Nursing School Update – Week 10 and who knows how many more.

My life is too stressed right now with school and I don’t have time mentally to write a good blog post about something other than school. So this will be a quick nursing school update & tips I’ve learned in and for this program:

Tests have been good. They have been hard I’m not going to lie but they are manageable. A big thing in this program is to manage your time appropriate, study a lot and correctly.

I’ve been struggling in Pathophysiology and not sure where I am going wrong here. It is the perfect class for me, it runs along the same line with my biochemistry background in undergrad. I know how to study for this stuff, I know the material after studying, and I feel confident. Her exams are very straight forward, they seem to be more knowledge based questions, which to me is easy. After I take her exams I feel very confident, however, I haven’t been getting the grades I thought I would. You know after you take a test you come out usually predicting how you did, well I’m usually good at that haha.  I think its bothering me not being I’m doing poorly but because usually I know when I haven’t done well on an exam.  The professor is more focused on you just passing the course. So me getting 80s isn’t a big deal in her eyes because I’m “passing”. But I can live with it, I’m getting through her class so I will work on not letting it bother me. Something I’m going to work on that may change this while studying for her exams. Is having study groups. I seem to be missing certain material in my notes that others possibly have come across or looked at differently than I did. This should give me a better understanding of the material. The questions Ive been getting wrong are one’s that were either written incorrectly in my notes, I studied it incorrectly, or I didn’t study at all.

Psych tests, I find very difficult. Her class I find difficult in that it is very applicational and her questions are too (my communication class is similar to this). I feel good about studying. I have found that it is important to type everything she says in lecture and format it into the nursing process (the outline I use is below), then add in extra material of topics mentioned from the power points and then go to the text book after I have my notes done to read more into the topics. Her psych tests seem have material from the book and class and from who knows where else. I have been coming across problems where there are words that I do not know and haven’t seen before. So I find it is important in her class to read the textbook, but do so after you have studied, so you are familiar with what you are reading.  The nursing process format I’m talking about that I use is this:

A – Overview, Predisposing factors, Signs & Symptoms

P, I, E – RN Dx, Goals & Expected Outcomes, Interventions

I do this in a outline format and each of those will be categories I structure my notes into. Its the way her lecture and the power points are structured. It is hard to see that structure in her lectures (because she can go all over the place or more very quickly), but trust me its there!

Patho tests are more geared to what she teaches in lectures, use the book to look up more information really just about the material she talks about. Look at the charts and pictures in the chapters (she likes to put words from those on exams)!

Do not have any bias when taking Psych or Comm exams!

Use NCLEX books (Saunders – any of their books) to do practice questions and to read more into the material. If you know anything on how to download pdfs online do so, I found a couple of their one is from 2015 and one from 2009 – still both great books. I have been doing this for my past exams for both Psych and Comm and have been able to get a better understanding of the material, along with actually practicing nursing related questions that are applicational. Side note, I also downloaded almost all my textbooks as pdfs as well and have them on iPad to access easily! Saved a lot of money.

Clinical started two weeks ago. I am in my psych clinical and am enjoying it for the most part. I’m not as comfortable as I would like to be with my patient. I think I’m stuck between the mind set that it’s an “assignment” and just connecting with my patient. I seem to struggle with this in SIM lab as well. I don’t understand why this is becoming an issue for me because I’ve worked with patients directly for two years and know how to talk and connect with someone. I think a big contributing factor to this is my confidence level. I need to focus on being assertive, know that I know what I am doing, and yes simply have confidence in what I do. Oh by the way, I think I mentioned on here my first SIM lab was very stressful for me, well my second SIM lab went a lot better! My final one for this semester is tomorrow.

There’s a month left of classes? I’m not sure, I’m just trying to get through it at this point. I have a break from exams (two weeks to be exact) but I have a couple quizzes, papers, SIM lab, and clinical to do in this time. Ill try to post again within this time, if not Ill see you all after finals!