Win Some, Lose Some

For many, today was the low point of nursing school so far. I shall now refer to it as Black Tuesday.

Its the last week of Term 2 and we took a brutal unit test which covered (among other things) acid-base balances, fluids and electrolytes. Hello, SCIENCE! This test wasn't just going to be about concepts, it was about the details. And if you didn't spend time on memorizing a bunch of data, you weren't going to be able to reason your way to the answer. Most of that material was along the lines of, "you either know it or you don't." Many didn't.

Unfortunately, right after that we had our first Drug Exam. I had heard these were brutal, and preparing for it sure was. Again -- it was about a bunch of data; long unrecognizable drug names attached to lists —why would it be prescribed, what action does it take in the body, what contraindications might there be, what signs and symptoms would be associated with those, what nursing care is required? Lists...lists...LISTS!

Even recalling these hazy days of studying, cursing, and suffering that lead up to these two exams gives me PTSD.

For me it's the worst kind of studying. I'm terrible at it. I have a hard time concentrating because it's dry. I embark on mini-acts of rebellion and self-harm. (Like writing curse words on my notes or eating pizza both for dinner at 1:30 a.m....AND for breakfast.) Still, I've learned that I always do better than I think I will, because I have a somewhat dubious gift--I can cram through a bunch of material and the next day go write a test on it and end up with a fairly decent grade. This does NOT comfort me, although many would be happy to have this skill. All this means is I can hold the information in my head for only so long as it takes to pass an exam. Ask me next week...and I promise you, it's gone. Long gone.

I'm also a fairly decent guesser.

When taking a multiple choice test, any time I don't know the answer, I'll pick one, but I'll write a question mark next to the question. At the end of the exam...I'll know how many question marks I had and can sometimes get a pretty good idea of what my score might be. Today was the first day I had an ALARMING number of question marks at the end, and I truly thought it would the first exam I would have EVER failed. (Here at nursing school, and also in my whole life.)

I ended up passing the unit exam with a good grade, but as we went through the test, I realized that I was getting a number of my question-marked questions correct. I still don't know the material, and had no rationale behind why I picked one over the other...truly I thought I was throwing a dart and randomly just selected any answer. They just happened to be the right answers.

The drug exam was a squeaker. Two more questions wrong and I would have bombed it. Failed. 

I don't like how close I came to failing that exam. It was too close for comfort. I also don't like how quite a few lucky guesses got me that decent grade on material I will admit I still don't really know or understand. We'll also be covering this same stuff for the final exam this Friday -- and I'm going into it wondering how I'll study differently so I may end up with more answers I'm certain about, and fewer question marks.

I really don't want to bank on the fact that I'm a fairly decent guesser.

Pretty sure my future patients won't want to bank on that either.

I have one last complaint before I collapse in a boozy heap and conk out from pure exhaustion. (Because NOT going out for several beers today after the blood-bath just seemed wrong!) The timing of those tests stinks. Why both on one day? Especially because of the type of material it was, they could have spread them out. Why wasn't one tomorrow? We've got nothing going on tomorrow. In fact, we didn't even have our FIRST exam this term until week 4...surely by the end of week 2 we could have gotten one exam out of the way and pushed the whole schedule up.

From my perspective, overall organization of the schedule this term needlessly left us with a bottleneck of exams at the end. I've never been one to whine...I know that at times, things will just be hard. However, I do feel that the school didn't really get to see how well this cohort would be able to perform academically had the schedule been more spread out. I raise this complaint because I heard of so many students today who either failed one or both of those exams. I had a little wiggle room in my grade to be able to afford a hit. Too many students did not. I can't help but wonder if we'd all have done markedly better if given a day or two in between such difficult exams.

I know many are taking a hard look right now and asking some tough questions. Am I up to the academic standards needed to get through nursing school? ...Can I continue to hold down one or two jobs and still do it? ...Do I need to make adjustments in my life? ...Do I need a back up plan? ...A safety net?

We all need a break!

Good thing it's a week off coming up. Time to recharge and refocus.

Onward!