What's next...

I don't write very often because I'm just too busy.  I'm approaching the end of my second semester of accelerated nursing school. Next is critical care, OB/Peds and more fun.

I look back on my semester were I have worked on a telemetry/stoke wing of a county hospital. I've also done clinical days in a mental health facility and SNIF (Certified Nursing Facility).

In the SNIF I saw a lot of pressure ulcers.
Mental health was interesting. What you may not know is that I was a police officer for many years and the "mental health" people I ran into were problem makers.

The telemetry wing of the hospital is where I spent most of my clinical time. I've seen catheters, NG tube feedings and people being rolled off to surgery yet I've done very little.

I have gotten a successful IV stick, I've tried to chart but I need lots of help. What I have going for me is that I'm a people person, so my confidence makes it look like I have things down. The truth, I'm not ready for the next phase.

The Eve of Semerster 2

I sit here on the eve of semester two just minutes away from midnight. My day tomorrow, a Friday no less, is mixed together with 2 classes not even set to meet this day, but with new building construction we are asked to "adjust and be flexible" as things come together.

For the most part the professors this semester seem to be excited about their class(es) and I hope to learn a lot. Let us see if I am singing the same song in December.  What I have come to realize though is that there is a disconnect between the teachers and the students. Not in the way you are probably thinking either. It's in the way that they think we have certain information when we don't and that we understand something when it has been previously taught to us in a manner as clear as mud.

This semester, my portion of the class will be studying Gerontology, Adult Health 1 and Psych. In total, we started with 39 in our program that was supposed to have 40 and we ended the semester with 38 (yes that means we lost 1, due to personal reasons). We were surprised our program allowed some to continue on. I say that based on the grades I know they got, but I myself may have received above average grades but I learned so very little, so maybe the low grades and my understand match and we are all in the same boat.

I'll be honest, that if it wasn't for the Fundamentals of Nursing teacher from semester 1, I would not be so jazzed about school. She was great and laid the ground work for things I will now build on.

I now will have 3 clinical days per week, which is not a big deal. I hear our undergraduate counterparts are a bunch of winy brats complaining about full day classes and expectations (hearsay).

I write you all of these feelings and experiences so that if you are going through a similar program, looking into a program or maybe in a program you think is super hard, you can relate and de-stress a tad and power on. In the end, we work as a team, so lets "get er done!"

Pre-semester hick ups

I expect to have some give and take as I sprint through my program. I however can't stand when the powers that be change our classroom meeting days 1 week before class starts and when book lists don't match teacher vs school bookstore. I wrote that somewhat confusingly because that is exactly what it is. CONFUSING!

First semester is over

My first semester is over. It was so busy that I neither had time or the brain to login here to write a post.

With no exaggeration my schedule for the first semester went:

Mon: quiz, Tuesday: quiz, Wed: quiz, Thurs: quiz, Fri: quiz...(followed by) Mon thru Fri Tests and it seesawd back and forth like that until finals. 

Many of my predecessors had said at about week 2 people would start to go crazy. I've been through some crazy things in my life and first career plus I already have a college degree so I figured it going crazy wouldn't be me. Ha!  Yes me. Week 2 day 2 or 3 I had a mental break. People close to me in class noticed and encouraged me to decompress that night. So, my break was one day. 

Our program made just about everyone break. Some longer than others but accelerated nursing school is no joke. 

The start of nursing school

I have just completed my first week of nursing school.

I'm in a unique program, some call it a bridge program, my school calls it "Entry Level." Simply, its 15 months of lots of units Pre-licensure and then an additional 2 year post licensure to obtain a Masters in Nursing.

My first week was all theory related. This quickly passed and I am getting ready to walking into my second week of class. This week I start my other classes and it is going to get real! So far, this week I need to complete 25 chapters of reading, 1 pharmacology concept map, a food study of my own intake and then my exercise.

It's particularly funny when speaking with my classmates through social media because we are all afraid of forgetting something. Either the Blackboard homework assignment over the weekend, or a specific dress requirement for different classes. It hasn't even gotten hard and we are all already stressed out.

In the end of my first week, I'm glad that I have a good group of people to learn with. There are very few in the group that drive me crazy.