everything 4-5 times. I don't even have the time to read everything through twice or three times -- let alone four or five! How are we supposed to learn all this in the next few weeks (Med/Surg II starts 2/14)? When we can't even keep up with the reading?
My brain is full. Any more new info will just make it explode.
I will now proceed with my research paper. The bastards could've put that off, too, 'til we started Med/Surg II in February... but, noooooo, it had to be due 2/1/06. Right before another two tests. Fucking hell. I am just trying to survive here.
What really pisses me off is I've already had RNs in my clinicals tell me "Oh, 90% of what they taught you, you'll never need to know again." So... why, why, why are they putting us through this?
It seems like a great way to eliminate people from the program. Not even a week since our pharmacology instructor told us they needed to be graduating at least twice as many graduates as they are in order to try to make a dent in the nursing shortage.
Fuck me. I'm fucked. But I will press on. Dammit.
Ok, done venting. Back to the grindstone. And it is grinding.
But I had to write this. Because, as stressed as I thought I was, one of the girls (I'll call her Luz-Maria, not her real name) in my clinical group started crying today. In class. Just couldn't help it. Just burst into tears.
She's overwhelmed (which we all are). Fearing desperately that she'll never get the last week's lectures memorized and understood by the time we are tested on the material this Thursday (which we all fear). Fearing that she'll fuck up the IV calculations on tomorrow's math test (which we all fear). I felt so bad. For her. For all of us.
I keep telling my classmates "Don't worry, we'll make it; even Cs and Bs get degrees" -- but I don't feel that way myself. I am just putting on a brave face so I won't bring the group further down. I still don't quite have metabolic acidosis and alkalosis vs. respiratory acidosis/alkalosis down -- let alone have the normal ranges for Na, K, Cl, Mg, and Phosphorus memorized. If they ask "critical thinking" questions on the test -- which they inevitably will -- I don't know if I'll be able to answer them!
And I find myself asking, rhetorically (because I don't want to piss off our instructors by actually asking them), is it really necessary to throw this much material at us in less than a week and a half? I mean, fluids, electrolytes, fluid imbalances, electrolyte imbalances, acid-base, and all types of shock (cardiogenic, neurogenic, etc) and necessary interventions for all of these -- ALL IN ONE WEEK? After which we get tested on all of this as if we're supposed to know it already? What the fuck!?!
I knew Med/Surg would be hard, but I didn't think it would be this hard. The difficulty is not in the actual learning -- well, yes it is, sort of; I'll get to that. The actual learning wouldn't be so bad -- if we had sufficient time to absorb the material! Now I've been reading since I was 4 years old. I read half the Chronicles of Narnia books by the time I was in 4th grade, and I had read Lord of the Flies (Golding) and Farhenheit 451 (Bradbury) by the time I was in 6th grade (not with much comprehension of the adult themes in the books, but at least with comprehension of the action and the characters, to the limited extent that my pre-adolescent life up to that point allowed).
But now I'm reading my med/surg textbook and sometimes I have to read things 4 or 5 times to understand what I just read. At that rate, I will be 10 chapters behind in the readings for med/surg and pharmacology -- in less than a week. I can't read everything 4-5 times. I don't even have the time to read everything through twice or three times -- let alone four or five! How are we supposed to learn all this in the next few weeks (Med/Surg II starts 2/14)? When we can't even keep up with the reading?
My brain is full. Any more new info will just make it explode.
I will now proceed with my research paper. The bastards could've put that off, too, 'til we started Med/Surg II in February... but, noooooo, it had to be due 2/1/06. Right before another two tests. Fucking hell. I am just trying to survive here.
What really pisses me off is I've already had RNs in my clinicals tell me "Oh, 90% of what they taught you, you'll never need to know again." So... why, why, why are they putting us through this?
It seems like a great way to eliminate people from the program. Not even a week since our pharmacology instructor told us they needed to be graduating at least twice as many graduates as they are in order to try to make a dent in the nursing shortage.
Fuck me. I'm fucked. But I will press on. Dammit.
Ok, done venting. Back to the grindstone. And it is grinding.