Update after a few more years February 27, 2015
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Been working 5 years at the same unit. Continue to learn a lot. Great team to work with, from nurses, to social workers, to OT, to doctors, to secretaries, to securities, to house keeping staff. Received the most caring nurse award a few years back which was very important for my unit. Then after that, we received two more most caring nurse awards within a few years for the same unit from different nurses.
Going back to school for my MSN and specialize in Nursing Education. If all goes well, I should finish the program by the end of the year. Then prepare for the nursing education certification exam next year.
In the mean time, I am getting trained in CBT, CBTp, DBT, MCT, ACT, and TEAM. A lot to learn and trying to apply them in nursing.
In the mean time, enjoying teaching nursing students who came in on their rotations to our unit.
Although working for 5 years, there are still so much to learn.
Brief update after close to 2 years of psych nursing January 1, 2010
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I am enjoying psychiatric mental health nursing. Great place to work with a great team of nurses, doctors, social workers, and occupational therapists to work with.
Never boring, always interesting and exciting… sometimes too interesting and exciting.
Here are a few interesting things that happened so far: Kicked down a door, redirected a spider out of the unit, took care of a confused baby bird who accidentally got into the unit, had patients trying to run out of the locked unit, had patients calming trying to walked out of the unit, even had one patient trying to break into the unit from a different medical floor, popcorn burning which set off the fire alarm, patient took the fire alarm instruction seriously and set it off because it says “pull”, multiple patients called 911, know security guards on a first name basis, saved a doctor from pigging out on all the candies at te nursing station, handled seizures, a number of code brown, one of my pt choked while I was at lunch and Heimlich was done by another nurse, cardiac events, verbal diarrhea from pts, … etc.
Still learning a lot as I am trying to learn more about CBT, DBT, motivational interviewing, and schema therapy just to name a few.
PICU Reflection September 3, 2007
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Here is a short reflection paper I did for my one-day PICU observation. Hopefully this will give more of a sense what my summer was like.
—-
What I like about the PICU is the low nurse-patient ratio. It gives one time to really focus on a patient and his/her family. It also gives one time to connect with the patients and their families, which is always important to me. I do not like environments like the ED or OR where I have very little opportunities to know my patients and their families. However, this environment comes with a price, a heavy price where the patients have multiple drips coming out and many tasks and assessments being done to the patient throughout the shift. It is an environment where one is acutely aware that the patient’s well being is literally in your hands and one has an extremely heavy responsibility as a result. It is an environment where things can get bad really fast due to the severity of the medical conditions and the fact that it is a pediatric population where things can get bad or good at lighting speed.
It is an environment where one sees the best and the worst in a family. From my extremely limited brush with the PICU, I had the privilege of working with my patient’s mother who literally knows everything about how to take care of her son. I admire her steadfast, loyal, and faithful commitment to her son. Across the other side of the room where my patient is, I have a family with a developmental delayed child who had multiple seizures. Despite the medical condition, the child has a smile that lights up the whole room. It is a smile that renews all of us who see more suffering than most people see in a lifetime. It is a smile that lightens the silent sorrows in our hearts. And her parents, it is quite obvious, that they do not see her developmental delay because they only see her smiles.
Although PICU is not my cup of tea, I am glad to have the opportunity to experience it for a brief time with great nurses, amazing patients, and their loyal and loving parents who demonstrate the best of humanity in an unbelievable stressful environment.
I survived maternity and peds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! September 3, 2007
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I survived maternity and peds!!!!!!!!!!! Actually it was not as bad as I thought. Before I would not touch it with a 1000 ft pole… now I just woldn’t touch it with a 100 ft pole.
It has been a tough summer session in nursing school. We took 6
classes at breakneck summer speed which is a bit on the ridiculous
side. What really helped was that we had excellent professors. In
maternity-pediatric theory, I got one of the lowest grade in class, a
B. Lots of people got As since they really like these topics. I am
really happy with a B, a happy B given that I have no intuitive feel
for these subjects.
Hard to describe this summer. So what I’ll do is to give some
snapshots of different scenarios (some are funny).
The following are just snapshots or short stories to give you a taste
of the summer:
* This is the story we heard during our clinical conference at the end
of a clinical day. In pediatrics, one of my classmates had one patient
who is around 4 or 5 years old who just had surgery. Well anyway, she
was suppose to try to get the kid to walk as soon as possible to
prevent postop complications. She tried and tried and tried, the kid
just refuse to walk (the kid got all the pain meds already and so it
was not due to pain). Even her RN tried and the RN could not get the
kid to walk. Anyway, she tried for more than 2 hours and finally
decided to get our clinical instructor. Our clinical instructor went
into the room, talked to the kid for about 2 minutes and went, “Hey!
You want to go to the play room!?” The kid went, “Ok!” and got off
the bed and walked to the playroom with the instructor. My classmate
was REALLY upset now because she tried for 2 hours and all she got was
frustration and our clinical instructor tried for 2 minutes and got
the kid to walk!
This frustration did not stop though. In the playroom, the kid
continue to refuse to do anything my classmate was trying to get him
to do. So our instructor got myself and another male classmate to
play with the kid . We went to the play room, had no problem with the
kid and started to play with the kid. Now our other classmate was
steamed! Again because she tried so hard with no results and here two
guys walked in and immediately have no problems whatsoever with HER
patient (by the way, both of us are nervous about pediatrics and she
knows it; here are two guys who are supposed to be not very good with
kids are having no problem with HER patient). Anyway during
conference, we found out that the instructor took an educated guess
base on her experience that the kid might like a male adult instead of
a female adult better; so she got the guys in the clinical to interact
with the kid and she was right. Anyway, our other classmate now try
to avoid kids at that age range like me trying to avoid maternity. She
said at one point during conference something to the effect, “Give me new borns and toddlers,
I have control over them. Don’t give me these kids at the higher age
range because they run over me, they manipulate me, they mess with me,
and they control me…”
* During one of our conference, we somehow got into a discussion of
what procedure we like to do. Our clinical instructor chimed in and
said that she likes to start IVs. Another classmate went she likes to
give shots (she is really good at it). Then one of the classmates
went, “I like depository.” Silence… for about 2 seconds… half the
clinical group ended up on the ground… laughing…. Noticing there
is still half the clinical group not on the ground, this classmate of
ours went again, “Oh no, I don’t mean I like to receive them, I mean I
like to give them.” Well… now everyone is on the ground…
laughing…. finally… our clinical instructor got her composure back
and went, “are you the class clown?” Well, she may not be the class
clown, but she is real funny sometimes.
* In the postpartum ward, the first day I was already lost. I had to
get out to get something and went out the wrong door… all the alarms
went off… ooops!… it did have this huge sign saying something like
don’t go through this or else alarm will sound. My instructor said
she was surprised I am still alive… but according to her… every
semester… someone will go through that door… I got the record of
doing it so early in the semester… oh… by the way… it was always
a guy who went through the door so far.
* One of the things I get to do in a new born nursery (beside giving
shots, administering eye med which is hard, giving the new born a
bath, setting things up, assessing,… etc) is to get a foot print of
the new born (like getting finger prints). Anyway I got the baby’s
foot print and it did not come out good. Well, it looked like the baby
had 20 toes and the baby had only 10 (I counted, ten). Anyway, the two
nurses in the nursery took one look at the foot print… acted very
professionally and did not laugh at all… for about 5 seconds… and
then they lost it and could not stop laughing.
* The classmate I carpooled with had not slept for 2 days. As we were
going to clinical early in the morning, she was nodding off. Well, I
was not exactly awake either since I am not a morning person. Anyway,
the exit was coming up and I was like 3 or 4 lanes over still and
showed no sign of turning into the exit. All of a sudden she noticed
and she woke up really fast, panic, yelled on top of her lungs, “Exit!
Exit! Turn! Exit!” Well, that woke me up and I cut across (luckily it
was really early in the morning and that was really no cars) and made
it. My classmate now was wide awake … for about 10 minutes. During
conference at the end of the day, she was extremely agreeable as she
nod her head to everything everybody said… with her eyes closed.
* The pediatric clinical instructor let us start a 1/2 hour later than
usual because she notice all of us are burning out due to lack of
sleep. Well, the classmate I carpooled with and I forgot all about it
and we got there like an hour early that day (5:30am instead of
6:30am). We were wondering where everyone was. Then it dawned on us
and I almost got killed by her because I was the one who got to her
house, woke her up, her husband, and her kids by ringing the doorbell
early in the morning where it was pitch black outside. Then when the
instructor came in and said, “Isn’t it nice that we get to start later
in the morning?” Everybody agreed except the two of us. My classmate
whom I carpooled with looked at me with a look that could kill…
nursing school can be down right dangerous sometimes…
* First day in pediatric clinical… real bad day for our clinical
instructor; with me leading off in giving her a bad day. I was giving
some liquid med in a syring (we squirt the med into the kids mouth) to
my patient who screamed and yelled on top of his lung… his mom
looked totally flustered, and my instructor manage to open my patient
mouth for a moment and I went straight in and squirt… or rather try
to squirt… the liquid med is really thick and I was having problem
squirting it into the kids mouth… my instructor asked me to just push the plunger hard.
So I push the plunger really hard and the medicine finally went into the my patient mouth (remember my
instructor is holding the kid’s mouth open)… well… the medication… well… half the medication went into the kid’s mouth… the other half… because I pushed it too hard… it went into the
kids mouth and out came the meds out of the kid’s mouth and splashing
it on my instructor’s face. My instructor’s face was all red… I
don’t know if it was because the medication is red or because she was
totally flustered with a student who did exactly what she said to
do… the joy of teaching nursing students… you never know what will
happen… even when they do exactly what you told them to do…
Anyway, with me leading off in giving her a bad day… she then
proceed to lose some money… then she could not get into the medicine
dispenser and a new person who was trying to help wiped the finger
print scanner with alcohol (big no-no) and the whole machine stopped
working and nobody can get any medication and had to call the service
technician.
The joy of teaching nursing clinical…
* In pediatrics, one of my very small patient wet his diaper and I
changed the diaper and went outside to find a scale. I found a large
scale and rolled the scale into the patient’s room so I can weigh the
diaper with the urine in it. My nurse gave me this really weird look
and finally asked me what I was doing. I told her I am going to weigh
the wet diaper on the scale. She wiped off a smirk real fast and told
me I got the wrong scale. The scale I got is for weighing the infants,
not diapers. She showed me in another hallway where there are these
small scales to weigh the diapers. I told my clinical instructor what
happened and her response was that I was not the first student who
done that. Come to think of it, as she was reflecting, according to
her experience, all her students who made the same mistake as I did
were all guys! She concluded that it must be a “guy” thing.
* I was with a teenage mother who has some serious medical problem
plus some serious psychosocial issue. After she found out that Child
Protective Services is going to take away her new born, she started to
cry. That is just great… her medical condition requires her to be
calm… and now I am assessing her and watching her like a hawk. I did
not say much or do much except listen. Then she blurted out that she
has not even name her baby yet… I picked up on that and asked her to
write what name she wants her baby to have and sign it. Afterwards, I
gave the signed paper to my nurse. My nurse looked at it and went
away, telling me that she can’t guarantee anything, but she’ll try to
do something. About an hour later, someone from the birth registry
came and asked my patient what the name of the new born child should
be. That was very meaningful to me because I advocated for her as her
nursing student (that is what we were taught to do, advocate for your
patient) and her nurse took time out and fought for her patient so she
can name her child (her nurse is very busy, despite her lack of time,
she advocated for her patient).
* I had to do this procedure on this kid. Well,
I waited for my clinical instructor to do it with me. There were a
long line of other classmates who were waiting for my clinical
instructor also. Well… things did not go well at all…
What happened was that I got this huge syringe and some meds for the
kid. Set everything up, and I dropped the meds on the floor. And we
had to go through the whole process to get the meds again from the
machine. The machine would not let us get the med and we were having
problem overriding the machine. Did I mention that there was a long
line of my classmate waiting for my clinical instructor? Finally we
got someone to override it. My instructor told me not to drop the
medicine… what gave her that funny idea?
Anyway we started this procedure with this huge syringe… it was not
going well… the dad who was helping went, “Bro, I think your syringe
is leaking.” Oh yea… did I tell you now the dad call me “Bro”… as
we finally had a connection after some rocky start. Back to the
syringe… yep… the syringe was leaking… of all the syringe I
picked, I picked the one that leaked… now we needed a new syringe
and had to refill the syringe again… did I mention that there was a
long line of my classmates who were waiting for my clinical
instructor? They are going to kill me. My instructor went out real
quick and got everything… like a syringe that does not leak…
finally the procedure is over… just a bad day… except I was the
only one the dad called “bro” as far as I know.
* Since I did really well with a mother who had some mental health related
issues in labor and delivery, my clinical instructor asked me if I
want another labor and delivery rotation. I immediately went, “No!”
She then asked me if I would be interested if she can find a mother
with some kind of mental health issue. I paused… and gave a soft…
“ok…” Afterwards, I can’t believe I took the bait!!!!!!
* Talking about PICU, one of my classmate who is also sponsored by the
same hospital as I am was interested in neonatal. She was thinking if
she can’t get neonatal, maybe pediatricas would be nice, maybe
something in PICU. I warned her that in our sponsoring hospital, PICU
is not Pediatrics Intensive Care Unit… it is Psychiatric Intensive
Care Unit. Don’t want her to have the surprise of her life if she
applied to PICU and got in and ended up seeing me working there and
wondering why I am in a pediatric unit and why the unit is locked.
* During one of my vaginal labor and delivery rotation, one of the
nurse was stationed in the corner of the room ready to receive the
baby and help do the assessment immediately and any suctioning. She
was very funny because she refused to look at the mother who was going
through labor because she said that if she looks, she’ll never never
never going to have any kids.
Well, hope you have a good taste of what happened during summer.
Fall started already. It basically is going to be community health
nursing plus preceptorship (I got into acute psychiatric nursing).
Taking 5 classes this semester and to my surprise again… two of my professors are psych nurses. I am always surprised since psych nursing is not exactly popular as it too has its own stigma associated with it. So far, I had 6 professors who are psych nurses, one TA who is also a psych nurse, and my preceptor and my hospital manager are also psych nurses. Educational levels of these psych nurses ranged from a BSN to Master degrees, to doctorate degrees,quite diverse. I am just amazed how God leads.
God is full of surprises because two of my most meaningful clinical days (up to this point) are in the maternity rotation where I played a significant role in taking care of the mothers… mothers who have some serious mental health issues… mothers who many people would rather not have anything to deal with if they have a choice. And no, I am not going into maternity… I am staying with psych.
Maternity-Newborn Rotation Orientation May 31, 2007
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Today was my first maternity-newborn rotation. I have absolutely no life experience in this area of life and I was a bit anxious about it given everything I know so far are academic. Today the instructor slowly dip us into the environment by having us follow a RN for about an hour an a half among other orientation activities.
The nurse I was to followed is not here today and so the charge nurse put me into the nursery. Turned out the nursery has only 2 babies and it was not very busy when I was there. As a result the nurse there get to spend lots of time explaining things to me which was very nice. I even get to help her to calm a baby down by putting it on the side, stick my gloved pinky into its mouth so it suck on it and and gently pat on its back. Amazing that the baby actually calmed down (which I later learned that the nurse was using a few of the 5s techniques).
Talking about the 5s, that was probably the most educational part of the day as we learned the 5s to calm a crying baby and maybe for patient teaching:
-
Swaddle
Side
Shhhhh
Swing
Suck
Did Everyone Passed? May 26, 2007
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Well, I am still in one working piece. Really tough semester.
Here is a quick summary of some of the highlights of Spring semester.
Psych-Mental Health Nursing: Got a B+ for the final grade. Missed an A- by 2 points or 1%… oh well. There were 6 of my classmates who scored higher than me which is highly unusual because I am usually in the middle somewhere. It turned out psych nursing tests were really hard for all of us. In my case, because of my experience with NAMI and with the chaplaincy at the behavior unit, I had an easier time as I have certain intuitions about it.
The national assessment psych nursing test is a lot easier than the final. I didn’t think I did that well on it and I was pleasantly surprised that I scored in the 96 percentile. Everyone of my classmates scored fairly well in the national assessment as well… well enough to earn some extra points on our finals.
The professor was very nice as he posted the grade up the very next day… knowing full well that everyone is tensed about their grades… knowing full well also that we are a tight group and if someone does not pass, it is going to hurt given we already lost one member already last Fall due to some personal circumstance. The first classmate who saw the grade posted emailed everyone and all the email said was “EVERYONE PASSED!!!!”. When I saw that, I went “YES!”
Med-Surg Nursing: Med-Surg nursing was hard for me. Last semester, I knew I could fail it and it all depends on the finals given I blew one of the midterm really bad and another midterm, I barely passed. I got a C+ which was actually better than I thought (was hoping for a C). This semester, I blew one midterm real bad and the other midterms I did fairly good. I was expecting a C or C+. Just got the grade yesterday and I got a B- for the course which was a nice surprised as I got a B+ in the finals.
Anyway during final, the prof handed out sweets to us (glucose for the brain to take the test). If we can’t figure out an answer, we take some glucose.
In the national assessment exam, I was caught off guard a little bit. There were a list of topics given to us to study. I studied those topics and it turned out in the exam, it tested who bunch of topics that are not in the study list. So I have do it by memory of what I learned last Fall. I was expecting 60 questions and it had 90 questions… think I was in trouble. Anyway, to my surprised again, I actually scored in the low 80 percentile on the national scale. The nice thing about the assessment test is that it tells you what area I am strong in ( e.g. neurosensory, psychsocial integrity) and what area I am weak in (e.g. musculoskletal, trach care).
When the grades were posted, the instructor send all of us an email to let us know EVERYONE PASSED. When I received the email, I gave a little clap because I know I was not the only one who was having problems with med-surg.
I think the professors sort of know one of the characteristic of our cohort… on any tests… telling us individually our grade is not going to calm us down…. we want to know… and it is usually the first question… “did EVERYONE pass?”…
Nursing Process: Everyone got As (I think). It is suppose to be an easier class which it was. The hard part of the class was that we have so many different projects. Emotionally, it was not exactly easy as I was in the group that did everything related to death and losses (multiple presentations and papers). Plus the sister of one of our group membered died unexpectedly. She died of some post-op infection in a different country which made me especially aware when I get a patient that just come out of surgery.
In the beginning of this class, the professor gave us cookie and milk at the end of the first session. It turned out we are going to be assigned into small groups based on the cookies we picked to eat. The last session of this class, the professor again provided cookies and milk… and some of us eyed the professor with suspiciousness… the professor laughed and went, “Don’t worry, no hidden intent this time”… and we happily chomped away at the cookies.
Psych clinical – Learned a lot. My clinical instructor has lots of connection with the legal community and so we got quite a few opportunities to visit different jails and even have the opportunity to sit in for the first day on a police training course (this is a week long training on serious mental illness for the police). Enjoyable experiences and even had a chance to tried on a real expensive fancy hallucination simulator.
Medsurg clinical – Nice instructor. My instructor had to remind me once that I am in a medsurg clinical and not a psych clinical because I kept on trying to pick “psych” patients to take care off (yes, you get pysch patient in medsurg sometimes). Had some opportunity to learn more about Renal nursing… very interesting area. Nurses in the clinical are generally nice.
Reflection: Although I am interested in many other nursing areas, I think I am narrowing it back down to psych nursing. Psych nursing was originally one of the many things that attracted me into nursing. I have debating back and forth as to whether I should go into psych nursing immediately or do the traditional med-surg for a few years first. From all the nurses I talked to, it seemed like there is two camps. One said you need to do med-surg for a few years first. Another camp said “go for it” if you know that is where your heart is. I’ve met nurses who are in psych for decades and never done anything else and they seemed happy about it. Then I also met nurses who took the traditional medsurg route and they tell me how valuable the experience was.
At of this writing, I have decided to go straight into psych nursing if such opportunity exist because that is where my heart is and I don’t mind doing psych related nursing the rest of my life given I have a strong passion in this area. If the opportunity does not exist, they I’ll go into some form of medsurg related area and wait for the right opportunity. This is my way of letting God leads me… whatever doors God opens for me, I’ll walk through it. So I signed up for my preceptor semester in the Fall in terms of preferences in the following order:
- Pyschiatric-Mental Health Nursing
- Rehab Nursing
- Oncology Nursing
- General MedSurg Nursing
Notice I did not sign up for areas like ER, ICU, CCU, TCU, Maternity, or Peds as they are not my cup of tea.
We will see where God leads.
Fall 2006 December 22, 2006
Posted by danucube in Nursing, Nursing School, Providence, reflections.1 comment so far
During Fall, I took process (another one… mostly on nursing diagnosis… a royal pain… and other stuff like connecting to patients and patient teaching which actually is quite interesting as there are so much psycho-social stuff in this area), med-surge, 2nd skills class, and my first med-surge clinical.
This semester, however, was very hard for me emotionally. Now as I looked back, I proabably was having difficulty at concentrating for at least the first half of the semester.
It was hard emotioinally because we lost one of our classmate due to some personal circumstances. I guess it would not be as hard if I was not so involved in helping my classmate (with plenty of help from other classmates also). I aslo guess that is the disadvantage of a close knit cohort as everyone were affected. Also another one of my friend who has a major influence in me going into nursing was not doing well medically.
As for my clinical this semester, got some good feedback from my clinical instructor as to what areas I might consider and what areas I should not touch with a 10-foot pole. Areas like ER or ICU, I probably would not touch with a 100-foot pole. Areas where it requires lots of pt-nurse psycho-social interactioins are areas I should look into. Some potential areas that fits this according to my instructor are Burn Nursing, Oncological Nursing, and Postpartum Nursing (aaahhhh… don’t think so…. I don’t think I’ll touch maternity related areas). Another area I notice could be Nephrological Nursing might fit. This is, of course, on top of psych nursing, pallitive nursing, and geriatric nursing (I thought I was suppose to narrow these things down, not expand them…).
And I learned something very interesting in clinical… I was emotionally prepared to see really bad things… and I did see some really sad situations in clinical and I was ok… what blind sided me was the small things…. one was when I was feeding a pt and that brought back memories of me feeding my mom when she was very illed which was ok…. another was a patient who had very high blood pressure and it was climbing, the pt was vomiting, elderly, and it was at night…. that triggered me BIG time as all I could see was when my mom first had her stroke which her blood pressure was 220/150. The vomiting trigger a little bit of the memory of my dad actually since that was what happened to him before he died. The main trigger was the one of the numbers in the BP, it was over 200.
That was a horrible clinical night as I basically blew it… like I missed whole bunch of stuff which I should have reported to the RN and these were potentially very critical stuff (I wrote them down but I did not report it, I have no idea why). When my instructor asked me a few questions and the answer was right in my notes and I was looking at my notes; I couldn’t answer the question b/c I ddi not see the answer although I was looking at it. One of my classmate noticed something was wrong and asked what was going on. The instructor also noticed something was wrong.
We stayed way over our normal hours at night to try to reverse the mistakes I made. I got a stern lecture from the instructor and also from the RN whom I was working with. But despite the horrible clinical night, there was grace. Grace in the form of two very insightful nurses (my instructor happens to be a psych nurse). They did not stop with the lecture, they digged and found out the 220 trigger. I actually could not talk at one point (got a frog in my throat) because of the 220. Both of them helped me to understand that it is not uncommon for small things to trigger big time. They were very compassionate with me. I actually gave the RN a hug (I never thought I would do that as I seldom hug normally) b/c of the many different things she taught me during that night and b/c of her compassion. My instructor told me that I would need to grief again. I did not grief… until two days later early in the morning… all of a sudden… the grief hit me. The next Monday, my instructor personally found me in lab and pulled me out of lab to check on how I was doing. I could not have a better instructor and I told her about something which I will share here.
Ever since one night I went looking for one of my very illed friend in a super dark night, with heavy rain, thunder, and lighting, I never did like rain since then. After that very dark night at clinical… it was dark (around 11:30 at night) and it was raining… a strange mysterious thing happened… my dislike of rain stopped…. the rain now signify that God was showering me with grace…. grace in the form of two very insightful and compassionate nurses who took me under their wings during that dark clinical night. Someday, when I am good enough, I hope I will pass the same kind of grace that I experienced to others around me.
Althogh it was hard emotionally this semester, there was also a third grace… grace in the middle of darkness… God provided a nursing buddy for me to study with, to share with, and to pray with. It is interesting that this semester I took a class call “Glimps of grace.” How appropriate.
We’ll see if I survive the next year… stay tune…
Summer Sesion 2006 December 22, 2006
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Ok, this accelerated program is a bit on the wild side. Anyway, we took 5 classes in the summer session. Took patho, pharm, process, theory (research), and 1st skill class.
I was amazed that I actually survived it as I never in my life have taken 5 classes at the same time during a summer session. Actually everyone survived it.
We seemed to have a good tight-knit group and we help each other a lot. Plus we have lots of laughter which was good (espeically in our first skill class).
One thing I notice was that we are concerned about each other’s grade. For example, after a real hard midterm, I walked into the hallway where the grades were posted… I heard some of my classmates calling other classmates on the cell very excited saying, “EVERYONE passed!!!!” This is very different different from when I was in computer science and we really only care about our own grades.
Our cohort is quite diverse with only 30+ people. We have people in the early 20s to people in their late 40s. We have people with MBAs, Social Work, Computer Science, Linguistics, and other degrees. We have very short people to very tall people. We have 5 guys which is more than 10% of the cohort. We have fathers, mothers, people who love kids and people who are scare of kids. We have more than half the cohort who can speak another language and some can speak more the 2 languages. We have artists to nerds. We basically have people with a variety of life experiences.
As mentioned already, there were a number of humorous incidents. Here are a few selected ones:
- The first midterm – The prof told us that we need to sit apart with every column empty when the midterm comes. When the midterm came, we all sat neatly apart with every column of seats empty before class. The prof stuck her head in and saw this and went, “This is NOT normal!”
- I finally restrained one of my classmate in skills. The prof announced that she was going to the next room to do the rest of the checkoffs because we were too noisy (we are a chatty bunch)… and my classmate whom I restrained just sort of got up and went to the next room to get the rest of her stuff checked off… I thought I restrained her????
- Overheard one classmate asking anothe classmate to open her mouth wide so she can examine her, “Open wider… more!… More!!… MORE!!!…” then I heard the other classmate, “I think I am going to throw up!”
- Right in the middle of class, one classmate stood up and went to her classmate who was sitting right in front of her and started to massage this classmate. 5 minues or so later, the professor went, “You are putting your classmate to sleep!!” The response from the classmate who was doing the massaging was, “I am sorry… this is the only way I could stay awake…”
- In research class, the professor asked a question to one of my classmate, “What is control?” The response was “It is an illusion.”
- Two classmates took a nap in a giant bookself in the hallway right before a huge midterm.
Well, these are just a few of the funny incidents. But one gets the idea.
Boy, finally have a break to write something! December 22, 2006
Posted by danucube in Nursing, Nursing School.add a comment
Well, so far I am still in one piece… one working piece that is after being nursing school for about 1/2 a year. I am going to do multiple posts just to recap in general what happened.
All finals finished! May 22, 2006
Posted by danucube in Classes, Prenursing, Providence.1 comment so far
My last final is finished tonight!!!!! Long semester. Can't believed I took five classes and wrote around 25 papers (average 5 papers per class). Never wrote so many papers in my life! However, they were all interesting papers though and I learned a lot (two papers, I got an A+ for content, but my grammar is messed up and my grade got knocked down). Also I am blessed to have all very good prof again.
Just reflecting… I don't think I would have gotten the As and A+s in my papers if I did not have the life experience. If I have taken the same classes say the first time around with my first bach, I would not have the depth to write these hard papers to get the high grades. God's has His timing.
Got this week to relax a little before next week nursing school start.
Call to Nursing, Mostly... 