When they say, you can’t… Remember you can

Whether you’ve just applied to your dream program, are in the middle of finals, or just finished the most tiring semester you’ve had yet, you might still be questioning your ability to make it in nursing. We’ve all done it; we wondered if we have what it takes or whether we’ll be able to support ourselves financially through school. Some have families and kids to take care of, while others lack confidence and let that imposter syndrome creep in. Nursing school involves hours upon hours of schoolwork every week, long clinical hours, and high-stakes exams like HESI and ATI. We wonder if we’ll have the time to do it all and still pass. This made it more difficult when you add it to having a job. I can’t tell you how many times our faculty have lectured us on why we may want to reconsider working while in nursing school (if only it were that easy). If any of this applies to you, chances are you need a little motivation and inspiration to keep on pushing through. And since it is the season of giving, I’m here to share some.

Asking For Help: Is A Strength, NOT A Weakness

So many times in nursing, we hear all of the individual tasks we must do on any given day as nurses. YOU hand out these meds; YOU take this patient here or there, YOU bathe the patient, YOU have an admission. I often hear so many new or even experienced nurses talk about the "weight" they feel having for 12 hours straight, 3-5 days a week. We feel overwhelmed, scared, angry, and most of all, alone. I am slowly learning as a new grad; we do not have to feel this way! There are SO many tools, resources, and most of all, our peers to assist us daily in the numerous tasks and skills we must perform.

Now, this is something I struggled with, especially as a student! I felt like I was burdening the nurse, asking too much of them, distracting them from what they needed to do. But one thing I was told by a very knowledgeable nurse, "If you do not ask, you will never learn if you do not know how to ask!

It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint. How to Handle Failure in Nursing School

Nursing school is a long process. Whether you are in a two-year or a four-year program…there are bound to be failures or areas where you fall short of your expectations. Coming into nursing school, I was used to failure. It was all I knew because I failed out of college two times before beginning again in 2018. I had to meet with advisors, appeal my academic suspension, provide letters of recommendation, and re-take the classes I failed. Being back from that and getting accepted to nursing school, and maintaining a 3.90 GPA has been one of my most significant accomplishments. Not only am I in a position that I never thought would happen, but I am doing it, and I am doing it well. So, how do you handle failures while in nursing school and come back stronger?
While I have been doing well in nursing school, I have failed. Quizzes, medication calculation exams, skills check-offs, it happens. More important is how you handle it and what you do to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

So Close But Yet.. So Close. Remembering Your End Goal

We can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think we can all agree that this semester of nursing school has pushed us, motivated us, caused us stress, or brought us the best days of learning. With only one more week in the semester, we've been assigned homework, ATI's, and studying material for our finals. What makes it all worth it is the amount of knowledge and skills I've learned. I remember looking at the material a few weeks before school started. I closed my dosage calculations textbook just as quickly as I opened it. I was so nervous because I saw things that made me think: "Is nursing school for me?" But as the semester went on, I excelled in something that I feared. My class chose me to be class representative, which motivated me to go harder. I would constantly hear, "You're the smartest in the class." That made me feel really good inside. We had a test one week, and I remember making my first C on an exam. Everybody would say, "well, if you didn't do good, then I know I didn't." It put so much pressure on me because I didn't know my classmates believed in passing every exam. But again, it motivated me to make sure I understood the material and made sure my classmates knew the material. 

Probably one of the most frequent questions I get asked is about note-taking. What I use to take notes, how I prepare to take notes in class, my style of note-taking. I can not emphasize the point enough; I encourage everyone in the nursing field and going through nursing school to find the note-taking style that best fits your needs! There are thousands of ways to take notes, but only one way will most benefit you. Find what works and stick with it! Here are just a few tips and tricks I used to help narrow in my focus on notes and note-taking because, let's face it, we take A LOT of them!

Coping With Death in the Workplace:

“Grief is the price we pay for love” - Queen Elizabeth II. This quote is something that resonates with me. As nurses, we care so strongly about our patients, we may care for these individuals for minutes to months, yet we create a bond unlike any other in these periods of time. Often our patients' passing will be peaceful and surrounded by family, and other times it is  traumatic and lonely. We may wonder, did we do everything we could? If I were a better nurse would they have pulled through? Did I miss something that could have been a warning sign? What if we intubated them even a minute fast? All of these what if’s can leave us distressed after a patient's passing, and can become something we bring home with us.

I’ve caught myself thinking about patients' deaths for days and weeks after they’ve happened wondering all of those same questions. I’ve cried in the bathroom after codes, and driven home in silence after shifts with a heavy heart. But all of these hard feelings remind me that I am human,  and nursing does not have to make me cold to death and sadness. 

Often we look back at our past traumas. Those traumas can motivate us or deter us from accomplishing our goals, even the small ones. In nursing school, we could be so busy that we forget to step back and breathe. To step back and reflect. We have to reflect on the things we learn, but we also have to reflect on our mental health. What are your needs and wants? Because if we constantly neglect ourselves, it can show up in our personal lives, school lives, and work-life. I remember a time in the military I neglected my mental health for months. I am constantly being out in the field and getting the mission done. Then one day, when I didn't have to worry about the mission and getting things done.
I realized that I didn't have a handle on things I needed for my mental health. I was depressed, full of anxiety every day.