Next Semester Preparation!

As this semester comes to a close and you prepare for winter break, here are some things to consider for next semester.

1. Don't stop studying. This is something I wish I did. Material from first semester will follow you throughout the program. You will always need to know how to prepare a shot - what needle to pick, what syringe and what site. That will never leave you so the more you review the material the better next semester will go.
2. Try to shadow. Also something I wish I did. Even now I wish I had to talked to someone in the area I want to go into. I wish I had someone to talk to and use as a reference for the area I want to go into.
3. Work on dosage calculation. This will be one every test from here until forever. The dosage calculation does not get easier and knowing conversions is always helpful. There was things I had to reteach myself which is not fun.
4. Have a relaxing break. You can only handle so much stress. Next semester and this semester both have stress. A break from that will benefit both you mind and body.
5. Take the time for family and friends. During the semester it is all about school. Now you have the time to hang out and catch up with family. 

Preparing for a shot. Taken from Morguefile,com.

Conquering the Head to Toe

The dreaded end of the first semester, head to toe time has arrived. The head to toe is the practicum final for health assessment and consists of doing an assessment on a person in front of your professor. The best advice I can give is as follows:

1. Get a partner and stick with them. They do not have to be in nursing school, but get someone who has free time to come with you at a set test time in the nursing building to be your "patient" for the assessment. Pick someone who you can work with and who you are comfortable with. You will be doing a lot of hands on things with them.
2. Write out everything you have to cover. She gives you a list of the assessments you must cover. For me I took this list and hand wrote what each assessment involved and put an order to it of doing them starting from the head and working my way day. I took the list when I was done and memorized it before I even practiced on my partner.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Doing this assessment live is very nerve-wracking, The more you practice the less you will forget. It is as simple as that.
4. I personally, signed up for the assessment at one of the first spots so I could get it over with and not have to worry about it finals week. Finals week is stressful enough without adding this to it. Again, this is a personal preference, but something I thought was very helpful.
5. Breathe. Relax. Your professor knows how hard these are and is not looking to be mean. They are there to grade you but also to help you and make sure you are learning. They understand what this is like and can answer questions you have before you start.

Picture of the anatomy that the head to toe
assesses. Taken from morguFiles.com

Advisement Advice

For the second and third semesters of nursing school, the junior class will get split in half. One half doing this set of classes and the other doing another. The classes will switch for the third semester. The choices the juniors face is whether to do medical surgical nursing and psychiatric nursing first or to do obstetrics, pediatrics and older adult nursing first.

I personally chose to do the med-surg and psych half first for a couple of reasons. One I am very interested in pursuing a career in the obstetric world, therefore, I wanted to save those clinicals last. I planned my clinical groups to purposefully have the ob clinicals last and at Freeman. When I was doing the med-surg semester, I choose to do those clinicals the first half of the semester and the pscyh clincials the second half. Mainly because med-surg ones are more days and longer days then the psych ones. I wanted to end my semester with the less time consuming of the two clinicals. I really felt like this benefited my schedule. It helped me to have extra time during the week to do projects and to stay caught up my school work.

Another reason, I choose to do my med-surg/psych semester first was because the drugs we learned about in med-surg matched up with the pharmacology class that all the juniors take. Now this does not apply to this groups class. My year takes two pharm classes: one second semester and one third. The year below me will be taking one class that is the combination of the two of mine. I have not gotten a straight answer of which semester this class will be in for them, but my suggestion is to do med-surg that semester.

Either way you do it, you will complete all the classes. Some of my classmate are in med-surg now so that they have the material fresh for when you take advanced med-surg in your fourth semester of nursing school. This has worked well for them, but they struggled through pharm last semester compared to us who were in med-surg then.

Obstetrics and Pediatrics

VS.

Psyciatric and Medical Surgical

                 

Surviving Finals Week

Finals week for nursing school can be a little stressful. For one we do NOT in any way shape or form really follow the main campus finals schedule. The only two classes in the program that do are the ones you can take before being admitted into the program and for that fact they have to follow main campus. The classes I am referring to are Health Promotion and Pathophysiology. With this being said, my first advice for finals week is to know your schedule. Know where you will have to be and when to take all your finals. Since we do not follow main campus, these are normally listed in your syllabus or will be talked about in class.

The next thing to remember for nursing school is to study for one test at a time. Since we do not follow main campus, the professors work together on the finals schedule. This can happen because we are all in those same classes, so everyone knows what everyone else is doing in terms of when the finals are. The make sure they are spaced apart enough to give you normally at least a day to study for each test.

Take advantage of the study guides and hints each professor gives out. Some tell you a lot about the final and others do not. Take advantage of any and all information to better condense your study material into what is most important.

Finally, not only are you going to be taking finals, but for some classes you have to take and pass and ATI test. Normally studying for these is basically studying for your final as well. For ATI tests, take advantage of practice tests and the books that we had to buy. The books condense the material as well as give you practice questions.

Finally, good luck to everyone on their finals and ATI. You will do great!

Finals week material for nursing school is
normally this high in the amount of books.

Midterm Check Up

In our nursing program, we don't really give midterms - I have only taken one so far. Although, every week feels like midterms. We take so many tests and some the materials just build upon one another. In your first semester, there is the typical four or five tests per class. There is also an additional three dosage calculation tests. These tests are over how to calculate how many pills to give, how much to draw up in a syringe, what to rate an IV at, etc. These tests are very important in terms of your future career, but also within the program. In order to be able to give  medications in the hospital setting you have to pass these with a 90% or above. The first time you take it, that is your grade in the grade book, but if you do not make to 90% mark you have two more chances to pass it to be able to pass medications.

With these added dosage calculation tests and some classes being more than four test, you will average about one test per week. Even now that I am in my third semester, I still average about one test a week, sometimes more. This means that no one week is harder or easier than another and the stress can just pill on with no relief. So my suggestion for this week, as it is fall break, is to take advantage of this easy week. I use fall break to destress and recollect myself for the rest of the semester, but to also get things done. I try and split my time between relaxing and being productive enough to set myself up for an easier rest of the semester.

As a way to destress, I take pictures as a hobby. This is a sample of
one of my pictures.This was taken at the Overland Park Arboretum. 

Clinical Tips!

Since last week the juniors started clinicals, I figured now would be a good time for some tips and tricks. Clinicals can be very nerve racking and can cause a lot of stress. So here are some things to hopefully help lower that stress level.

1. Pack everything the night before. I know this might seem like somethings a little kid would do, but it really does help. My first semester I had to leave Pittsburg at 5:30 in the morning. Finding things that early in the morning is no easy task so having everything ready can be really helpful.
2. Eat breakfast. This is especially important for those people that are observing surgery. Surgery is a lot of standing and blood sugars can lower fast without breakfast which leads to fainting. No one wants to faint in the operating room (OR) or even on the floor caring for patients. Some tacks can be a lot of physical work so a good breakfast is really beneficial.
3. Breathe. Everything will be fine. You will not be required to do anything that you haven't been taught about. Your clinical instructor or another nurse will normally always be by your side. No one is comfortable on their first day so know that you are not alone.
4. Be proactive. Some clinicals locations will use clinicals times as a sort of interview. So seek out new experiences. This will also be the way you will learn best. Some nurses if they see you are actively wanting to learn they will seek you out when something cool is going to happen on the floor.
5. You never master a skill. Never think you are above learning - even as a nurse. There will always be new things to learn and new ways to do things. Even things like communication can always be changing. You will eventually be comfortable with tasks, but healthcare is always changing and evolving.

This is an example of an IV that just got started on a patient.
This photo belongs to morguefile.com.

Testing!

Since this week the juniors have their first round of tests and both halves of the senior class does as well, I thought I would give some advice.

1. The instructors are human. They do make mistakes when keying in answers or computing dosage calculations. It happens. Be nice about it and talk to them and they normally are willing to give points back - some do before you even get results back.
2. Always look over your tests when they hand them back. They are great learning tools for the final and for NCLEX (the exam you have to pass to get your nursing license).
3. Study as you go. Most professors have large amounts of material for each exam and there is not way to cram in one night. Study a little every day and it won't be so daunting.
4. Read ATI (a company that offers tests and books to go with nursing school and to prepare for the NCLEX) and do the questions. I suggest reading the book as well, but if you don't have time for that supplement with ATI. ATI has the cliff notes version of the book with NCLEX style questions and answers at the end of each chapter. They also give you rationales.
5. Rationales are your best friend. Not only does it help to understand why another answer is better than another, it also gives you additional information sometimes that is useful knowledge. 
6. Pick the most correct answer. Some nursing questions have all technically right answers, but the answer they want is the most correct. Meaning the one that has the most evidence based practice, you would do first, etc.
7. Keep all of your powerpoints and handouts. They will be very useful for the final studying as well as resources for studying for NCLEX. 
8. And finally BREATH... I know testing is stressful, but to perform at your best relaxing and taking a break helps your brain to soak up the information. A big thing is breathing and calming down your nerves.

An example of the difference in size between ATI books
and textbooks.Utilizing the ATI books help point out
the important information in the unit.