Five Weeks in Hell

NSG 222- My instructor was nice. She had incredibly high expectations, and we did our best to meet them. I actively participated in class. Although I could speak the content pretty good and could recite my meds fairly fluently during med recall, I was still failing the tests. It was incredibly frustrating. My instructor was very good about going over my tests with me. After the first test, I started to challenge the questions. In some cases I was just wrong, but in other cases my instructor would tell me that she thought that they threw this question out or that question out. Other times it would take her six times to read the question and try to figure out what it was asking, the same number of times that it took me. A few times she even told me that I was right, but the answer that I had chosen wasn’t the one that they were looking for. I asked her if they could keep the scrap paper that we get in the testing center to write down rationale if we have any problems. She told me that they couldn’t do that. I was really frustrated. I felt hopeless. My demeanor completely changed. I honestly felt that I had a handle on the content and that the questions were too vague. Our entire class looked as if they had been to war. Everyone was struggling.  Many of us went back to school after clinical to learn EKGs because we didn't feel that we knew them well enough to be tested on. J* was a lab faculty member and she is the only reason that we knew EKGs at all. Not only did she teach us EKGs, she would also talk about the content with us. On one day we were in the lab discussing the content that we were about to be tested on when another NSG 222 told us that what we had learned was wrong. We told her that Molly said that what we were saying was right, and she said, "Well, you can tell Molly that what I said is right and she can call me about it if she has any problems with it".We all had power points from another instructor and used those as well.  There were some discrepancies, which unfortunately contributed to some missed questions. I can’t argue another instructor’s notes. Even though I think it would be terribly disrespectful to do so, it was still unsettling that there were so many discrepancies, considering that all the students were given the same test questions. I did good on my EKG test, earning 9.5 out of 10 points. I did have to take my math test a second time. For check-offs, I had to redo my IV push and scenario. The only test that I did pass was the final, which I only got an 85% on. My instructor’s biggest issue with me was my process tool (care plan). I did try very hard to navigate Epic (the hospital's charting/ communication system) and find all of my information. Epic was new to me (I had never been to a clinical site that used it and neither does my work) and we didn’t have a lot of time to find things, so I did have missing data. She also had issues with my plan of care. At the Atrium, patients don’t stay for very long and my patients were always scheduled to leave that day or the next. With that in mind, my interventions were only those that reflected their current state of health, not their admitting diagnosis. Once I figured out that my instructor wanted a plan of care based on the disease and not the patient, she was much happier and told me that she was very impressed with my care plan and the improvement that I had made. Had I known that earlier, I would have done just that. In regards to my missing data, I refuse to make something up just to fill in the blank. I’ve been advised by other students to do so and that the instructors didn’t know the difference, but for me it comes down to integrity. I don’t want to get in the habit of thinking that it’s okay to make up stuff I don’t know. I don’t think that it’s a quality that a good nurse possesses.  
My instructor was aware that I had ADHD. In the beginning of the quarter, I had told her that I was having trouble getting my prescription filled due to a drug shortage, which was true, but mostly an attempt to hide my true feelings towards the test questions. She was very understanding and seemed like she cared a lot. I did everything that I possibly could, but I still ended up failing the course by about 7 or 8 points. I felt like I was not only a failure as student, but a failure as a mom as well. My kids spent many nights away from home for nothing. It truly broke my heart. My only saving grace was knowing that I wasn’t the only one having issues. Students who usually earned A's were struggling to get a B, and some were even struggling to maintain a C. Two, possibly three other students failed in a class of nine. This is NOT typical for students who are so close to graduating. Not to mention, NSG 222 has an incredibly HIGH failure rate (more on that later), which I was not aware of at the time. Once the grades were posted, it was official: I was holding my family back once again. In talking with my peers afterwards, I and two other students thought that it would be a good idea to talk to someone about NSG 222. It definitely turned out NOT to be helping hand that I was looking for.

Next post: Meeting with Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde