10 of 20 Months of Accelerated Nursing (BScN)
I wanted to write about my experience regarding my first year of my accelerated nursing (AN) program before I forgot haha.
My program started September 10th 2018, and I immediately felt overwhelmed, as my maternity clinical placement started 12 days into the program. I’m not sure if other accelerated programs are like this... but my other friends in other accelerated programs were pretty shocked, as some didn’t start clinical until the second semester or summer of first year.
As many of my old followers know, I graduated from Neuroscience so I’m not unfamiliar with a heavy academic workload, so I actually found the level of difficulty comparable with my first program. I found that the biggest difference was that the AN program tested almost double or triple the content that you would typically have in one class. I think back and it was actually an insane amount of content that I squeezed into my poor brain. One class in particular was more difficult becuase it included 3 courses into one (relational work, technical skills, and health assessment) and as I knew nothing about nursing, that meant memorizing every little thing (tears).
Most courses were either 25/25/25/25 or 40/60. I didn’t mind the 25x4 as I was more familiar this weight distribution, but 40/60 was hella stressful. That meant that if your essay or exam sucked, your mark would basically sink.
Workload was technically fine until exam week in December. Exams were 1-2 days apart within a week, which wasn’t enough so that’s where most of my marks dropped :(. We also had to do a lab simulation test, which was SO stressful for me personally. I did well but I actually cried after because I thought I royally screwed up.
Another big change (personally), was that I had to manage my time better, as I was no longer living at home and I had to make sure I was somewhat of a responsible human and meal prep, do laundry, get groceries... all that jazz. I also found that it would be irresponsible of me to sleep less than 7 hours because you’re literally dealing with real lives in clinical!!! I used to survive on 4-6 hours every day but maybe it’s because I’m also older, but I definitely need ample sleep to function and help humans!!
This post could literally go on forever so I’m going to finish off with highlights of my clinical placements:
Maternity (Sept/Oct) — saw a vaginal birth and C section. Felt somewhat useless because I was only taking vitals and doing head to toe assessments on mom and baby and observing during this placement. I did get to do some breastfeeding education, which was rewarding.
Geriatrics (Nov/Dec) — A lot of technical skills (turning, repositioning, transferring, bathing, etc). As w weren’t allowed to chart, I was basically doing PSW work. My instructor was nice enough to give us 2 patients by the last week, which somewhat tested my time management skills.
Pediatrics (Jan-Feb) — Worked on an Ortho rehab floor. We started medication administration on this rotation, which was a lot of work as we had to memorize important side effects, interactions, route, duration, frequency, blah blah blah. We got to rotate one week to the complex care unit and I fell in love with it. It was also difficult dealing with some parents (my worst nightmare lol).
Mental Health (March-April) — I was on a schizophrenia treatment unit. The beginning of this rotation was extremely stressful as the course was all over the place because of a replacement professor as well as the lack of support from the nurses on my floor/clinical instructor. The only thing that made this rotation a blast was the patients and my clinical group (as we were all very supportive of one another). Learned several skills specific to mental health (ex. Mental status exam). I won’t be going into mental health but I am thankful for this rotation because I have the skills to handle any patient with mental health issues in whatever placement I’m in, as well as really considering social determinants of health and how that affects the patient and their health.
Med Surg (May-June) — I was on a gyne/ortho/EENT floor, which was very interesting. I definitely felt like I learned the most “nursing skills” during this rotation. All of my fears of feeling incompetent flew right out the window once I was finished this rotation. My CI always gave me the choice of having multiple patients or one really complex patient, and because I knew I was leaning towards complex care, I always chose the latter. My time management skills will need more work next year but I definitely think I belong working with 1-2 complex patients in the near future!
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