Welcome to your fundamentals class! Here is where you finally feel like a nursing student. You will get more hands-on and lots of material to learn and review.
Let’s start with lecture class. The first week of the class seemed intense, it seemed like we were already behind a week. Here you will have many ATI’s, medication cards, and group projects. Immediately after class, we had about 7 ATI’S due along with medication cards within 48 hours of starting class. Doesn’t seem bad but we still had lab class to attend. I had lab Friday and Saturday. These two days consist of 8 hour days with a 45-minute lunch. By the time we’re out of class. I feel mentally drained, it’s a lot of information coming at you.
Im not going to lie theres so many ATI’s that are constantly due that I feel by the time I catch up, we are learning something new! But, if you manage and plan out your days you are able to keep up! Keep in mind that I am very busy, commuting takes away from my study time. I also manage a small online business, have an instagram platform and a part time job. In addition to taking my honors classes and staying on top of that homework. So stay with me, I know if I lived closer I would have an additional 2-3 hours to get ahead. However, I am determined and will never complain about the drive, my Father commuted for thirteen years to San Diego for work he also had two jobs and worked seven days a week and is a mechanic on the side and never once complained so I have nothing to complain about. Can you see where my strong work/school ethics come from. Latino parents I tell ya! They are very hard workers!
Back to fundies, I will say clinical is more exciting! We get to practice all that we are reading and learning in class. Get ready to learn your insulins, give injections as well as inserting G-tubes! Thats right! Doesn’t that sound like fun! Well it was, I finally felt like a nurse! I finally understood what all those knobs are used for when using oxygen and although injecting a hot dog was fun, I’m glad that I learned this part in medical assistant school. But don’t worry it’s not as scary as it seems its probably one of my favorite things to do besides blood draws!
In this class you also get to play with the SIMS, which if you don’t know it’s that creepy doll that yells at you when your frantically trying to figure out whats wrong with your patient, while having the professor watch you from behind a screen. It sounds scary but it did make me realize that I need to study more! That’s right as if I don’t study enough there’s more studying to add on. It’s not a bad thing though you begin to realize how you can apply your knowledge on patient care. This SIMS lab was actually really fun in the end, you laughed at your mistakes and get this – the entire thing is recorded and you get to watch it live in front of your classmates! I had a good laugh, I noticed the mistakes I was making and it helped me in the end see how I could have better approached the situation we were given.
This last week I started clinicals at a Skilled Nursing Facility and was scary and exciting at the same time! Ready to find out how clincials went? That will be my next blog! Until next time! I promise I wont have such a large gap in-between, it’s all those ATI’s that take up my time! 🙂
The Latina Nurse 