First week on Nursing school...
I'm going to make an attempt to keep a weekly journal while I'm in Nursing school. I think that it will be awesome in two years to be able to look back and see how far I've come. At this point I'm not planning on setting up a 'nursing' filter; however, if the posts get to be too much for anyone, please let me know. I won't be offended if you find it less than fascinating or more than mildly disgusting. :)
I didn't start to feel overwhelmed until Tuesday. The first day was really laid back, and so far I'm pleased with all my professors. They've all been super approachable and very helpful. Tuesday was our simulation lab orientation. For anyone not familiar with the ins and outs of nursing education: the sim lab is the buffer zone between students and patients. It's where we practice and get signed off on skills before we're permitted to perform them on an actual patient. Historically, student nurses practiced skills on each other. However, these days we only do minor non-invasive procedures on one another. Like blood pressures, pulses, temps....
We have mannequins and models of various body structures...some simulation equipment is really high tech, like Simman who has actual programmable vital signs, other is super low tech: Seymour Butts who is basically a life sized ass. (I'm totally serious...I couldn't make this shit up...)
It was after the orientation on Tuesday that I really began to get a sense of exactly how much there is to study and learn. We're reading at least 4 chapters each from 2 different books for lecture, and then the readings, videos, and practice time for the skills for the week. It's also a lot of independent scheduling. You're given a due date. Figure out how to become proficient by that date.
I think I'm getting a routine down. The first skills: standard precautions, BP, pulse, apical pulse, temp, and pain assessment are pretty straight forward which has helped me get an idea of how to manage my time. I'm pretending that I don't have some basic proficiency in these and doing all the recommended steps to learning them. I figure it's a way to develop good habits before the skills get more complicated.
I think I've got a pretty good system for staying organized, but we'll see next week if I'm still keeping up with it, or if I've made some modifications to it.
I'm still really excited and am becoming more convinced that this is what I should be doing.
I didn't start to feel overwhelmed until Tuesday. The first day was really laid back, and so far I'm pleased with all my professors. They've all been super approachable and very helpful. Tuesday was our simulation lab orientation. For anyone not familiar with the ins and outs of nursing education: the sim lab is the buffer zone between students and patients. It's where we practice and get signed off on skills before we're permitted to perform them on an actual patient. Historically, student nurses practiced skills on each other. However, these days we only do minor non-invasive procedures on one another. Like blood pressures, pulses, temps....
We have mannequins and models of various body structures...some simulation equipment is really high tech, like Simman who has actual programmable vital signs, other is super low tech: Seymour Butts who is basically a life sized ass. (I'm totally serious...I couldn't make this shit up...)
It was after the orientation on Tuesday that I really began to get a sense of exactly how much there is to study and learn. We're reading at least 4 chapters each from 2 different books for lecture, and then the readings, videos, and practice time for the skills for the week. It's also a lot of independent scheduling. You're given a due date. Figure out how to become proficient by that date.
I think I'm getting a routine down. The first skills: standard precautions, BP, pulse, apical pulse, temp, and pain assessment are pretty straight forward which has helped me get an idea of how to manage my time. I'm pretending that I don't have some basic proficiency in these and doing all the recommended steps to learning them. I figure it's a way to develop good habits before the skills get more complicated.
I think I've got a pretty good system for staying organized, but we'll see next week if I'm still keeping up with it, or if I've made some modifications to it.
I'm still really excited and am becoming more convinced that this is what I should be doing.