Its almost the end of the year and I want to acknowledge that I absolutely adore my fellow classmates and that I think extremely highly of each and every most of them. 2 semesters ago I was concerned I would never even like some of them, but they have all shown themselves to be outstanding individuals. I am so happy that they are finishing up with their RN year! They are amazing nurses already.
Chapter endings are often bittersweet. Some of us do have that mind set that the rest of the class will be graduating without us, because we feel like we can’t dare hope that we will truly be finished with this madness. I absolutely believe we are all walking. Even though I myself barely have a 75% in Med Surg right now, I believe I’m getting pinned… I just can’t see it any other way.
In the next 5 days I have 2 Med Surg quizzes, 2 Med Surg tests, 2 discussion posts, review questions to submit, 1 psych concept map, 1 database, 1 PowerPoint, 1 presentation, 3-4 practice assessments…. I may have covered the main things there. So I’m going to hold my breath until spring break. 7 days from now all of this and more will be done and I’ll be focusing on finals.
I wish I could address the insanity of unrealistic, vague, yet stringent, genus IQ expectations certain male clinical instructors expect on the floor, but I just don’t have the energy right here and now. All I know is that it is infuriating. The amount of unnecessary stress put on students is ridiculous and so contradicting to a good learning environment. The expected level of perfection from students is above par for an oriented floor nurse. That is not a joke. It takes a MONTH of orientation at the hospital to be deemed competent enough to run a team and be the main nurse for 5 patients, and that is without school assignments, like concept map info gathering, and attempted memorization of every chart detail, as well as the stress of instructor oversight. I really have no idea why nurses have to be oriented at all because I’m positive that after watching a few u-tube videos and skipping through a few PowerPoint’s we should be experts in the field of nursing.
My personal belief is that you don’t fully reach “RN level” until you’ve practiced your practice as an RN.
– Practice as an RN
The RN journey 