Friday, January 28, 2011

Week 1 of Nursing School


This has got to have been one of the longest weeks of my entire life. 
Nursing school has been quite the experience for me so far, from lectures, labs, class pictures to reading and more reading.

We’ve watch video’s of HIPAA, Proper Hand Washing techniques, PPE, just basic CNA stuff to eventually check off that we have those skills learned and can perform them before we head out on our clinical sites at nursing homes in a few weeks.

Pharmacology seems like it’ll be interesting and fun, so far that textbook looks to be the most interestingly written.

We haven’t gotten our full scrub uniforms yet and neither do we have our stethoscopes but we supposedly won’t need them right away anyway.  They’re expected to come in a few weeks.

We’re learning about communication and the initial interview with the patient and how to control our emotions and facial gestures when we hear of outrageous stories for the first time.  They actually want us to go home and practice looking cool, calm and collective in the mirror.

Ultimately my first impression this week is difficult to put into words but I can’t help but feel like I’m still an outsider looking in this big world of Nursing.  I feel like I’m a little girl wearing my mother’s dressy clothes and fancy shoes and basically just playing the part of nurse and someone will find out that I’m not right for the job.  I am going to keep trudging on and not allow those negative thoughts take over my brain.  Oh and also I have to say the upperclassmen are quite snobbish, they don’t seem welcoming or friendly to us lowly underclassmen and they have ugly looks on their faces when we walk by.  What’s up with that??  Oh well, upwards and onwards to week 2.

6 comments:

  1. Don't feel like an outsider looking in, you are now part of the nursing community and will always be learning. The scariest thing I run across in hospitals are nurses that think they know it all.

    Too bad the upperclassmen made you feel that way, but remember that feeling in the coming years when your the upperclassmen.

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  2. "I feel like I’m a little girl wearing my mother’s dressy clothes and fancy shoes and basically just playing the part of nurse"

    This describes how I feel exactly!

    Seems like you had a pretty interesting first week. We can do this!!

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  3. NPO, I keep trying to tell myself that I am part of the nursing community but it still seems hard to accept mentally. Maybe during my exercise of looking into the mirror I can tell myself "Hi my name is nurse Zazzy" over and over until I start to believe it.
    Oh maybe I'll have a special club with the underclassmen and make them a cake for their first week so they feel much more welcomed than we did. I can't blame them too much though; maybe their workload is overwhelming too.

    IJM, I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling so overwhelmed and scatterbrained this week. Sounds like you have a lot on your plate too. I like your attitude, we can get through this!

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  4. They're not snobs they are overwhelmed, tired and freaking out too! ;-) Tunnel vision forms when you can see that light appearing and the stress keeps coming.

    Ah those first weeks of nuring school... oh how I miss the. LOL NOT!!

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  5. Zazzy, doll, I has to laugh when I read this: "Oh and also I have to say the upperclassmen are quite snobbish, they don’t seem welcoming or friendly to us lowly underclassmen and they have ugly looks on their faces when we walk by." I though the exact same thing the semester before I applied to nursing school about the students in my program. I promised myself that when I got in, i wouldn't walk about with my nose in the air and a stick up my ass like they seemed to.
    It wasn't until I got to know some of them that I realized that they weren't trying to be snobby or bitchy [well...okay...MOST of them weren't trying to be snobby]. It's like Christine said, they were just overwhelmed and they didn't think of the other students looking up to them.
    Or it could be that they are jealous of ya'lls' wide-eyed optimism and that you and your classmates haven't become bitter and jaded like they have about the whole idea of nursing. ;)

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