Knowledge deficit r/t nursing tests

I can't wait for co-op when I have actual situations to blog about! As one may deduce, I am currently (stuck) in classes, and it is the most hellish finals week. It's almost like I downed 18 pints of ice cream with Tabasco sauce, pepper, olive oil, and Montreal seasoning all at once.

I cautiously crawl to my (MAT-NEWBORN!) nursing final seat, clutch one of my 9 number two pencils as if my deathly grip would save me, and stare blankly at my scribbled notes written 20 minutes ago of "things I probably should know by now". I get the scantron. Oh joy of my life. They should make a scantron for the partially blind LIKE MYSELF. I try to fill in my ID number in the correct box, but I'm like an old dementia-ridden lady squinting for that lousy box. I'm about to call a search party, but HARK! There it is! Student ID. Unfortunately I don't remember my ID.

I spent approximately an hour with the always-fun double negative questions with all right answers (but which is the best, they keep asking me), with such winners as (paraphrased, of course) "what would one not not always avoid to not prevent transmission not not not," and, "A, B, C, annnnd D are all right, please choose what my favorite color is. Maybe I'll throw in an E option for FUN!" I look up from my scantron, and the entire room is one huge blob of color. I seriously cannot make out anything. The room temp is a startling ~60 degrees, and I'm noticing my fingers going numb. MORE COLD TO FOCUS, JUST PRETEND YOU ARE SOVIET, KELLY!, I say to myself. I get back to my test for an additional hour, really obsessive-compulsive checking it.

Finally, my moment of glory! Passing it in! YES! Until I notice one of my legs is asleep, all fingers are numb, and I can't see anything. There is also an unusually large step to get to the desk to pass it in, not like I could see it at the time. Getting up is always awkward for me- if my butt crack covered? Will she think I am cheating if I pack my pencils and put on my backpack first? I decide to pass in the test first.

I take an exceedingly awkward first step (my leg is still asleep), and wince. I proceed to trip a little on my pins-and-needles leg. Like a true soldier, I battle onwards! I get up to the step I didn't see and trip, but that's okay. I'm sure my depth perception will come back once I get out of this room. I finally hand in my test and scantron, cursing at my lack of contraceptive knowledge (CATHOLIC SCHOOL!).


Nursing tests are painful, you guys! It's not like physics where it's 1. all math, and 2. you can get a 50 and it's still an A. The C is the new A in nursing school. Nobody bumps up grades even if you are painfully close.

Why isn't there a comprehensive test of actual knowledge? All the NCLEX tests is how well one can take an NCLEX style test, with a little bit of information thrown in for kicks. I think a practical skills exam would make so much more sense, because let's face it- when I get out of here, I am going to have NO IDEA what happens in an ICU. They call med-surg "acutely ill adult"? What? I want a "super duper acutely deathly ill on vents adult" course. The closest I'll get to that is my preceptorship, which word on the street is that you should know what you are doing before you show up in your nice freshly-ironed scrubs. ICU care (which I may be baised, but I see it as the most important care) is so different from taking the NCLEX. You need actual knowledge base in the ICU, and just knowing how to take NCLEX tests isn't going to get me there.

I have to awkwardly and abruptly end this post because I need to study for my last final- statistics (99.998% useless! Accept the null hypothesis and that Kelly COULD kill herself if this course needs to be repeated). Hopefully my vision will recover some day.

And apparently every nurse loves writing about the nursing shortage? WHHHHHHY?

Knowledge Deficit r/t CPR Recertification

What's up with yearly CPR recertification? Honestly, yearly is completely unneccessary. All I want to do over my Christmas break is eat Cuban sandwiches (Tampa, kids, no place better) and play with my pet snakes, not worry about going to a "refresher" CPR course before I start coop.

It's not like anything changes. A total idiot can figure out how to do CPR just from watching TV.
Step One: Push on chest. Encourage unconscious patient to stay with you! Stay with you!
Step Two: Breathe into patients mouth. Ambu bags? What are those? I've got a perfectly good mouth!
Step Three: Repeat insome kind of ratio until life is miraculously saved (Act Humble) or uninterrupted beeping sound is heard (Act Stoic).

Recertification should only take place when the rules actually change, or else every 2 years. And then, it shouldn't be a several-hour long class where you practice beating on extremity-less manikins which feel nothing like humans. It should be a piece of paper: Oh, instead of 30 compressions and 2 breaths, we're back to 15 compressions and 2 breaths? Cool, I needed a break!

CPR recertification classes should just be watching an episode of ER. The only nurses that will regularly do compressions are:
a) on the code team, sort of their daily routine
b) any males in the vicinity, this is a time to enforce gender roles
c) angels of death, check the hospital for missing epi!

Zoe

Knowledge Deficit r/t nursing shortage

Hey everyone in blogoworld! Kelly here! I'm going to delve right in.

You know what? The nursing shortage is OVERDONE. To even get an interview in the ICU here, you need a 3.8 undergrad GPA. What type of shortage is THIS? Nonexistent. Also, you shouldn't go around bragging about a shortage. If you were a factory worker, and there was a lack of factory workers, it would be completely nonproductive if you went around talking excessively and writing 8,828.34 academic papers about "oh man, there are SOOOOO few factory workers!" No! Keep the lack of competition and wages up! I'm not telling anyone about nursing, it'll be our little secret.

So the moral of today is: please don't write another token paper about the nursing shortage AND the answer is NEVER "knowledge deficit" in maternal/newborn. Oh, and know EXACTLY how much spermicide to put on a diaphragm, because that is also always so useful in my everyday life workin' my corner (5cc). Shiny gems of wisdom, I'm telling you.

Knowledge Deficit r/t Lack of Nursing Student Blogs

Inaugural post time! Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

Welcome to Knowledge Deficit, the blog for nursing students... by nursing students. Me (Zoe) and Kelly tried to find nursing student blogs but were unsuccessful. So we decided, basically, to become the Perez Hiltons of nursing student blogs.

We'll be on coop next semester, and we will not even be disclosing the name of the hospitals for superultraextra HIPAA protection, but our experiences will be sure to offer some interesting posts.

Did you forget to take vitals at clinical? Us too. Get yelled at by a charge nurse? Same! Screw up on those damn NCLEX style tests? Of course. Been there, done that, gonna write about it. Don't worry kids, we're here for you.

We can't promise we'll always make you feel better about yourselves, though. Sometimes we have this problem where we think people are stupid and unforgivable and have to make endless fun of them... Okay, that's mostly me. Kelly is surprisingly tolerant of idiots. But I have been known to exclaim "Jesus Christ!!" in frustration in the middle of class when QuestionGirl just won't stop.

We can be offensive. We can be supportive. Mostly, we're silly, cynical, and just trying to get through the next 2 years to our BSN. Read on!

Zoe and Kelly