Battling Imposter Syndrome Posted on October 13, 2020 at 9:08 pm.Written by [email protected] Imposter syndrome. Signs and symptoms include a lack of self-confidence, feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, and irrational fears of incompetency. I thought I was the only one, but it turns out many of us can relate to this. If you ever feel like you don’t know anything – like you’ve only made it through this far because of pure luck – I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. Nursing school is hard; getting in is hard and staying in is hard. The fact that you’ve made it as far as you have is a testament to your hard work and dedication to a selfless career. As someone who feels like a fraud all the time, here are some tips I have for mitigating imposter syndrome Reframe your thinking. Instead of going into an exam thinking “I’m going to fail”, tell yourself, “I’ve studied as much as I can for this exam. I know the content. I’m doing the best that I can”. Negativity does not help anyone, and it’s really important that you give yourself credit for your successes and the work that you’ve put in.Stop comparing yourself to other people. Everyone is on their own timeline and comparing yourself to someone else’s won’t do anything but make you feel inferior. For me, I felt imposter syndrome the most when I saw other classmates doing better than I was, who were already working at hospitals and still managing to get good grades. As soon as I stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing and focused on myself, it made me realize my own potential.Abandon the need for perfection. Learn to appreciate your mistakes and the growth opportunities they offer. One of the reasons why my feelings of inadequacy began to take over was because I was so used to having a 4.0 GPA. That whenever I got anything less than an A, I felt like I was a fraud. Perfect grades do not equal being a good nurse, and this is something I need to remind myself of all the time. Recognize your accomplishments. This is something that is so simple, yet often neglected. We’re so caught up in thinking about what we haven’t done, and what others are thinking about us, that we’ve forgotten to appreciate the work we have done. For example, passing a tough course like Pharmacology is something we don’t consider to be an accomplishment, but ask a non-medical relative if they can pronounce Carbamazepine. It really is the little things. Talk about it. Tell someone else how you’re feeling. You’d be surprised how common it is. I felt like I was the only one feeling like a fraud, but once I voiced this to my peers, I found out that my friends were feeling the exact same way. I once told a nurse in clinical that I felt like I didn’t know anything and didn’t think I should be alone on the floor. She talked me through my fears and asked about what I was concerned about specifically. She told me that she felt the same way throughout nursing school and continues to doubt herself sometimes as a nurse. Knowing that I’m not alone in this battle made me feel so much better about it. Imposter syndrome is not necessarily a bad thing to have. It keeps me grounded and motivated to learn more. It’s a reminder that there is always room for improvement, a core element in nursing. The key to battling imposter syndrome is not letting it keep you from being a better nurse/nursing student. Don’t let your own mind limit you from applying to opportunities you think you’re not qualified enough for and remind yourself that you are not alone in the way that you feel.
How to be Outstanding and Ace Your Clinical Rotations Posted on October 13, 2020 at 3:39 pm.Written by [email protected] All nursing programs consist of didactic and “hands on” experiences, which are called clinical sections. In my nursing school, every semester to includes lectures, simulation labs and clinical rotations. I have been lucky to have amazing experiences through clinical in the Texas Medical Center in many specialties such as psychiatrics, geriatrics, pediatrics, maternity and med-surg. This clinical rotation created so many opportunities for me to be better version of myself and helped me achieve one of the highest nursing student awards in my school. So how did I overcome all the long hours of tiring and overwhelming clinicals to obtain the most knowledge and make a good impression on my nursing staff and clinical instructors? Here are some tips based on my own experiences that are helpful for nursing students who want to be outstanding and ace your clinical rotations. 1. Always prepare for the most difficult patients My preceptors normally have 3-4 patients per shift. Each patient is on different level of care based on their individual health conditions. I always first logged in to the system to read through the patient medical summaries, their latest vital signs, lab data and daily medications. I noted this information down and learned about my patient on my own while waiting for my nurse in the beginning of the shift. Patients with the most symptoms and medical diagnoses are always the ones who take up a preceptor’s time and keep you on your feet. It is hard to remember all patients, so I always picked one that represented most of them. I learned their medications by heart before entering the room, assessed them to see if any signs were different with their chart, and applied all the nursing skills that I could practice on those patients. At the end of the day, I already knew a lot about that most difficult patient, so I would pick them to do my care plan and save time on paperwork. 2. Make good impressions with staff nurses and instructors Some of my clinical days were not busy. Sometimes, your slow days may be others busy days. When I finished all my assessments and had checked on patients and completed charting, I would have some free time. To make the most of that, I reached out to other nurses and charge nurses to see if they needed any help. Even if it was just checking patients’ vital signs, it was a big help when that floor was short on staff. This is not only a way to help people, but also a way to make a connection. I got several references thanks to being helpful. The charge nurses even sought out my clinical instructors to compliment on my willingness to help and work hard. 3. Don’t be afraid to ask your instructors “dumb” questions A lot people think that clinical instructors are intimidating but at the end of the day, they are our teachers. They are there to teach, observe and guide you to success through nursing school. There are many health problems, pathophysiology, and diseases mechanisms that I do not know. When I could not understand them completely, even after researching, I did not hesitate to ask my instructors so I could learn more. Their experiences and stories helped me to understand tremendously and inspired me to be a great nurse in my future career. Do not be afraid to look “dumb”! Remember that you are still students, and asking is a way of learning. 4. Share your experiences with your peers and learn from their experiences At the post conferences, my classmates and I always shared our experiences of the day together. I heard stories on what they had done for their patients, some of which I had not had the chance to do. Through the point of view of others, I could get more knowledge for myself and vice versa. Also, clinical days are not always smooth. One of those days may be a bad day for you, and for your clinical mates. We shared how rough it was and encouraged each other to do better next time. Through clinical, I made so many more friends who are now my second family. We never know what is waiting for us on a new clinical day. Maybe a good friendship, maybe heaps of useful knowledge or maybe a valuable letter of recommendation. I got all of them, plus an award nominated and voted on by the faculty. So, remember to always come prepared and take advantage of your clinical rotations.
How I Use My Favorite Pharmacology Resource to Study Posted on October 12, 2020 at 6:56 pm.Written by [email protected] We all know pharm is a tough class, but it’s something all of us nursing students have to go through! As new quarters are starting, it is always so important to look back at information from previous quarters, especially your drugs! And if you haven’t taken pharm yet, you should do everything you can to prepare yourself for what’s to come! That being said, my favorite resource to use is the Nursing Key Topics Review: Pharmacology book! This is great for anyone who has taken pharm but needs those constant refreshers or are preparing for the NCLEX®! It covers everything from pharmacologic principals, to 19 different categories of drugs! So how do I use this resource? Practice questions: The best way I retain information is practice questions! So, the fact that this book has tons of practice questions and solutions has been my saving grace! The questions also emphasize critical, practical, and relevant information that helps you absorb the material in the best way possible. Study and Test-Taking Tips: Another one of my favorite features are the study and test-taking tips throughout the book! In each chapter there is a section with a hint or trick to help you memorize the type of drug and what it does! NCLEX Preparation: Like I said, this book is not only for those who are new to pharmacology. Everything you learn in this class will most likely be built upon throughout your schooling. Upon graduating, the NCLEX is your next beast and it WILL have pharmacology questions. So, this book is not only great for your classes, it also makes NCLEX prep a lot easier! The answers given are not just A or B, but actual answer explanations are used to help the student retain as much as possible! Anatomy Review: There is no shame when it comes to not remembering every little detail from A&P, but when it comes to learning drugs and medications, we need to how they are going to affect the body. At the beginning of every chapter, there is an A&P review of the system relating to the content in that section. Organization: Unlike big textbooks, there are not a lot of filler words and unnecessary information. Since this is about key topics, you will get everything you really need to know. I love the bullet point lists and neat tables, it makes all the information easy to read and memorize! Studying on-the-go: Last but not least, another awesome feature about this book is the fact that it is not just a book! You can scan the QR code on the front page to access free mobile content! These online audio summaries cover every chapter and can be listened to anywhere! This is how I love to use my Nursing Key Topics Review: Pharmacology book, as it has made one of the hardest nursing school courses one of the easiest and most fun to learn!
Stories from a Current Patient/Future Nurse Posted on September 16, 2020 at 7:05 pm.Written by [email protected] The majority of us have had some kind of experience in a healthcare setting. We get sick, we get hurt, we see loved ones go through illness, we welcome new members into our family, and we have to say goodbye to others. It’s the (unfortunate) part of being human. I’ve had my fair share of those experiences. And I never truly realized how impactful many of those moments were until I started working in healthcare myself. 2016, my first major surgery. I prepared myself for a spinal fusion surgery that would correct my severe scoliosis. This was my first major experience as a patient, and it opened my eyes to my passion for nursing. I learned about how patient nurses are as I watched my nurse (and my amazing CNA) turn me every hour throughout the night, and how empathetic they are as they calmed my nerves when I walked for the first time after surgery. Pediatric and orthopedic nurses will forever have my respect. Now fast forward to 2020, which seemed to be the year for literally everything to happen. I gained new respect for the nurses in women’s health services after a breast cancer scare, and the nurses who work in pre/OR/post-op after my breast mass removal surgery. Despite the darkness there is in those circumstances, my nurses remained calm and kept smiles on their faces. 2020 was the year I really dove into taking better care of my mental health – something I had greatly pushed off. I allowed myself to begin taking an SSRI and seeking help from a therapist. My healthcare team did a wonderful job of reminding me that my mental health is just as important as my physical health. 2020 also brought me on a long journey towards an official medical diagnosis of dysautonomia (something I’ve struggled with for a while). I’m sure that others with chronic health problems will agree that these diagnosis journeys are frustrating. My symptoms and experiences were frequently brushed off by medical professionals. As a future nurse, I’ve learned how important it is to really listen to your patients and see things through (yes, even if it’s been a long day and you’re just ready to go home). So why am I sharing all of this? I know, I know. The last thing anyone wants is more to be upset about. In reality, I want to share how influential being on that “other side” of healthcare has been in my own journey towards being a nurse. As a patient, I’ve seen both the good and the bad, and I know what patients look for in their healthcare team. There have also been so many moments where I think to myself that I won’t be able to be a good nurse because of my health struggles. But if I’ve learned anything during this journey, it’s that all those hard moments are only building me up to be a more insightful and compassionate nurse in the future. I’m sharing this so that, even if you haven’t been a patient yourself, you can empathize with your own patients on a new level one day. Be there for them through the good and the bad, and really listen to them. And for those that have been the patient and know what I’m talking about, I hope you know that your struggles aren’t making you any less of an amazing healthcare worker (something I have to remind myself of every day)! You have no idea of the impact you’re capable of. Ps. I want to make sure I take a moment to thank all my fellow healthcare workers out there! You may never truly understand how big of a difference you make in your patients’ lives. We see you, we’re thankful for you, and we’re rooting for you.
Using Sherpath® to Your Advantage Posted on September 8, 2020 at 7:09 pm.Written by [email protected] One of the best parts of being an Elsevier Student Life Ambassador, is when it crosses over into my schoolwork and the resources that I use throughout nursing school. This year, my professors have added Sherpath into the curriculum for Pharmacology and Medical Surgical Nursing. It’s wonderful when professors provide resources to help you succeed, improve your critical thinking and practice for the NCLEX, and Sherpath does all of those things for me! Sherpath has so many different aspects to help you study and practice NCLEX style questions. From the lessons to EAQ® (Elsevier Adaptive Quizzing), you will be well on your way to passing the NCLEX and doing super well on your nursing tests if you take full advantage of everything Sherpath has to offer! Use Sherpath to study for tests Doing practice questions is such a great way to study for tests because it allows you to get acquainted with the different styles of nursing questions. Whether it is knowledge recall, select all that apply, or application/analysis, Sherpath has every kind of question to prepare you for nursing tests and the NCLEX! Understanding and learning concepts Before you take quizzes, Sherpath has lessons for each chapter that reviews key concepts in the chapters of your textbooks and breaks it down for you to better understand the material. Along the way it tests your knowledge to make sure you are retaining the information and understand what you are learning. Taking notes on the lessons is super beneficial because it helps you retain key concepts and have them on paper to help you review and study later. In my classes, the weekly Sherpath quizzes are graded, so we get an extra 100 points towards our grade. When professors give you the opportunity to earn additional (I edited it because I didn’t want the connotation that the quizzes are easy) points to boost your grade, it is so important to take complete advantage of that! Not only do those quizzes prepare you for the tests, those points will raise your grade and give you an extra cushion if you lost a lot of points on your tests. Do not solely rely on those Sherpath points, but use them as a nice cushion if you fall once or twice. Study hard, prepare yourself, manage your time well, and you will do amazing! Preparation for the NCLEX begins the moment you start nursing school, and Sherpath is a great resource to study for your classes and to prepare for the NCLEX!
Top 10 NCLEX Study Tips Posted on July 25, 2020 at 7:25 pm.Written by [email protected] Studying for the NCLEX can be daunting. The most common problem I ran into is not knowing where to start since the NCLEX tests you on content you’ve learned all throughout nursing school. One NCLEX resource that I found incredibly helpful in tackling this issue was the Saunders Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination book. This review book was one of my top resources that I used to pass my NCLEX. Here are my top 10 NCLEX study tips when preparing for the NCLEX while using this review book! Evaluate which areas/topics you need to review prior to building your study plan to avoid over studying. A good tool that I found useful to evaluate myself was by taking the pre-test from the Evolve online resource. Access the Evolve online resource using the code found inside your book.Select “Exam review” → “Assessments” → “Pre-test”. The results of your pre-test will guide you on where to begin your review and allows you to avoid simply going the entire book from front to back cover. The pre-test will also create a study plan/calendar tailored to your results, providing a structured plan on how to break down your studying. Create an NCLEX study plan or calendar. As previously mentioned, once you finish the Pre-test on Evolve, it will curate a study plan for you. However, don’t limit yourself to this. If you think that you need to further review one topic more than the other, feel free to customize your plan. What I did was print out a blank calendar from the internet and filled each day with content from the study plan that I got from Evolve while making a few tweaks on which contents I wanted to review more.A good rule of thumb is to begin studying as early as you can for the NCLEX and as late as 30 days prior to your test date.Creating a study calendar allows you to visually see what you’ll be doing day by day and alter it as you see fit depending on your schedule. Put together an NCLEX study binder. Any three-ring binder or a notebook will work perfectly.Use this binder to store any handwritten notes so that you can easily look back on any key information. When reviewing a chapter, read/skim through the information at least twiceI recommend skimming through the chapter the first time without highlighting or jotting down notes. Then on your second read through, focus on the information that is typically bolded, placed in boxes, is visually drawn and/or has a triangle next to (the triangle indicates that it’s an important NCLEX information to remember). After finishing each chapter, answer the practice questions! When you go through these, remember to simulate it as if it was a question on the actual NCLEX. Read through each question thoroughly and use test taking skills to narrow down your options to the correct answer. Review the rationale for the answers and highlight or write a note on key details on why that is the correct answer. Use the online Evolve resource to practice answering more NCLEX style questions! Evolve can be easily customizable depending on what you want to review, allowing you to choose the category (ex: client needs, health promotions, etc.) and even the subcategories! “Study” mode prompts you practice questions with instant feedback. Allowing you to read the rationale shortly after choosing your answer. “Exam” mode lets you choose the exam length (10, 25, 50, or 100 q’s) and will show your results after finishing the test. Once you’ve reviewed the whole book (which you don’t necessarily need to do!) or finished the chapters that you found were the ones that needed to be reviewed, take the comprehensive test at the very back of the review book and/or complete the Post-test on Evolve. Either one of these will evaluate your learning and comprehension of all the combined topics and will give you a better understanding of how prepared you are for the NCLEX. Review the U.S. Top 100 Prescription Medications list on the very last page of the book! If you aren’t sure of which medications to focus for the NCLEX, this list is a good place to start. The list contains many commonly used drugs that have also been seen on the NCLEX exam, so understand how they work, what it’s for, side effects, and patient teachings for them will help you prepare for the pharmacology section of the test. Read through the Test-taking Strategies chapter in Unit I. If you suffer from test anxiety or know that you have weak test taking skills, this chapter may be your life saver. Carefully read through the test taking skills this chapter provides. The Saunders line has a whole book dedicated to test strategies called Saunders Strategies for Test Success, which I highly recommend. Listen to your mind and body and take breaks when needed! As important as it is to review for the NCLEX as thorough as you can, remember to practice self-care too. Make sure that you schedule for “rest days” in your study plan that gives you the time that you need to rest and regroup. As anxious and giddy as you are to start preparing for the NCLEX, remember to take a moment and celebrate finishing nursing school! You’ve made it this far for a reason, so be confident in yourself and your skills. You’ve got this! Good luck!
Overcoming the challenges of a student nurse Posted on June 18, 2020 at 8:37 pm.Written by [email protected] Nursing school is truly an amazing journey. You learn what interests you the most in the medical field, you gain a vast amount of knowledge in health care, and it pushes you. It pushes you to be a better person and healthcare professional. In some aspects of nursing school, it becomes a challenge and sometimes we feel a sense of resistance when we try to move forward. I am going to provide you with four tips to help you minimize and overcome those challenges that arise in nursing school. Time Management: This is a crucial skill to master during nursing school. Everyone has something going on in their life such as work, fitness, religious obligations, school, family, and children. It benefits you to understand what tasks you must complete for the hour, the day, or the week. Allot a specific amount of time to each task you have. For example, I will go to school for four hours, then gym for one hour, study for two hours, and then have some free time for one hour. Prioritize: Look at what tasks you have at hand and figure out which one should be done first. Understand what is non-urgent, urgent and emergent. The beauty of knowing how to prioritize makes us more productive with our work which develops a strong work ethic. Aside from prioritizing your work, do not forget to prioritize yourself. It comes off selfish, but you must take care of yourself before you take care of others. It is like being on an airplane and when the oxygen masks come down, you must put it on yourself first before putting it on someone else who cannot. Make sure you are receiving adequate sleep, minimizing consumption of malnutrition food, and staying active! Organize: In nursing school, there are going to be so many dates for when assignments are due, projects are due, and when exams are. Having all these dates and assignments recorded in an organized fashion allows you to stay on top of everything. There is a sense of being in control when this is accomplished, and you become more confident with what needs to be done. There won’t be any last-minute incidents where you realize you didn’t do an assignment or missed that online quiz that was due last night. Overall, being organized improves student outcomes and reduces unnecessary stress. Utilize calendars, planners, and various phone apps to assist you in staying organized. Positive Attitude: Although nursing school can be stressful at times and you may feel overwhelmed, always maintain a positive attitude! If you are in a nursing program, you are in a great position in life because there are people who would love to be in a nursing program who are not. Don’t look at nursing school as, “There’s so much studying”, but rather, “I have multiple opportunities to learn so I can become a competent nurse”. Additionally, do not forget why you are in nursing school. You went to nursing school to become a nurse so please don’t let grades negatively affect you. Striving for As on exams is the goal, however, it is not the end of the world if you do not get an A. If the minimum to pass is 70% and you get 71%, congratulations, you have exceeded the school’s standard. In my opinion, there is no test in nursing school that will define your capabilities as a clinical nurse. I have worked in the medical field for five years and I have NEVER had any patient ask me what my grades are. Grades are a number at the end of the day. Your GPA will not be on your RN license. The impact you make on your patient is what matters. Your knowledge of patient safety is what matters. Your patient advocacy is what matters. Comforting those in need and in a vulnerable state is what matters. Do not forget the purpose of nursing school. It’s to be a phenomenal and competent nurse, not to have the highest grades. Using these tips has helped me to be successful in nursing school, and I hope they do the same for you! You control nursing school; nursing school does NOT control you.
Volunteering for Hands-On Experience as a Pre-Nursing Student Posted on May 25, 2020 at 4:56 pm.Written by [email protected] I wanted to share with all of you a tip that I wish somebody would have shared with me sooner…. During your prerequisites, or even if you are currently in nursing school, I would highly recommend getting involved in any clubs or organizations that do volunteer work to serve the community. I say this because a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to go on a medical brigade to Ghana, in West Africa. While there I was able to practice many hands-on skills and was also able to shadow many healthcare professionals such as nurses, doctors, ophthalmologist, etc. As a pre-nursing student getting your hands a little dirty is something that is very useful in your learning experience because it gives you a chance to practice on real patients, practice therapeutic communication, and it allows you to practice many other skills that you would not be able to do in a classroom setting. At first, I was nervous to see real patients because this was something that I had never been exposed to in the past, but we were always working alongside a licensed healthcare professional, so it made it easier to ask questions and/or get guidance in areas that we were not comfortable in. I cannot begin to explain to all of you how much this trip changed my overall perspective on health care and how it gave me the confirmation that I needed to become a nurse. If you can get involved, whether that’s at your community college, university, or even a local volunteer center, I say DO IT- there’s NOTHING to lose and everything to gain from an experience like this! It has taught me to be more humble, to not take life for granted, to give back to the community when I can do so, that there is more to life than what I’ve become accustomed to here in my town, and of course, it has shown me how much I love serving others. There’s just something about giving back to the community and seeing others smile that lights a fire again. I came back from this trip more open-minded and eager than ever to become the best nurse that I can possibly be, not only myself but ultimately for others! I encourage all of you to travel the world and experience healthcare in a different way. I promise you when you do this you will start to look at life from a different perspective and, in my opinion, it just makes you a better person all around. If you can have the same feeling of fulfillment and excitement, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?
The More the Merrier: Elsevier’s Study Tools Posted on May 6, 2020 at 5:32 pm.Written by [email protected] Hi everyone! My name is Hannah and I am just a few weeks shy from finishing up my first semester in my accelerated nursing program at Marian University in Indianapolis, IN. To say that nursing school in general is a big commitment is an understatement. Trying to cram all of that learning and preparation into just 16 months… well, I am still trying to figure out how to describe that. Going into my program, I didn’t really have a set game plan for how I wanted to study. This is especially the case since the material I would be learning about was completely different from what I studied in my first degree. Little did I know that upon purchasing my books (all published by Elsevier), my studying concerns went out the door. I quickly realized all the extra resources that Elsevier offered, and my new studying go-to instantly became Elsevier’s Adaptive Quizzing. For each of my nursing books, Elsevier offers the resources to generate quizzes for you based off the specific chapter that you choose. You can choose either the “Mastery” option, where it is an unlimited amount of questions until you reach your desired level of expertise regarding the topic(s) chosen. Or you can choose the “Custom” option, where you choose a set number of questions in the topic(s) of your choice, which will also help you reach a certain level of expertise. I cannot express enough how much these adaptive quizzes have helped not only myself, but my fellow classmates as well. Leading up to every exam, my classmates and I discuss how we plan to review as many Elsevier Adaptive Quizzes as we can because we know that they have helped us be well-prepared for our previous exams. I’ve learned that the more adaptive quizzes that I can get under my belt, the more confident I feel walking into my exams. I think a lot of us can agree that we can only continue to read the same information repeatedly until it starts to make us go stir-crazy. That’s why I think it is so important to take a break from your reading assignments and listening to lectures to put your brain to the test and quiz yourself over the material that you’ve been reviewing non-stop. Making the material all come together in a way that you will be tested over will not only make you a better student, but a better future nurse! In the end, we aren’t spending most of our time studying and taking our nursing exams to pass our classes… we are doing all of this in preparation to help save lives, take care of loved ones, and to make a difference in the world of nursing. Moral of the story here is this, don’t ever stop doing the most for yourself and your future career as a nurse. Work hard at your assignments, listen to your lectures as often as you can, find your tribe of like-minded classmates that push you to succeed, do all the adaptive quizzes through Elsevier, crush your exams, and finally, CELEBRATE! Nursing school is hard, but with each exam you are one step closer to earning those letters behind your name – and Elsevier is there to help you every step of the way.
Building Confidence in Nursing School Posted on May 3, 2020 at 8:56 pm.Written by [email protected] For me, being self-confident means it can help you pass your exams and achieve great outcomes in nursing school. You can also gain high confidence when you put the time and effort into learning and studying, and practicing. After you put the time and effort in, it is good not to doubt yourself. Always go with your instincts and believe in yourself. You should strive to have confidence in your answers and your knowledge. Don’t doubt your correct answers and overthink and change the answer. Having good confidence in my knowledge and test-taking abilities has improved my grades in nursing school. I have been using the Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX®-RN book and the online quizzing it comes with to do practice questions. I complete practice questions in the Saunders book every week, and review all of them before the exam. Doing practice questions has helped me gain confidence in my knowledge because it helps me understand what I know and what I am struggling with. I make sure to read the rationale for the right and wrong choices for every question. This helps me understand how to critically think for different concepts and increased my self-confidence in my critical thinking abilities. It is also important to continue to take your confidence with you to the clinical setting. In the clinical setting, it is important to have confidence in your patient care and critical thinking. This can help save a life. Confidence does not mean knowing everything – it means that you will be able to ask questions and help when needed. It is important to believe in your knowledge and have self-confidence in yourself. This will help improve your critical thinking and patient care.
Mnemonics for Memory Posted on April 27, 2020 at 9:10 pm.Written by [email protected] It can be extremely overwhelming when you’re trying to remember all of the information nursing school throws at you. At times, it may feel impossible to memorize the action, origin, and insertion of all the muscles in the human body, all signs and symptoms of hypo/hyperglycemia, or the adverse effects of Digoxin. The bottom line is that our brains need help remembering and memorizing these key topics when it comes to nursing. I’ve found that using memory aids and mnemonics helps me remember important information easier. Here are some of my favorites: When remembering key elements of a patient’s health history assessment I like to use SAMPLE:S – Symptoms A – Allergies M – Medications P – Past Medical History L – Last Oral Intake E – Events leading up to illness or injury When I need to remember important emergency medications to lean on, I use LEAN: L – Lidocaine HCL E – Epinephrine A – Atropine Sulfate N – Naloxone (Narcan) When I need to remember the signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia is use these: “Cold and clammy need some candy” – Hypoglycemia “High and dry, sugar high” – Hyperglycemia These are just a few examples of so many memory aids and mnemonics available to nursing students, and they are super helpful when it comes to exams! You can find these memory aids and mnemonics anywhere, but most of them I found in my Elsevier textbooks. If you’re having trouble remembering important information, you can even try coming up with your own memory aid or mnemonic device!
Using Your Differences to Make a Difference Posted on March 21, 2020 at 6:52 pm.Written by [email protected] As healthcare workers and students, the importance of reflection is something that is always stressed. In my personal life- and especially in light of recent events- reflecting on my ethnicity and culture is something I’ve been doing a lot more of. And this process of reflection has gone hand-in-hand with my growth as an advocate in healthcare. I can’t count all the times in my life where I’ve looked at my differences as disadvantages, or as flaws. I was born in Puerto Rico into a strong, diverse Latinx family. I grew up speaking and learning English and Spanish alongside each other. I was raised to be proud of who I was, and to represent my culture wherever I went. None of that was an issue for me when I was younger. But the older I’ve gotten, the more evident the cruelty in this world has become. From subtle snarkiness and microaggressions to blatant racism and even threats; the world is no longer sugarcoated for us. And these are the kinds of situations that make you want to change who you are to fit inside the bubble of what other people want. Without even realizing it, I started to change myself to fit a mold I was never meant to fit in. This was the case until I started working in healthcare- when my perspective really changed. Living in a southern state in an area with relatively low diversity, I started to realize the impact I could create as a Latinx healthcare worker. Over the past few years, I’ve worked with many individuals whose native language was Spanish. Many individuals who have never gotten proper translations, or true culturally comprehensive care before I became a part of their team. So many people who have never seen someone who looked like them in the healthcare system before me. I’ve realized that I was never meant to change who I was to fit into a system. Instead, I was meant to be who I am, unapologetically, to change that very system! And we can all do the same. Created change starts with us! And most of the time, it’s the little things that can make the biggest difference. We all have our own strengths – our own qualities that make us unique. And now more than ever, we have to use that to help create a more open-minded and diverse healthcare system globally. The future of what healthcare looks like depends on us. Are we actively working to create a more positive environment? Are we actively holding true to the basic principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and respect? Or are we conforming to a system that is outdated- one that has actively excluded people for not fitting the “mold”? As healthcare workers and students, we are called to be ADVOCATES. We need to use our differences to make a difference.
