So I’ve finally started clinicals!! Hooray! It’s been so exciting finally being able to be hands on and getting some real life clinical experience! With this being said, I thought it would be helpful to my fellow nursing students going into their clinicals as well to share what I carry in my bag!
PENS: I make sure to carry 2-3 on me at all times! You never know when you need to write things down! MINI POCKET SIZED NOTEBOOK: Again, you’ll never know when you need to make a note! I also will add little reminders to myself in here such as important lab value ranges or procedural steps, etc. STETHOSCOPE: An obvious essential! How else are you going to assess your patients! My go to is my Littmann Cardiology IV! I love it so much! PENLIGHT: I always make sure I have one or two of these with me on rotation since I’ll have to check my patients eyes/reflexes! BADGE/BADGE REEL: My hospital requires our student card to swipe into the hospital as well as for identification! My badge reel is from Badge Beauties on Etsy/Instagram and I use the pink ribbon one in honor for my Mum battling breast cancer at the moment! I love how this is a personal accent on my scrubs. They come in all shapes, colours, and designs so definitely check her page out! PAPERWORK: I’m talking care plan sheets, SBARS, and mini charting documentation sheets. My clinical instructor likes us to fill all of these out as well as charting in Docucare. I make sure to always have a copy on hand of these SNACKS: I’m going to dive deeper into this in a different post on what foods I bring with me to clinicals however I ALWAYS make sure I bring a protein bar. They’re just easy to eat in a few minutes, give me energy, and keep me satisfied for a couple of hours! My favourite bars are the Zone Perfect Nutrition Bars in the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor! They literally taste like dessert and have a ton of nutritional supplements in them! WATER BOTTLE: Essential!!! The more water you drink the better. Obviously not for the lack of time being able to pee but it keeps you more awake, alert, and oriented (AAOx4 lol) during your shift! There’s nothing worse than being dehydrated.
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Sometimes my study sessions feel like they never end! There have been days I’m at the library from 10am-2am and comfort and efficiency is a total necessity to help me retain all of the crazy info we need to know as nurses. Here are some of my top tips and things I bring with me when I study to help me ace my exams! 1. Comfy clothes: Trust me the lib isn’t a place for a fashion show. I’ll wear sneaks with fuzzy socks, my comfiest leggings, a big sweatshirt and throw my hair in a bun. I find that comfort is KEY...especially if I’m going to be sitting there all day and night!
2. Caffeine: I either go for a tea or a coffee when I study but only keep it to one cup! This provides me with the alertness I need but takes away the potential of a caffeine crash! My go to Dunks order is an iced coffee with almond milk and caramel instead of sugar. 3. H2O: I can’t stress this enough! The more you drink the better you’ll study I swear. It helps my brain focus more when I’m super hydrated! I always go for a stainless steel swell or my fave Takeya USA bottle since it holds 32 ounces and keeps it ice cold for 12 hours! I highly recommend this especially if you’re drinking caffeine! 4. Snacks: I usually opt for healthy meals and reward myself with a special snack while studying! If you know me at all you know I have the biggest sweet tooth and love for any kind of gummy candy. I usually have something like this with me and I use it kind of like a reward system... read 10 pages, eat some gummies! It’s good incentive! 5. Index Cards/Quizlet: This is key for me when I have medical terminology, vocab, or important lab values to remember. Things that require straight memorization I tend to write on index cards or if I feel like using my laptop I’ll use Quizlet to make virtual ones! Quizlet is also great for sharing so a lot of my classmates and I will split these up and share the work of creating them! 6. Laptop: I use my laptop the most when I’m studying. I tend to use word documents quite a bit to type up study guides or take notes from my textbook. I’ll also use my laptop for my university’s Canvas website and any Ebooks I have! 7. Headphones: Tbh I study just as well with music than without but sometimes I like to block everything out. You ALWAYS get those annoyingly loud table of “studiers” that you need to block out so these are a major necessity for me! I use Apple Music and honestly it’s the best $4.99 a month (student deals) I spend I use it every single day. 8. ATI Review Books: Especially during exam season I seriously focus on these books. They’re the best things to study from (if your program uses ATI) and I have a feeling they’re going to be the best things to prepare me for clinical as well! 9. Chargers: This seems so simple and stupid to write but you wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve forgotten a charger and it is the WORST. I always pack my laptop charger since I constantly use it while studying and my phone charger! I never want my music to run out, my phone to die for safety reasons, or my laptop to die mid- research paper! First order of business is to plan! I like to map out when all of my quizzes, assignments, and most importantly exams are! I usually do this in my iPhone calendar, hand written planner, and canvas website! It may sound excessive but it ensures me that I’m highly unlikely to miss anything since it’s plastered everywhere. This way I can see if I have any exams falling on the same day and how many days/hours I have available to study!
Value understanding concepts over memorization. It is impossible to remember every drug, disease and symptom with how the body reacts. Instead, a lot of my friends and I came up with acronyms and shortcuts to help us. For example, in pharmacology we would note the prefixes and suffixes of the drugs and noticed that certain classes have the same ending. This helps group together things in your mind so you can actually understand them and recognize them come test time! In pre requisite classes like anatomy and pathophysiology, I try to focus on the etiology and what reactions are occurring in the body. It’s more beneficial to focus on the big picture but still remember the important details if they’re specific to the disease. Figure out what type of learner you are! For me, I’m a combined visual and auditory learner. I honestly recommend using any way of studying to help because it may come to a test question and you’ll be able to picture a graph or something your classmate said during a tutoring session. And finally I recommend using as many resources as you can throughout the semester such as:
These are my main tips I focus on when I study in order to cover as many areas as I can! It’s all about finding your groove and what works for you. Just remember everyone is different. What takes you one hour may take somebody else five hours and that’s totally okay. Just focus on succeeding and working as hard as you can and you’ll pass with flying colours! Stress sucks and we all have to deal with it in one form or another in our lives. But when it comes to nursing school, I’ve learned a few tricks over the past few years to help me manage it a bit more.
Tip 1... PLAN PLAN PLAN. I use a planner, my iPhone calendar, & my schools canvas site to keep me up to date so I can plan my time efficiently and attempt to work ahead to allow for free time. This really helps me to de-stress & take some of the pressure off knowing that I’m unlikely to miss an assignment having it plastered on every item I own! Tip 2: Learn how to prioritize yourself as well as school. It is challenging at first, but is ESSENTIAL to your success. All work and no play is hard (trust me I tried it). Do little things for yourself such as taking short breaks. For example during my study sessions when I feel like I’m hitting a wall, I’ll walk to Starbucks or scroll Instagram for 15 minutes and laugh at memes. Little things like this to give your mind a break make a huge difference in performance as well as mindset. I always come back to the books feeling refreshed and ready to tackle another chapter! Tip 3: Utilize everything you can. I find that asking for help is never something to be ashamed of! For me I go to my university’s tutoring center whenever I have questions, want a refresher, or someone to even test me on the material to help me feel more confident! They’re also a great tool to use during final weeks with reviews and topic outlines for exams. I also recommend working with your peers! In my program we all trade study guides and coordinate study groups to work together! Take time for yourself. Most of the time it definetly doesn’t feel like there’s any time to do something fun or selfish when there’s 800 exams coming your way. But there is if you time manage! Nobody gave me a crash course in what to expect in nursing school. It was more of a push on a bike or a jump in the pool kind of situation where you just figure it out as you go & trust the process. But what nobody tells you can be the hardest things to handle... It will be hard. The hours of studying are long. Much longer than any other undergraduate degree and much more tedious than the classes your non-nursing friends are taking (and you’ll totally be jealous of it). You’ll be up hours later than you should be running purely on caffeine just to get that extra hour of studying in. It will make you feel incredibly dumb. There have been times where I feel like as much as I study I’m not doing enough. You’ll find there’s time you’ll work your ass off and get a “C” in a class or fail an exam. It will feel like your world is ending but I promise you it won’t! (C’s get degrees...but like aim for A’s) The atmosphere is competitive. And it sucks. People will always try to be better at a skill checkoff, smarter, or wiser than you. But that’s ok. Just maintain your self confidence in knowing you’re studying the most you can and are equally as wonderful at what you’re doing. Don’t get caught up in the GPA and grades. These things are important yes, but at the end of the day numbers don’t define you. You can be a wonderful nurse with a 3.0 GPA. Burnout is real. Some semesters you just wanna say f*ck it all and quit because you’re so tired of putting in so much and sometimes getting nothing back. But stay strong, study hard, and you WILL preserver! But at the end of the day it is worth every painful study session, every $5 you spend on coffee a day, and every late night pulling an all nighter. Because there is no greater feeling than passing a checkoff on a skill, mastering the art of caring, and passing those hard exams! You’ve got this!
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