First week of Senior year down

We have come to the end of the first week back at school for both the kids and myself. It has been quite successful for us all, I must say. 

Now, my nursing school has been a struggle. Yes the material is difficult. Yes, nursing school is stressful. Yes, it is intense. But my program has been quite disorganized, which is the thing that has stressed me the most. I feel like our program could be so much better with a few tweaks. 

Well, all last year our class was sort of the guinea pigs. They would try things, make us buy things, take things away, just see what would work and what wouldn't. I hate that!

But this year, now that several people have left the program, we have a new program director, new clinical coordinator, and several new teachers. This all happened about 2 weeks before the Fall semester began, so they have all been working furiously to get things lined up for us. Things aren't set in stone yet, but already I feel so much better about the program. We don't have a schedule yet, but that's ok. 

Tentatively, we are in skills and clinical on Mondays and Wednesdays and some out rotations on Tuesdays. Thursdays are class days for Meg Surg 2 and 3, with some additional practice in the afternoon. We are off on Fridays. 

So far, I showed up to school Monday with a total stomach ache. We had no idea what was going to happen. But, the professor that made me cry my first semester, who is incredibly amazing and has so much information to offer, is now our full time clinical instructor. She had designed a full day with our professors to review and repractice our skills all day Monday. Then Wednesday, we were to complete 4 major skills in groups in front of the professors for an informal check off. We did foley catheter insertion and removal, nasopharyngeal suctioning and trach care, IV insertion and fluid administration, central line dressing changing, and nasogastric tube insertion, suction, and removal.

 It was so nice to be able to practice, ask questions, have demonstrations, and not be ridiculed but guided. She then sent us an email with our schedule for next week, and attachments with instructions and information to study. She is almost finished with our clinical schedule which I hope to get next week so I can plan. But I left feeling so much better about our program. We aren't just teaching ourselves or watching youtube videos. We had direction. It was awesome. 

I am cautiously optimistic about what is to come this semester. SPring semester will just be our preceptorship semester. We must complete 30 12 hour shifts before graduation in May. 

So one week down, and 14 more to go for this semester. YAY!