verushka70 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
verushka70) wrote2006-01-24 07:57 pm
verushka70) wrote2006-01-24 07:57 pm
Med/Surg: kill me now
Well, 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.
no subject
It will be OK. I'm assuming this is a BS degree? And remember it's school not real life, that's why they are making you learn all this stuff. If they only taught what you needed to know the program would be over in half the time.
Wow a term paper? just wow. Never had to do that for nursing, did it for Comp 102.
Best that I can give you is, learn what you need to for the test. The best nurses I kow don't have all the knowledge in their heads, but they know where to find it when they need it. Plus the best nurses I know were the B students.
Don't kill yourself reading the text if they are lecturing. At my school it was used as a reference. The actual tests came from lecture notes.
still kill me now
I console myself with the test statistics (computed by WebCT when the instructor enters all the grades). The mean score was 78.6. I suspect a lot of people did really badly.
We covered fluids, electrolytes (learning all the ranges for normal for all), F&E imbalances (hypo-/hyper-/isotonic IVs & why) IV therapy (changing dressings/tubing/bags, starting/d-c-ing IVs), acid-base (respiratory vs. metabolic acidosis/alkalosis, "ROME" etc.), shock (cardiogenic, neurogenic, etc.) -- and all the nursing considerations for all of them -- all that in nine days in three 2-hour lectures and two (2.5-hour) lab classes. We actually had 4 lab classes, but two labs focused on practicing IV skills. Then one lab class was wasted on orientation, and one was wasted on teaching library computer research skills (how to search CINAHL, etc).
(I shouldn't say "wasted" on library research skills -- some people didn't know how to do those things. But I already have a bachelor's and I worked in a medical department at a medical school that saw patients, taught residents, and taught M3 and M4 students, so I knew all that years ago. )
I wish all the questions came from the lectures... but we didn't have enough lectures and our instructors like to take case studies from the texts. I recognized a couple from the med/surg text, and a couple I didn't (I didn't get far enough in the reading!). Between the research paper, studying for the math test yesterday (I got 87 percent), and today's exam, I just didn't get all the readings done. And that was with only about 5 hours of sleep a night. If only I hadn't had the math test and the research paper to work on!
I also wish this was for a BSN, but it's "just" for an associate's degree/RN. I already have a BA (BFA, actually) but I didn't get accepted to the accelerated BSN and regular BSN programs I applied to. My '92 BFA GPA (3.01/4.0) wasn't good enough, and I admit I was a partier back then. My transcripts reflect that. And, except for one program, none of the application processes had anywhere for you to write an essay about why you wanted to go into nursing or asked for your resume to see what you'd been doing since your first degree, so I couldn't play up any of my strengths.
I suppose I can't blame the schools. They want to accept people who (1) will make it through nursing school, and (2) will enhance their NCLEX pass rates. People like me don't look -- on paper, anyway -- like we'll do that. If there's no place for you to write about how you cared for (diapered, fed, etc.) a dying grandmother and deteriorating father, no one will know from your application that you're really up for all that, that for the first time in your life you feld called to something.
I believe you about the B students making the best nurses. I've already noticed that some of the neurotic A students aren't all that good in the clinical setting... fortunately, I did well in the clinicals last semester. Our instructor said we were one of the best clinical groups she'd ever had (and she'd been teaching 20 years). Ours was the only group of ten students (out of 8 groups of ten) who started together in August and were still together and passing at the end of the semester before xmas.
I hope we can keep that up, but I'm pretty scared now. I bought this book, "How to Survive and Maybe Even Love Nursing School" and the author said that she had a master's degree and had worked in a third world country through three coup d'etats, yet still found nursing school to be the most difficult thing she'd ever endured. She also mentioned that none of the students who responded to her research for the book said they could complete all the readings for their classes, either. I felt better after I read that, but that will not change my test grade...
Nevertheless, I have to try to do the readings. Must read now; back to the med/surg and pharmacology texts.
Re: still kill me now
Good luck with everything. You will make it. You want it to badly not to..