Things You Should Know Before Becoming a Student Nurse

Well, I haven't blogged in well over a year. I left you with all the enthusiasm a little student nurse could muster for her first clinical orientation. What I failed to do was follow-up with how terribly disappointing that orientation and the 3 days of clinicals that followed were. To say the least, that student nurse knew she wasn't bound for the nursing home...she thought she wanted to work in labor & delivery, and she knew she would not end up in the emergency room. She is now a registered nurse in an emergency room. My how things change.

I feel like I have SO much to blog about now that I'm on this side of nursing school and finally working, but after much (ok only a tiny bit when I woke up bleary-eyed at 0630 this morning) thought, I find it important to warn all the future nursing students and nurses-to-be out there, exactly what they're getting into. Therefore I bring you, the top 10 things you should know prior to becoming a student nurse:

1. You don't want to attend the school that allowed me to give myself my nursing degree. Yes, you read that right. Aside from skills, no one really taught me anything, so I read the books and studied and taught it all to myself. I feel like my personal blog may be an inappropriate place to discuss my complete disappointment with the school that I attended, so I have taken to writing letters to school officials instead. It won't do a lick of good, but I'll get to say my piece and it'll make me feel an ounce better. If you're curious about any of this you can let me know and I'll forward the letter I wrote along, which should explain everything.
2. Your life is about to be over for awhile. And I don't just mean while you're in school. I lost 1 1/2 years of husband-time I can never get back only to sign on for a 7p-7a shift which takes me away from him even more than school did. I love my job, but I love my husband more, and I miss that joker. For example I've had to pee for like 20 minutes, but I continue to lie in bed while he sleeps because I never get to do that anymore. Also he just kicked me. All to say your social life must end and your school life must become a priority. It is insanely time consuming, but if you're committed you'll make it through.
3. You're going to get fat. Nursing school is full of snack cakes, eating out, and hospital cafeteria food, not to mention the occasional all-night study session which requires a year's supply of coffee and doughnuts to stay awake through. On this side of nursing school, I flutter between 10 and 15 pounds more than I started. Ouch. Also your elastic-waist scrubs trick you into thinking you haven't gained all that weight because they still fit. Scrubs are a comfy pack of lies. Scrubs are awesome.
4. Scrubs are awesome. I absolutely can't say this enough. Not only are they insanely comfy, scrubs make other people think you are a totally legit medical professional who may one day save their lives, so they are nicer to you. They open doors for you, smile at you more, and almost everyone speaks to a lady in scrubs as if they think that, "Hi, how are you?" will you cause you to remember their faces and work a little harder when you're doing compressions on their chest someday. Scrubs are awesome.
5. Nursing students make everything inappropriate. It's a coping mechanism. In order to get through the long days talking about poo, snot, herpes, and the ever-present thought of the dying, we develop a twisted sense of humor which can turn a bed sore into a laugh. Actually that's a lie, a bed sore is never, ever a laughing matter. Most of the inappropriateness comes back to things that are sexual in nature (I never participated in these discussions, Mom, it was always everyone else), mostly because other nurses are the only people you feel comfortable asking, "was THAT normal??" As a general rule, the more perverse a pnemonic device, the easier it is to remember.
6. Nursing students do the grunt work. No one has ever said, "I can't wait to become a nurse so I can do bed baths and wipe booty," but that's exactly what the vast majority of your clinical days will consist of. We were told it was a contract between the nursing school and the clinical hospital that we used, but we spent much more time cleaning folks up than practicing the skills we would one day use to care for them. After awhile we got it down to a tag-team art where we would help each other complete baths, then go beg the nurses on the floor for any of the procedural things to be done that day. *It should be noted that I do consider bathing and booty wiping to be an integral part of patient care, and I don't begrudge doing it, however I bathe and booty wipe myself on the regular, and could've used that time gaining powerful skill practice*
7. All nurses are psych nurses. As a self-proclaimed crazy person, I was never the student who said, "I don't do crazies," which was a good thing because: A. that's super rude, insensitive, and inappropriate, and B. so-called crazy people (you know, like me) are everywhere. You will not only run into schizophrenic, bipolar, anxious patients within mental health facilities, you will have them in hospitals, nursing homes, private practices, and even as the school nurse. You WILL deal with mental health patients, at least once per day. So suck it up, buttercup, and learn how to use therapeutic communication, distraction, and just good old fashioned care for all kinds of people. It is now a part of your job description.
8. You will not feel prepared when pinning day comes around. It wouldn't matter if nursing school lasted 10 years instead of 2ish, there is no guarantee that you will do every skill with every type of patient prior to graduation. You will feel pretty darn good about giving injections and taking urine specimens, as well as the tried-and-true bed bath, but that's about it. When I graduated a month ago tomorrow, I had never inserted a female catheter, put in an NG tube, or successfully started an IV. I had never touched a child as a patient (*aside: ALWAYS check the pediatric program your school offers BEFORE you agree to attend) and I had never seen CPR on a person who wasn't made of plastic and foam. In one month of work I have gained experience with all of these things, but not without feeling like I needed to be wearing an adult diaper myself to get through it. It IS scary, but so much of nursing comes with experience, so try your best to let go of that Type A-Nurse personality and accept that you will NOT do it all perfectly when you first get out of school. In fact you will probably never do it perfectly.
9. Nursing is a sisterhood (and also a brotherhood for all the boys out there). When I started nursing school I was a competitive loser who wasn't going to let anybody get in the way of my graduation or 4.0. "Hilarious," said God, and he introduced me to Melinda, Ashley, Kaitlin, Taylor, Nicole, Brande, and Katrina, who became some of my best friends, and favorite people in the world. We lost a few along the way, but these ladies became my sisters, and surely the shoulders upon which I leaned. We started as classmates who annoyed each other (some have mentioned I had a touch of Type A Personality Disorder when we started, but that person is a bit of a narcissist anyway :)) and ended up as unexpected family members who consult each other on study help as well as, "OMG my poop was stage 2 today, what do you think that was?" We shared laughter, tears, and many an episode of Grey's Anatomy during this time, and I thank God EVERY DAY for bringing them into my life. We may not have been award winners to everybody else at pinning (!!) but we were to each other, and that's all that really matters to me.
10. You CAN do it. You just have to remind yourself every. single. day. So much of nursing is born in you (you can't teach compassion after all), and school work and skills are just details. It is hard, crazy hard, but if you cling tight to God and those who love you, you'll make it out on the other side like I did. And you'll feel like a rock star...until your first shift as a real nurse when you almost pee your pants at least 12 times then go home and wonder if you'll ever catch up to your preceptor. But you will, and it will be worth it.

The hubby is stirring so it's time for car shopping and spending the day together, but it's good to be back to the blog.

XOXO,
Hannah