Category: NSG 447 Post (Page 2 of 2)

ATI Adult Medical-surgical Adaptive

February 25, 2021 / jtravassos / 1 Comment

Going into this exam, I was more confident that I was going into the pharmacology one. Over the course of our time at UNE we have had three different medical-surgical classes and I felt as if I had a good understanding of the content. During this exam, I chose to try a new strategy. This time I was not scheduling breaks and I was going to make sure that I read each question carefully along with all the answers even if I knew the answer right away. This helped me greatly with this test because in the past I have been so quick to jump the gun and go with an answer that I thought was right and did not take the time to read the other options. Not scheduling breaks also allowed me to stay more concentrated on what I was doing and made it so I was actually less mentally fatigued. I think when you know a break is coming, you get lazier in your thinking and just try to get to that checkpoint where a break was planned. I took fewer breaks this time but took them at the right points when I knew my attention and quality of work was beginning to decline.

When it came to the content on this test, I felt that I was reletivly competent. On several occasions, I felt like I was failing and getting multiple questions wrong in a row. I seemed to have had almost all select all that apply questions and they came back to back. In other adaptive tests I have taken, there was only a hand full of select all that apply. On this exam, on the other hand, I think of the 75 questions I answered, 20 of them were select all that apply. This was discouraging because oftentimes I struggle with these questions and get 1/2 of 3/4 of the answers but not the whole question correct. After completing the exam and reviewing my test, I was rather proud of the fact that I got a significant amount of these questions correct. Next time I take an adaptive exam, the main thing I want to change is losing focus the closure I got to 75 questions. Knowing that this exam can shut off at 75 is something that is so fixed in my mind and all I can think about once I get to question 50. Luckily on this test, my exam did shut off at 75, but on the last one, it didn’t. When this happened I was overcome with this feeling of dread and shame that I was not smart enough to finish in 75 questions. I think it is important to realize that even if you finish in 200 questions, it does not indicate that you are incompetent or stupid. Overall I think this all comes down to confidence and trusting in my knowledge and knowing that if I do my best and take my time, the worst that can happen is that I have to remediate. Remediations at the end of the day are still a great learning experience and teach you more about a concept that you were clearly lacking knowledge of.

ATI Pharm Adaptive Test

February 22, 2021 / jtravassos / 1 Comment

The NCLEX is looming closer and closer ever day it seems and there is still so much practice to be done. With this in mind I made sure to take this pharmacology exam as much like the NCLEX as I could. I went into a quiet place, no phone, no water, or food, and tried to create the best test like environment I could. I also went in with the plan to try and schedule breaks to prevent that mental fatigue that tends to accompany not only test taking but more so computerized tests. My plan was to take a break every 10 questions, but as the test went on, I started to forgo this method and just take short breaks when I felt the need rather than when they were scheduled. I found that when taking one every 10 questions I would either just being trying to rush threw to that time off or I would get on a roll and not want to lose that momentum by taking a break. I think that these learning curves and different test taking strategy are great to experiment with now because when it comes time for the NCLEX, I will have hopefully finetuned a stagey that works best for me.

This adaptive pharmacology test was more challenging than I initially expected. I had done pretty well in pharmacology and thought that I had a good grasp of a lot of different medications. Early on in this exam, I realized just how wrong my assumption had been. I would even go as far as saying that a majority of the medications were ones that I had not even heard of. Despite this, I was able to come to the correct answer to many questions by using my knowledge of the conditions. This allowed me to eliminate answers and get an idea of what the medication’s purpose was in relation to the client’s needs. This test was helpful in teaching that even if you may not understand every part of a question, you can use the pieces that you do understand as well as the options to make a well-informed selection. By the time I got to question 75, I was really hoping that my exam would shut off but unfortunately, it did not. Fortunately, my exam did shut off at 123 questions and not 265. Of those 123 questions, I got 84 correct and 39 wrong, all of which I remediated and was able to learn more about so I will hopefully not get them wrong in the future. The main lesson I would take away from this experience of not shutting off at 75 questions, is the fact that I should not bank on this happening. Once I reached question 76 my focus decreased, and I became frustrated with every subsequent question. If I had continued to take it one question at a time and given it my full attention and focus, I think I would have done better. Overall, I clearly need to study my pharmacologic information more going into my NCLEX and become more comfortable with adverse effects and contraindications of medications.

Career Development

February 12, 2021 / jtravassos / 0 Comments

Going into the class, we were given the opportunity to watch the trailer to the documentary Nurses: If Florence Could See Us Now. The night before class I watched the trailer to get an idea of what to expect. Although the video was only a two-minute and forty-second snippet of the documentary, it drew me in and showed me how influential the profession of nursing is on people’s lives. After watching the whole documentary, I was filled with a sense of excitement to be able to enter such a privileged field. As a nurse, we get to support people through the hardest times of their life as well as some of the happiest. It is a rewarding field where every day you can walk home knowing that you made some sort of an impact. Everyone knows that death is a part of life and as a nurse, it is inevitable that you will see death. No matter what field of nursing you are in, death is likely. This is an aspect of nursing I don’t feel like anyone can really learn or prepare for before experiencing it. Even after experiencing a couple of losses I still feel that loss. I used to view it as a weakness or hindrance to what I’ll be able to achieve. That was until I realized from this documentary, that feeling these losses as well as success with patients only allow you to grow as a nurse and a person. I have always known that I wanted to be a nurse, and now more than ever, I know that this is true. As a nurse, I will never stop learning and growing as a person and the day that I no longer feel that way is the day I am no longer an asset to my patients. Overall, I loved this documentary and can see that although nursing has grown and improved over time it is still in its early phases and will continue to grow and change as more time passes. I think if Florence could see us now, she would be proud of how far we have come but also motivated to overcome what is still in front of us.

As senior year and my time at UNE comes to a fast-approaching end, I have spent a lot of time thinking, “what next?”. I have said for as long as I can remember that I want to be a labor and delivery nurse. After three weeks of maternity, I still feel that way, but I have yet to have my clinical rotation. I loved my time on the med surge and surgical floors and could see myself working in that area as well. It is a little overwhelming to see all the fields and opportunities you have once you become a nurse. I also fully believe you never know how you feel about something until you get in there and do it. During my practicum at Mercy, I worked with several people in the new grad program. After listening to their experience, I think that a new grad program is a way I want to go. That way I can get more experience and confidence in my nursing abilities as well as be more marketable later on in my career. To prepare I have set up an appointment with career services to work on my resume as well as practice my interview. I have never been the best person at selling myself or my skills so that is an aspect of the interview process that I need to work on. Being confident in your skills as well as knowing what your good at is different than being cocky. On the other hand, not being confident in yourself is almost worse than being overconfident. There is a balance or these skills and after listening to the interviewing presentation, I think I have an understanding of how to do this. You can admit your shortcomings and mistakes as long as you have a plan to improve on them and show self-awareness of what you need to improve on as well as what you are good at. Another aspect of the interview process that can set me apart is knowing the hospital’s mission statement and showing how I can fit into that mission. Along with that remaining upbeat and confident as well as engaged in conversation is something that can set me apart. I will be honest; the interview process has never been a strong suit of mine. I have great communication skills when it comes to patient interactions and on a more casual level, but when it comes to a high-stress situation I oftentimes become flustered and freeze up. With practice and building up the skills and confidence needed to interview, I know that I will be able to succeed and show what I can bring to a job. UNE’s nursing program has provided me with the skills and knowledge required to begin a career in nursing as well as my prior work experience as a CNA. I have always been able to interact well with patients and support their needs but now I have the knowledge and clinical thinking skills required to help them on a medical level as well.

Prepare for Transition!

January 23, 2021 / jtravassos / 0 Comments

It almost does not feel real that we are in our last semester of senior year. In six months, it is likely that myself and many, of my classmates will have sat for our boards and will be starting work as registered nurses. Everyone has always told me that college flies by but until now, sitting here reflecting on what I’m excited about, I never really saw how fast everything has gone by. I think the thing I am most excited about is seeing all the hard work and sacrifices pay off. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a nurse and have never seen myself in a different profession and to be so close to achieving that goal is so exciting. At the same time though it makes me anxious. All I have known for the past 18 years is school and while the prospect of finally being done is so exciting, it is also terrifying because of the unknown. It is such a weird feeling to be at the point in life where the goals I have always been working toward are about to be achieved. It leaves me with this feeling of what now, where do I go from here? It is almost like as soon as I get excited thinking about being done, the anxiety creeps in and takes that excitement away. It is one of the weirdest feelings to try and explain. Ultimately though I think the excitement wins and with achieving my goals comes the opportunity to set new ones and continue to grow not only as a person but also as a professional. Another thing I’m excited about is making my parents proud. They have been such a strong support system for me threw out my life and always pushed me to do my best so I cannot wait to see the pride on their faced when I graduate. The only way I really want to celebrate is just hanging out with my family and having a nice dinner and just relax and be together. I had originally planned on taking a trip after passing my NCLEX but in this day and age I don’t really think traveling will be an option. That being said I still can’t think of a better way of celebrating than being with the people who helped me get to this point in my life.

I have never been a super organized person in the way that I tend to only looks at things on a week to week basis. By that I mean I never write out all my due dates and plan out what needs to be done in advance. I also usually sit down on the weekends and say I am going to do work all day and end up not getting anything done and get distracted because I am overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. This semester though, there is an overwhelming amount of assignments and dates that are important. After having all the classes and seeing all that needs to be done, I decided that I was going to change things up and be more organized. I made the goal that I was going to write all my assignments out and know what is due and set up a schedule for when I would get this stuff done. As I have started tackling work, I have been checking off the things that are finished and moving on to the next task. Although this semester is crazy busy, I also wanted to allow myself some time to relax and recharge, so my work was still at its best. This led me to the idea that on weekends I will wake up at around 0900 and do work until no later than 1500 and then give myself the rest of the day to relax and recharge without feeling guilty for not doing work. I think these goals will help me to succeed this semester and also make it, so I am accountable to myself. It is so easy to get overwhelmed in nursing school, but I am hoping my new organization and almost set schedule to work will allow me to fell not only successful but also give me the needed time for myself and to recharge.

As I have been writing this response, I have been taking the Nurse Logic 2.0 Modules. Going through the lessons, I was remembering the first time I went through them and noticing how much more I was gaining from them now with more overall nursing knowledge than I had first time around. For example in the first module about nursing and clinical judgement I remember thinking at the time that I learned best through reading, while this is still true, I now know that that I also retain the information so much better when I get to physically put it in practice or at least have a contextually understanding of information. Although that is only an example from one of the modules, I found that throughout them all I was understanding the importance of the information in a different way. What was being said about critical thinking and analyzing information, as well patient education and overall test taking strategy was more applicable and useful when it came time to take the tests. While the lessons themselves where helpful, I also enjoyed the taking the tests. These where the first nursing style questions I have looked at since the end of last semester. I found that with the first module I was struggling to answer because I was not using the skills and analyzing the questions in the way I usually do. After the first couple questions I got back into the mind set and really started to take my time and look at what the question was asking. I also found that some of the time I would over think a question and change my answer. This was mostly because I was looking deeper into the question than what it was asking. I always think that the questions are trying to trick me and that they are way more complicated than I originally think so I will change my answer. Making my way through the modules, I found that for the most part, questions were straightforward and that if I just read the words in the question carefully and didn’t assume additional information than I was better off. Overall, I learned from these modules different ways of looking at information and knowing what works best for myself as well as ways to answer a question even if I am not 100% on the information. Going forward with ATI assignments as well as NCLEX I know that I need to take my time and not rush through things and make sure I completely understand what the question is looking for and that answer is not only factually correct but also with what is best for the patient and what their needs may be.