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Thread: Will I get through nursing school?

  1. #1
    Featured Member Krazyjane's Avatar
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    Default Will I get through nursing school?

    I just completed OBGYN with a B in lecture and an A in clinical. I am doing better than a lot of people in the class, and the profs say that I'll make it, but I can't help but be stressed, especially since I have to take the NCLEX at the end! Also, I'm going to start Pediatrics next week, which is a 50% flunk out course. Another thing about nursing school is that it's not bullshittable like courses that require essay questions and stuff.

    Any nurses here to give some advice?

  2. #2
    Yekhefah
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    I'm not a nurse but my mother is and now one of my closest friends is. She finished nursing school last year, and had the same fears about whether she'd pass. Every semester she was terrified she would fail, and she wound up graduating with flying colors. She was hired by a hospital that typically doesn't hire new nurses, and now she works in the emergency department and she LOVES her job. She works long hours so I don't hear from her much anymore, but she calls periodically to tell some great story and sing about how much she loves her job.

    The first day of her L&D clinical, she passed out. No, she didn't see blood or anything... she saw the chair. Nobody in it, just the chair with the stirrups, and she fainted. By the end of her L&D clinical, she had actually delivered a baby by herself - she went in to check on the baby's progress, and it was crowning, and by the time the other nurses arrived she had already delivered the baby, no sweat.

    You can do it. Just study hard!

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    Featured Member Krazyjane's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    Okay, I can study hard, and even learn how to take the tests, but when I get out there and start working? Gah.

    Another thing that kinda sucks is that it's a straight ABCDF system, no + or -. I get high B's, but it's a B so I get clumped with everybody else who gets B's.

  4. #4
    Yekhefah
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    Go into any hospital and talk to the nurses. At least half of them are fucking idiots, seriously. You know this to be true. I have met so many moronic nurses over the course of my life, it's unbelievable (two of them came VERY close to killing me last year, very close).

    You know you're smarter than them, and they made it. You will too.

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    Featured Member Krazyjane's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    Go into any hospital and talk to the nurses. At least half of them are fucking idiots, seriously. You know this to be true. I have met so many moronic nurses over the course of my life, it's unbelievable (two of them came VERY close to killing me last year, very close).

    You know you're smarter than them, and they made it. You will too.
    Haha, thanks Yek. Schadenfreude is a surefire way to make me feel better. Schadenfreude to the dumb nurses, not your predicament.

    Also, there's the thoughts of grad school... Getting into undergrad nursing school was hell. I'd hate to have ot repeat that competition.

  6. #6
    Yekhefah
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    Just remember... if a young woman comes in with bluish skin and white lips, gasping in the throes of a massive asthma attack, freaking out because she can't breathe, blowing 50 on the peak flow meter... PLEASE do not tell her to sit down and wait. Do not spend half an hour taking her temperature and blood pressure and making her wait to discuss the problem with the doctor. As I'm sure you know, there is a point of no return with asthma, which is the #1 medical killer of young women. Time is of the essence. I will NEVER forgive those bitches. I came way too close that night and it still scares the hell out of me.

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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    Signs point to yes.

    KJ, you are smart and you seem very focused on school. You also seem to have realistic expectations about what this career will entail. You'll make it.

    (And I know what you mean about no plus/minus grades! I hate that about my school too.)
    "Doc still loved true things, but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress." - John Steinbeck, Cannery Row


    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

  8. #8
    smartcookie
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    KJ:

    I lived with two second-career student nurses for three years. They made it, but I've never seen any other program (not even pre-med) come as close to breaking people as the accelerated BSN-to-MSN program. It's just so hard. If the answer to "Do you want to make it?" is yes, then I think you will do just fine.

    Will you be going on to get your Master's degree?

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    Featured Member Krazyjane's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    Yes, I'm looking at grad schools. I'm not sure what I want to specialize in yet, but I would love to extend my education.

    I've actually asked my professors if grad school was easier than undergrad, and a lot say yes. They say that undergrad is just being thrown into it, but in grad school, you've had the nursing experience. They weren't in accelerated, though.

  10. #10
    Kaylinn
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    When I was in nursing school, it was either A or B. If you got a C, you failed. THAT was pressure. Your already studyign for N CLEX right? At my school, we had to do 100 test questions a week, begining right from the start. They also had speical N CLEX tutors to help us near the end if we needed it.

    PEdiatrics is very very hard. I cried soo much that semester. Taking care of babies who had been poisoned with bleach in their bottles, all the sick babies. I couldn't wait for that to be over. I hated it. I could never do peds. OB GYN was rough for me to, takign care of 14 year olds giving birth....
    My favorite was wound care. When I'm old and don't strip anymore, I'm going to be a wound care nurse. I like to fix boo boos.

    Anyway....nursing is tough. But you can and will make it. Just study your ass off, and keep your chin up.

  11. #11
    Featured Member Krazyjane's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    Thanks Kailynn. I was waiting for your responses. You're my role model.

    No, we don't get NCLEX questions. However, exams have NCLEX-style questions, and we're encouraged to use the CD-ROMs in the book. The school flunks out a lot of people, but they do claim to have a 98% NCLEX pass rate.

    In my school, you have to get a 75 or above. I've not had to worry about that, but I did get a 74 on an exam because I was sick when I took it. Luckily, my end of semester average was a B. I'm pretty much damned to B's in lecture and A's in clinicals.

    I dunno, I've actually kind of breezed through school. It's hard to study for tests because the questions are often ambiguous. It's not so much about knowing the material, it's about taking the tests. I've also lucked out in the aspect that my clinical instructors have been some of the more lenient ones. When it comes to care plans, I just find out what the instructor wants and bullshit my way through. When it comes to exams, I do pretty well because I know how to deduce. I do study, but it's not always a surefire preparation for the messed up exam questions. I'm kinda scared that this will someday bite me in the ass, namely when I'm out in the real world.

  12. #12
    Kaylinn
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    Default Re: Will I get through nursing school?

    I would suggest going out and buying an NCLEX test book, and start doing test questions. Do a couple every week. the mroe prepared you are, the better you wil feel when it come stime to take the test.

    Care plans...I forgot all about thoes pain in the asses. At my school, we had to do these 3 page care plans, for each patient, and also memorize each and every med the patient was on, including the interactions, affects of it, blah blah. We were not allowed to give the patient his meds until we went up to the instructor and rattled off every drug, what it did, what its side affects were... Some patients are on a lot of fuckin drugs! And since we got our assignments the night before, for even just 2 patients, that could be 50 drugs to memorize, on top of completing the care plans and anything else we had to do. As much as I loved clinical days, I hated the preparations the night before. You would get out of class by 3:30, go to the hospital, get the assigments, then I had to go to work by 5, worked till 9pm, then went homeand did the care plans, memorized the drugs, stayed up until 4am workign on everything, then had to be at the hospital by 6:40 am.

    To make matters worse,a friend of mine in class looked a little like me, but she was always fucking up. The instructor would always get us confused, and the instructor would find me and start screaming at me for somehting the other girl did, and no matter how many times I tried to tell ehr she had me confused, she woudl say, oh stop lying! why are you trying to blame someone else? I know it was you, Heather. ( my name isn't Heather!!)

    On the plus side. I saw Many, Many cool things in clinical rotations. A knee replacement surgery was cool. Bone fragments flying around. A breast reduction surgery, babies being born always amazes me even though I could never work in OB or peds. I really loved nursing. But...I really love the hours and money of stripping. I just figured, when I got to old to strip, or want to settle down and have kids, I'll go back to nursing. I need to get a bachelors, and get the wound care certification. I worked in nursing homes since i was 15, then worked as a home health nurse from 18 until 21, I worked 2 jobs, dancing and th ehome health when I was in school, until it got to tough and I quit the homehealth to just dance.
    I really loved home health, I'm hoping I can do home health wound care. I dont really like hospitals. In home health, you can really get to know the patients, and make a difference with them, where in a hospital, you might see them once and they are gone.


    Anyway, I'm sure you'll do fine. I think when your in school for something yoru meant to be doing, then it comes easy to you, because you like it, are interested, and want to be there. I graduated with a 3.8...and I failed out of high school. I went to a community college.
    Last edited by Kaylinn; 03-08-2007 at 07:19 AM.

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