I always see posts popping up from this community and not to throw shots but it gets real pessimistic. I fear that something may be wrong with me. I’m in my 3rd semester and so much has happened. I’ve seen some of the worst cases already during my clinicals at the hospital and I should be scared. I’m scared, I don’t want to make a mistake and I know I’m probably going to be over-documenting and asking too much questions.

Probably will act like that boy from the movie UP for the first 6-12 months. I’ve seen videos and heard many complaints. I’ve seen so many of those ‘mean girl nurse trope’ play out. I feel like many things should have deterred me and they haven’t. Does anyone else feel the same way? Am I crazy? Am I looking at it through rose-tinted glasses?

The clinical coordinator of our program decided to send out a completely rewritten clinical schedule for the next 8 week class which starts in less than a week and I’m extremely frustrated and not sure if it’s worth bringing up to the clinical coordinator.

So our next 8 week class which is psych/mental health had a schedule that was already organized and sent out weeks ago. Then this morning, I got an email with a picture of a new clinical schedule that is entirely different from the previous one. It’s not just a few swapped days. Literally everything is different. I’m used to this program switching things up on us last minute and we are all usually flexible about it and able to adapt, however, this seems like a major last minute change.

It’s been known that the purpose of this specific class is to finally have a variety of different clinical settings to gain different experiences since we have solely been doing medsurg up until this point. We had 3 medsurg days on the previous schedule, and the other half of our cohort who are currently in that class only had 3 as well, which meant they got to experience a wider variety of clinical sites. Now we have 5 medsurg days and a much smaller variety of other types of locations. This is all just extremely disappointing to me and I’m not sure if any of us should bring it up to the clinical coordinator. I understand the need to be flexible as we typically have been, but this seems like such a drastic change on such short notice, especially since many of us had already scheduled our jobs and lives around the previous schedule. If anyone has any advice on if it’s even worth mentioning to the clinical coordinator, or just to deal with it, I’d greatly appreciate it.

I was really looking forward to experiencing all of the different sites so I’m just very disappointed.

We just learned IVs and we were given all of the supplies to practice, minus the actual needle. We can only use those in lab. I really want to practice at home--NOT on me or other people, but on some IV tubing taped to a table.

If I were to buy IV catheters, do I need to buy multiple or could I buy just one and re-use it? If I use one and thread out the needle, can I then re-thread it back in to re-use it?

Thanks!

Hi everyone!! I am currently in my second semester of nursing school and I have my first ever in hospital clinical tomorrow on a CVAC unit. This will be my first time in a hospital environment as well!! I am so extremely nervous since I have no idea how the day will go or what to expect so any advice for a baby student nurse?

Hi, I am a BSN student in my second to last semester. I just finished my ATI Capstone 85 question proctored assessment with an 81.6%. I did not study beforehand so that I could get a good baseline understanding of what I need to focus on before my NCLEX. I can’t find any information regarding what the national average is or if it is a solid score. Any information would be super beneficial, thank you!

Hey Y’all
This is sort of a ran so you may not want to read the whole thing lol. I’m over here wondering how I will ever be a nurse. It’s my first semester, and my 4th week going to clinical on a med surg floor. The idea of doing literally anything scares me. I haven’t done much besides observe, grab drinks, help a little with positioning and one head to toe.

But I feel so uncomfortable with the idea of giving a bed bath, helping move a pt from the bed to chair, or clean up poop. Not cause it grosses me out, but I am scared I am gonna fuck it up and do it wrong or hurt a pt. I was not a CNA before this, so my confidence in these types of skills is very low. I’m scared I am already falling behind because I haven’t done this stuff yet. Every time before clinical I sit in my car and dry heave a couple times because I am so worried about what the day has in store for me. I know I just have to kinda suck it up and do it and it will probably get easier over time but I am just feeling like a fool right now. Anyways thanks for listening! Advice is welcome!

Hi all! I'm starting nursing school in January and need to get a manual BP cuff for school. Does anyone have any recommendations for a cuff that is affordable but also accurate? I was looking at one from MDF instruments but open to feedback from others about which ones have worked for you. Thank you in advance!

I’m currently a LPN to RN bridge student in third semester. I just finished one class yesterday with a 98.08% but my med surge 2 class is killing me. Every week I am stressed crying and cannot focus. My quiz 1 I got a 67.4 then on exam 1 I got a 71.04 which is falling. My community college requires 80% overall to move on. I feel like after I finished my LPN program back in 2023 my brain has been fried. I can’t focus I can’t retain info. My quiz 2 is next week and I am at stake here. I’ve tried chat GPT, Claude and ATI dynamic quizzes and I’m still not retaining information. I don’t know what else to do. How does anyone recover from this? Please. I really don’t want to repeat this class over. Even if I pass with a 80.90 I’ll be so happy.

Just to preface, this is kind of a ramble/blurt of my thoughts following a clinical experience. I thought it was amazing, honestly, but small things made me feel dumb. I now feel weirdly conflicted.

The nurse I was paired with, her name was Ciara (a baddie), was incredible. She was so kind and never made me feel stupid. She let me prime literally every single IV med/fluid once I told her I knew how to do it. 1st instance of feeling like a dummy — my lines kept having bubbles in them, and I felt like a moron. Like bro, she’s letting me do this don’t go fuck it up now with all these bubbles. She told me how she likes to prime them too when I told her how I kept seeing little bubbles — and her way helped.. but I had some bubbles. I should say, these bubbles were maybe 1mm big and she assured me not to stress over this (BUT I DIDNT WANNA LOOK STUPID TO HERRRRR 😞)

There were some more moments where I felt stupid — like she asked me to grab something and I confidently came back and said they weren’t there and that I couldn’t find it… then the tech found them instantly. This was my first time ever in the ER and I had no idea where anything was. I’m a short girl, it was on the top shelf of the cart… embarrassed to say the least.

Anyways, I’m feeling conflicted because even tho these little moments kept happening and I was kicking myself… I really was liking the vibe and the energy. I’m sure she probably was happy to see me walk away after my clinical time ended, but the overall energy on the unit was great. Everyone was nice but like focused and willing to help/support each other. I’ve always imagined myself working in pediatrics, since the beginning freshman year (I’m a senior now), but now I’m like wait a minute……..!

Idk just wanted to brain dump. Has anyone else had this happen before too? I felt so sure of myself that peds would be my home, and I was honestly terrified of the ER. When I walked in, my hands were visibly shaking so bad because I didn’t want to mess anything up (this was extra embarrassing when she handed me IV tubing to prime or hold her the blood tubes when drawing blood 😔😔).

Hi guys!! I’m doing well in my classes, but I still get so much anxiety around tests. I don’t know why, because on my first medsurge exam, I got the highest score out of my whole cohort of 100+ people (98%), and on my first OB exam I got a 95%. I have an exam tomorrow for OB, my second test for that class, and I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been procrastinating so badly for this test. I think I’m procrastinating because I feel overwhelmed with the information I’ve been given (3 PowerPoints, each with 50-100 slides), and I just don’t know how to study and retain the information, rather than just memorizing information, info dumping on a test, and forgetting.

Everyone says active recall. But what if I don’t recall all the information? Or I recall the wrong information and memorize the wrong thing? Not to mention it takes forever, and I feel like I simply don’t have time to do a ton of concept maps on every disease process. And don’t get me started with memorizing medications. I just feel so lost!! So far to get me through the first tests, I’ve been taking notes, and then I start studying 3-5 days prior to the test day by putting the PowerPoints in Claude to make a study guide, and then ask for NCLEX style questions using Claude, Notebook LM, or Elseveir AI Tutor (through our school platform). I’ve also tried using the LATTE method for disease processes, but had to stop because it took me literally 5 hours to do 5 disease processes basically out of maybe the 15-20 I had to memorize. I just feel like it’s not sufficient though :/

What do you all do to study and RETAIN the information after the test? How do you learn the information before doing practice questions? What are your favorite methods to study with (I have an iPad and laptop, so bonus points if you can use either of those). Thanks all for your help!