pantshead: (Default)
pantshead ([personal profile] pantshead) wrote2012-08-26 10:34 am

Nursing School week 3/ #1

The summer is officially over for me--classes started on the 20th.  I had finished my summer classes on the 8th, so I did have a brief break in-between classes.  The Microbiology instructor turned out to be awesome, which made that class fun and made me feel grateful I'd happened to pick his section (apparently the other two sections running this summer were awful).  The Pharmacology class turned out okay, but I was unimpressed with the level of actual instruction provided.  It was an online class, so I understood that we'd do all of our reading on our own, but the brief on-line lectures were often typo-ridden.  The discussion sections were interesting--they were all devoted to medication errors that have happened to patients--but I wish the instructor would have posted some follow-up (such as "if a patient receives an overdose of _____, then the antidote is _____ and the most important systems to monitor would be respiratory and cardiac."  That's basically the information we were supposed to come up with during the discussions, but since we're all students and this could be life-saving information, I would have preferred an "answer key" at the end of the discussion.  Oh well.  I think online classes might not really be my thing.  I also bought myself a $4 Sociology textbook, read it, and took the CLEP exam which will exempt me from needing to take Sociology this coming Spring.

Mid-summer, I did a Clinical Elective, which is just more time on a clinical floor.  As it happened, I was actually on the same floor I'd been on in the spring, which was nice!  The Electives are a mixed group of students--some had just finished their introductory class, and some were going into their final semester.  (During the year, all the students in our clinical groups are at the same level.)  The awesome thing about the Elective was that there was NO paperwork to turn in!  We still needed to know all of our information (such as medications) but we didn't need to write it up and turn it in.  Hooray!  I might try to do another one this winter break, but I think they'll be very much in demand by then.

So, now my third semester has started.  Since I've now completed my 'Liberal Arts' requirements (see above), I will only be taking Nursing classes this year.  Our third semester is generally referred to as "Specialties," and actually involves 4 separate classes.  We take 2 at a time--I am currently taking Pediatrics and Non-Acute/Community Health.  Pediatrics is a 3.5 credit class, and Community is a 1 credit class, but I feel like Community is going to involve more work.  Each pair of classes meets for 8 weeks and then we'll swap (to Maternity and Mental Health) in mid-October.  Because of the limited timeframe, the workload is a little different, too.  We now have daily homework assignments (which we didn't have last year), daily quizzes (also a new thing), a group project in each class (blech!), and, of course, exams.  The Community group project is 50% of our grade, and involves a presentation and a paper....produced by a group of 6 people.  We'll see how all of that goes!

Our clinical days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and each week we do either Pediatrics or Community.  In Pediatrics, we'll be on a surgical floor, so generally we'll have otherwise-healthy kids who are in the hospital following a particular procedure.  We're told that we'll be spending most of our time focusing on Growth and Development--evaluating where each patient is, and helping to find ways to preserve/promote normal Growth and Development while they're in the hospital.  Although we'll provide patient-care, we can't give medications or do other procedures without the RN present (on an adult floor, the RN responsible for the patient is not with us when we give medications, but our instructor does check them).  We're also supposed to be evaluating family structures and seeing how we can help promote health for the family--giving respite to parents, teaching, etc...   Our Community clinicals are only 3 out of the possible 6 days, and we get sent to a different organization each time.  I'll be going to Urgent Care, a substance-abuse rehab, and an assisted-living facility.  These are mostly observational experiences.

Our first week started a little crazily--no Clinical, but 4-6 hours of lecture on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by our normal lectures on Thursday and Friday.  I did really poorly on the Community quiz for the week, which was frustrating and of course led me to immediately think "I'm going to fail this class!"  which is (I hope!) a ridiculous over-reaction.  I'm looking forward to starting Clinical next week--I have Pediatrics first--but of course am a little nervous as well:  New instructor, new floor so I don't really know where anything is, etc...  One of the great things about having finished my Liberal Arts classes is that I don't have classes on Mondays this semester.  I have plenty of homework, though, and I'm glad of the extra time to do it!

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