Reflection of My Very First Semester of Nursing School

My first semester of nursing school was something I will remember for the rest of my life. The shock you feel once you realize your no ordinary student puts the whole program into perspective. Meeting the people you will soon call your closest friends makes everything you go through well worth it.

Nursing students, and I'm sure this feeling is mutual throughout all nursing schools, are not among the average students you see walking around campus. Once you start the program you can expect to: have no social life outside of your clinical group, become well aware of what it feels like to be in class for ten hours straight, and completely forget about the idea of cramming before a test. The main shock comes from realizing the world you just stepped into. You as a student are required to know so much at such a fast pace and there is no other option. I know that for me personally failure is and will never be an option, my only choice is to put in the work and achieve what I view as success. All that matters at the end of everyday is that you came and attempted to conquer.
If there's one thing I can picture all professors saying is that "no one else will understand what you're going through unless they're in nursing school," and it is absolutely 100% true. It was so nice to be able to bond with people in your cohort because we're all in the same boat, and if one goes down we all go with them. These people are what made first semester of nursing school one for the books, without them I don't know how or if I would have made it this far. I'm so excited for the rest of the program and to grow closer to all these amazing people. I feel so incredibly blessed to be surrounded by such smart, loving, and funny people.
My first semester will be something I will never forget. From the shock of the first test to the meeting of new people, these things are what contribute making the first semester of nursing school an unforgettable one. All that really matters at the end of the day are two things: 1) how hard you tried and 2) the people who were along for the ride.

Nursing Communication: the good & the bad

THE GOOD

Communication can be an important part of the nursing process. This simple tool, something we do on a daily basis for multiple reasons, can mean the difference between a good or bad day. As a nurse, you are there to listen to the patients concerns, fears, and joys. You should always take the time to sit down and pay attention, for you could be the only person this person has to talk to. More importantly, it is your job to communicate with other people in the health profession. The good part about this is that it leads to better and more effective care. When your a nurse your job revolves around communication, its up to you to make sure that it is done effectively. 

THE BAD

With communication being such a powerful tool in the medical field, nurses have the power to use it ineffectively. When this is not done properly, the patients care is in jeopardy because the nurse failed to communicate the necessary information to the nurse of the subsequent shift. In addition, nurses can communicate about the wrong and/or unnecessary things instead of focusing on the patients they are assigned to. On countless occasions, I have witnessed the nurse I was assigned to gossip in the hall, right outside the patients room, about certain patients and how difficult or dramatic they were being. I felt it so wrong to gossip like that when I knew that the nurse had multiple things that were in need of being done. Nurses can take vitals all day long, but they play a vital role in the functioning of a hospital.

Communication- the human 

connection- is the key to 

personal and career success

-Paul J. Meyer

Obstacles & Challenges

Some how I have made it to almost week 8 of the nursing program, almost half way! I couldn't explain to you how I have made it this far with all the obstacles I've had to over come. But, I always know that I am not in this boat alone and it should be somewhat normal to have these feelings, right?

It all begins with the shock you get when you first start. I remember looking at my class schedule thinking how unethical it was to be in class for ten hours straight. Adapting to these long, challenging schedules was an obstacle in it self. You have to push your family and jobs aside, which to me are very important and hard to let go, to just make it through the present week. Once I adapted, which I am still in the process of doing, I am able to remind myself that this has been my dream since I was a little girl and my family will always be there. The whole beginning almost seems too surreal, and I still don't know how I made it through but somehow, I made it.

Once you finally adept to that and are going through the motions of all of it, you’re presented at least weekly with your breaking point. For me, this involves a lot of crying (kind of like this picture) and giving myself a pep talk to calm myself down. It usually happens before the night of the big exams when you couldn't dare yourself to read another fifty pages or go over my mountain-high stack of flash cards. This has to be the biggest lesson I've learned thus far in the program. No longer can you cram the night before and pray that you get a reasonable grade, nope not anymore. The breakdowns have subsided and can now put that energy toward studying harder and earning better grades.

Finally, my last, and hardest, obstacle is believing in myself. There have been countless times when I have felt like I could not complete all the assignments on time or study for one more minute after studying for three days straight. This is by far my biggest challenge. Luckily, whenever I’m having this problem, there is always something showing me that I am capable. Whether it is receiving a good grade or my peers encouraging me that I can do it and its normal to be feeling this way, either way it’s a blessing. I feel that this will always be a struggle for me throughout the program, but I hope that by the end I can realize how far I have actually come and that it was all done through me.

My Inspiration

Growing up I was lucky enough to have my family surround me at all times. From every honor award ceremony to every birthday party, my loud and crazy family was there at all times. Of all the people that surrounded me on a day-to-day basis, one member in particular will always stand out more than the others. That person is my grandmother, Mercedes (woman in picture to left). We may not be related by blood, but that’s not what matters. She always treated me as if I’m her own and I have never looked at her as anything less than a grandmother, if anything she’s more than that.

It is because of her that I have been dreaming of becoming a nurse for as long as I can remember. My whole life I would hear stories about how she saved peoples lives and no matter what the circumstances were she was always say that she loved what she did. After almost forty years as a Registered Nurse she has decided to retire wishing she could continue to work. She has been such an inspiration to me and has set the bar very high to live up to.

Proceeding right after her retirement was when I started my own personal journey through nursing school. Now, being only a few weeks into it, I’ve felt so many different emotions ranging from extremely scared to overly excited and all the other feelings that fall somewhere in between. Every time I feel all those emotions, which I’m sure every one of us has felt at some point, my first instinct is to call her, and every time she knows exactly what to say. One time in particular I was telling her overwhelmed I felt with all the assignments that were required of us nursing students, and she looked at me and said “Alyssa, I finished nursing school with two babies and no money to support them. If I can do that, you can do with no problem.” Of course, she says the perfect thing and now that’s all I tell myself whenever I get overwhelmed.  

My grandmother has been my inspiration my whole life. I cannot remember a time when she was not there for me. Especially now, when I feel I need her help more than ever, she is always right there to support me and say the perfect words to make everything be okay. I owe it to her to make it through nursing school and I hope by the time I make it to my first day working as an RN I can be half the nurse she was.