Did I REALLY sign up for this??

So today was the halfway mark in clinicals, three down, three to go and we've only got like 7 more weeks until semester 2 is over, but I have to make a confession.   I still don't feel like I know a darn thing!  I just don't feel like I'm studying enough & learning enough.  I mean seriously, I just don't see myself being able to see a patient any time soon, hell when it came to assessing my patient I had to go to last semester's book & look up some things to assess (& I wasn't the only one)......Am I ever going to feel like I actually know something? Please tell me there are other nurses out there who felt like this at first, but now they are seasoned nurses who know EVERYTHING!!  Ok, I know you don't know everything, but at least you know stuff, right?  Nerves are kicking in!!  Maybe I should study a bit more you say?  I agree!!  Thanks for the advice... Blessings,

Today was my first "real" clinical day.  I was able to work alone (which I much prefer) with my patient and I have to say I REALLY enjoyed this.  Of course, although I was the only one responsible for my patient I was sure to help out my fellow students when they needed it.  And I have to say they are all pretty great!  We have 7 people in our clinical group & I am so glad that we all get along & help each other out, I feel really blessed to be with this group of people.  Of course like I said in my last post, our actual "hands on" patient time today was only around an hour & a half. Once again we were in pre-conference from 6:30-8:00, we then had to go & sort out our medications which took until about 9:30 for all of us to get done & by the time I got my patient out of activity & finished her assessment it was 11:00, which is their lunch time.  So then  about 11:30 or so we all went to lunch where we stayed until 1:00!!!  ...

This week is our wonderful  miniscule fall break.  We actually only get 2 days of fall break, but luckily our teacher gave us a break & is giving us Friday as well, yay! Of course in the middle of our break is our 2nd clinical on Thursday.  Speaking of which, last week we had our first clinical and I have to say it kind of went how I thought & it kind of didn't. First of all, the actual "hands on" patient time was shorter than I expected seeing as our professor kept us in pre-conference from 6:30 to almost 8:00 & then we were in lunch from 11:00 to like 12:30, and when we went back upstairs we had to report BACK downstairs for post conference at 1:00.  So much for 6:30-2:30 & a 30 minute lunch.  Now don't get me wrong, I am TOTALLY not complaining about this, actually I was very happy with this arrangement, I'm just mentioning it.  Second, it wasn't as boring as I thought but there was quite a bit of walking around checking to see if ot...

Ok so for all of my nursey students/followers or for anyone that wants to read a REALLY great blog.  You seriously need to head over to  "Life in the Clinic"  and follow it.  This is written by a fantastic pediatric NP! She writes about interesting cases, frustrating job experiences and just every day things that us nursing students will probably one day deal with, plus she pretty stinking smart! So, seriously, why are you still reading this blog?  Head over there RIGHT NOW & check it out!!! :D

Honestly I just don't even know where to begin.  Just trying to type this post makes me want to pull my hair out!! Here goes anyway, in Pharm we have this teacher that lectures instead of teaches.  Lecturing is all fine & well if you're teaching PSYCHOLOGY but this is a SCIENCE course with actual working parts of the body and responses that we need to UNDERSTAND.  Don't just lecture to us, tell us to read the 26 chapters & then expect us to teach this to ourselves!!  I have literally been on the verge of tears AND in tears all day today over the frustration that is our Pharmacology class.  Then on top of no explanation of what we're supposed to be learning, we only have FOUR, count them FOUR grades in the whole class & two of them are the midterm & the final.  So what do we get to study for the midterm?  A test bank of 270 possible questions that we have to answer ourselves and then HOPE that we have chosen the correct answer & ...

So after my last post there was definitely some drama that ensued over the whole sharing fiasco.  One girl (one of the non-sharers) even blocked me from seeing content on her FB, lol.  Probably because when she posted "Will.Never.Happen.Again" I posted under that "Agreed".  I mean seriously, people's selfishness never ceases to surprise me BUT what I did learn from this experience is that some people need to be kept at arm's length.  I try really hard to stay OUT of the drama, which unfortunately there is plenty of.  I just don't understand why though.  Believe me nursing school is hard enough without creating extra drama.  I got some really good advice from a 3rd semester.  She told me to stay away from certain people and stay off of FB!! Well, although I do like that advice, our class communicates a lot through FB.  We have a specific FB page just for our semester & then we have one for the nursing program.  It really is a great to...