What is nursing school?

Revised: 2/4/11

I have revised my nursing school document as I am now in my last semester!

Note: This will feel completely overwhelming if you don't know anything about nursing school yet. If you feel overwhelmed by it, save it or bookmark it. You'll want to look at it again once you start getting close to these semesters.

First Semester you are known as J1s (Big secret: Junior 1 students.. :) )

• You have 2 clinical sections. One is in concepts and one is in assessment. You are sectioned into these clinical groups by the nursing school's whim (as far as we could tell). We're pretty sure it was completely random, so no luck getting to pick where or when you'll have clinical!
• The concepts clinical is around 6 hours long. We started it in our 4th week (But some other sections were in lab for the first half of the semester and then were in clinical for the 2nd half). In the weeks leading up to starting going to the hospital, you have concepts labs where they will teach you what to do. In this clinical you give bed baths, do assessments, take patient histories, and learn the basics of patient care. You give medications with the assistance of your instructor once you have passed the medication exam which we took in our 5th week. We had 6 clinical days scattered throughout the semester. When we didn't have clinical in a week, we had a lab or a check off (which is a test of skills, basically).
• Assessment class is mixed in with assessment labs. So your class/lab day for assessment is one big day. Ours were scheduled for Wednesdays from 800-1530. Assessment is all about learning how to do a physical assessment on someone. We had a check-off in the 4th week, 8th week, and 14th week. Scattered in there were 3 clinical days which are 4 1/2 hours long.
• For both Concepts and Assessment, you also have simulation days where you get to work with these cool dummies that breathe and stuff! They aren't scary!
• Along with the Assessment class/lab/clinical and Concepts lab/clinical, you also have the Concepts class and Pharmacology. These are both on one day (our's were on Tuesdays) and you'll have one of them for 3 hours in the morning, an hour for lunch, and the other for 3 hours in the afternoon.
• For me, Assessment was way easy, Concepts was challenging in part, and Pharmacology was the most challenging of all (because I'm bad with words). With Pharmacology, the teacher Dr. Tapler tells you or gives you everything you need to know. So just pay attention. I didn't use the Pharmacology book during the Pharmacology class, but I used it quite a bit in my second semester to understand the inner-workings of the drug classifications.

[Note: This is how they ran our Assessment class. I have heard that they now do it online without a clinical component.]

2nd Semester-- J2

• Your two big classes this semester are Women's Health and Adult I. They are both clinical courses, as well. The lecture portion of these classes share a day. So on Wednesdays we had Adult in the morning from 900-1200 and then Women's in the afternoon from 1-4. In your second week you have a skills lab for Women's health and clinical orientation for Adult I. Adult I handles the basic disease processes that adults go through. Women's health is another way of saying Labor & Delivery and all things leading up to it and away from it.
• We started our Adult I clinical in the 3rd week. It's a 7 1/2 hour clinical day (which included the time spent in post conference talking about your day). We had 8 total clinical days. These were mixed with simulation days, labs (to learn the stuff), and check-offs to make sure you know your stuff.
• For Women's you go to clinical for 12 hours every other week. So we had 5 total clinical days. On your off weeks, you don't have clinical!
• If you are starting nursing school in the fall, you'll also have 3 online courses that go a long with this semester. They are Aging, Research, and Groups (well some people have groups in class, others online).
• Aging is a wonderful experience. There is minimal work involved each week. You have an interview with an elderly person you know who you aren't related to and an 8-10 page paper about the experience. You have a midterm exam and a final exam.
• I took Groups online. It involved quizzes and discussion board posts. My roommates took it in class and enjoyed it. They also offered an accelerated form of Groups where you were done in the first 2 weeks of class. I know this made the first 2 weeks harder, but then you were done and didn't have to think about it!
• Research was a disaster for our class. The instructor didn't tell you what she wanted you to do for the assignments and it really seemed like she tried to make it close to a graduate level course. I made a 78 on the midterm (And that is not anywhere near the ballpark of the grades I'm used to making). Apparently people cheated on the midterm so we had to take the final at the school. The tests are opened book, which seems like it would make it easier but most of the questions cannot be found on one single page of the book. There are like 5 critical thinking components in each question so you have to have read and know the book. I ended up getting an A in the course and that's what others who have gone before us have said: It sucks to take the course, but you end up getting about a full letter grade about what you think you will.

3rd Semester-- S1 (Senior 1)

• There are 3 big classes. Adult II, Child Health, and Mental Health. On Monday we had Child Health from 9-12 in the morning and on Tuesday we had Adult II from 9-12 and then Mental Health from 1-4. For the first 2 weeks, we had labs on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Then you begin your clinical rotations.
• For 11 of the 15 class weeks, I had an activity for Child Health. I had 3 inpatient days at my child health hospital (6.5 hours/day), 4 alternative site(about 5 hours each), and 2 simulation days (about 3 hours each) PLUS the labs/orientations the first 2 weeks of school.
• For Adult, 9 clinical weeks where you are actually in clinical at your hospital for 8 hours each clinical. You also have simulations/labs for 4 other days during the semester. So you have a clinical component for 13 of the 15 regular class weeks.
• For Mental Health, 11 out of the 15 weeks of school you are in clinical or lab. My clinical days lasted for 5.5 hours.
• When you look at this, it looks like you have something just about 5 days a week for most of the weeks of the semester. I had my pediatric clinical on Mondays after pediatric class. This made for a long Monday, but I had 3 days a week off instead of 2.

• Adult II is the critical care stuff of adults. I had half of my clinical days in a Medical Surgical setting and then half in different ICU settings.
• Mental Health is the interesting class that most people fear. It was a good experience. The hospital I was at did not have acutely ill patients, only those with chronic conditions. With that being said, I was not ever afraid in the clinical setting and mental illness was not something I was comfortable with prior to starting this rotation.
• Child Health is pretty self explanatory. You learn about pediatric nursing and what it entails.

• This is an INCREDIBLY busy semester! You feel like you have NO time, but you need to learn how to function this way in order to be a good nurse. Figure out how to stay organized & you'll make it through.

4th Semester-- S2
This semester, you have Leadership & Management, Community Health, and Critical Competency Integration. Community Health and CCI have clinical attachments, Leadership & Managment does not.

• Leadership & Management is mostly online. We will only have in-class lecture 5 times this semester. There are 3 tests (one is the final). You learn about the laws of nursing in Texas and about the details of management in nursing like staffing & other things.
• Community Health is for learning how to think about health in a community setting (surprise, surprise). It is WAY different than how they have thought you to think about health in the case of an individual patient. You have 2 major projects in this class: A 10 page paper called a Windshield Survey and a Community Assessment Group Project. There are also 3 tests in this class (one of which is the final).
• CCI doesn't really have a classroom component. You have Case Study days where you sit through lectures about certain diagnoses, but you don't have a set day that you go to class.
• Community Health clinical has you precepted by a school nurse. You have clinical activities (either with your school nurse or at school) every week except for the week of HESI.
• CCI clinical involves you having either a preceptor (a certain nurse with whom you complete 120 clinical hours) or a group clinical experience where you have a set day of the week where you go to clinical like normal, still for 120 total hours. If you are precepted, it is up to you to get in your total number of clinical hours, you make your schedule based off of the schedule your nurse works.

• I cannot say for certain yet, but I think the trouble this semester comes from a mixture of strange things that happen this semester:

1. Studying for HESI (because you're scared to death of failing it. Ours is March 28th).
2. Looking for, applying for, and interviewing for jobs.
3. Senioritis.

Also...

You will take a HESI placement test each semester, and two in Senior I (Med-Surg & Pediatrics). The HESI you take in Senior II is the Exit HESI and you get 2 chances to pass it before graduation. You must pass this test to graduate. If you don't pass it in 2 chances, you take a remedial course & take it one last time. If you pass it this time, you graduate but with the next graduating class. If you fail it... I'm not sure what happens. I don't know if they have ever mentioned it...

Some closing words??

1. Nursing school is much more challenging than the prerequisite courses.
2. It is emotionally draining, but completely doable.
3. Each semester I take a look back and say "Oh that wasn't that bad."
4. To keep from being overwhelmed, figure out what your detox will be. Mine is Seth, my fiancé. He reminds me that it's not that bad. I make sure and set aside enough time to talk with him.
5. One thing that I'm going to try to do better this semester is give myself more days at home with my parents. It is so easy for me to say that I'm too busy to go see them and then 2 months go by.
6. If you have good time management skills, you will do great! I need to work on it!
7. I suggest making a word document that has all of the assignments/tasks you need to get accomplished each and every day at the beginning of the semester. If you want an example, let me know!