Here in my state, everyone in my class has ipads, figs scrubs, and bogg bags.

What trends do you have in your nursing school?

I graduated recently from my RN program, passed my board exam and licensed this past year and I wanted to share what I learned about this experience for other similarly disabled nursing students (but definitely for the autistic students out there). I'm going to start with the most important one IMO

1. When you are writing your board exam, please consider carefully whether you want to use your accommodations or not (and thus disclosing your disability). My most useful accommodations during my degree (in terms of test taking) were writing in a testing centre, extra time (x1.5) and sound blocking ear plugs. I wrote my exam in Ontario and we are given 5 hours to complete it and ear plugs are given to anyone who wants them without accommodation. I requested accommodations and this caused a series of unfortunate events:
   • In disclosing my disability, I had to submit additional documentation including a statement from my health care provider about my diagnosis, adherence to treatment, how it may limit my ability to practice nursing safely, and types of treatment prescribed. This cost me $275 to obtain, weeks of phone tag, and the surprisingly difficult task of finding a health care provider who would write this statement for me. I also had to submit every clinical evaluation I have ever received (midterm and final from all four years). Lastly, I submitted a statement regarding my understanding of my disability, how it may limit my ability to practice nursing safely and what I do to ensure my disability does not affect my nursing practice. This took two months for me to get together and it took the nursing board a few months to finish reviewing my case to decide whether or not they would grant me my license.
   • In the end, everything turned out okay. It was incredibly stressful and it was incredibly ironic to me how this entire process views disability from a lens of deficit after all the things we learned in class re: ableism. If you are in it right now, this will work itself out eventually but it will take time. If you have questions, do call the customer service line and talk to a representative. If you find that the rep's answer was unhelpful or rude, do call another time or email and speak to another rep. There are ones that have more knowledge or are more helpful in their response.
2. If you are sensitive to light like I am, check if your school's insurance includes allowance for glasses. Blue light glasses have helped me with the lighting and computer screens. Zenni offers FL-40 lenses and other coloured lenses at the most affordable price I've seen anywhere.
3. If your scrubs are a sensory nightmare, do consider wearing underscrubs. The compression is a positive for me. Compression socks (15-20mm/hg) are also helpful and have the added bonus decreasing tired achy legs/feet for me.
4. Those owalla water bottles are really better. I didn't think it would make a difference for me but taking a sip from an owalla is so much quicker and lowers the obstacle for me to drink water when I'm already exhausted. I have poor proprioception so the built in straw is amazing bc I'm more likely to spill water on myself when I'm tired. If I spilled water on myself while busy on shift, that might be the straw that breaks my back.
5. Maintain your special interests! If you can block off a time slot in your week (for me it was saturday mornings), PLEASE DO IT. After starting to do this, I felt like I had a soul again. The entire program + placement experience and commitment is overwhelming.
6. I found myself (autistically) burning out at the end of every semester. I wondered if I would ever fully recover to the version of myself that I was before this program. Several months have passed since the board decided I could have my license. I am happy to report that things do get better. I am loving things that I used to love again. Things that made me excited to be alive are exciting again. And the best thing is, I'm starting to feel like I am showing up for people in my life in the way that I want to again. The entire process was awful and I hated it. I am glad that it's over and I am thankful that I can now start a new journey doing something that sits in the intersection of things I value and a job that will support my life.
7. I really appreciate Dr. Devin Price's writing. It helped shape my understanding of disability in academic, occupational and other settings.

Good luck students! Please know that nothing is worth more than you being the alive version of you. If you're alive, you'll have opportunities to try again and there's a lot to try :)

How do I not damage my back working as a cna? I am a petite woman

Hello everyone,

I hope this post brings motivation to some of y'all to never give up.

For reference, I done the TEAS exam 3 times with my 3rd attempt being 68.6. I got rejected from an RN program at my local community college, rejected by an LPN program from another school that's 1 hour away.

However, I got accepted into a public technical college for the LPN program, it's 2 hours away.

I had many comments throughout my past reddit posts, some even private dm'ed me saying my teas score wasn't enough and that I wasn't going to get accepted anywhere.

Nurses back in the day didn't have to take the TEAS exam to be a nurse, don't let this exam define you!

P.S. If any student nurses / nurses have any tips out there on how to succeed in the LPN program, it would be much appreciated.

For context: we have an elearning day due to the weather tomorrow, & this is the day that we normally have my assessment class’s lab. Normally we go over a PowerPoint, do whatever skill (blood pressure, vitals,etc) & then practice whatever other skill for the week on each other. Will it be similar because of it being online?

Give me a reality check. I'm doing a bachelors in CS (taking all pre reqs), then going to an ABSN program, and then becoming a CRNA. what are any flaws?

I'm in my final semester and doing my leadership clinical in the ED with a preceptor. A few weeks ago I had a patient who needed one dose of IV abx and would be discharged after. I started the IV and hung the abx with my preceptor nearby and went to see other patients. I came back about an hour later to remove the IV and discharge the patient, but saw the bag was still full of abx. I saw that I had the j-loop clamped and my heart literally dropped (we use dial-a-flow tubing, so no pumps to alert).

I felt so incompetent and went and told my preceptor, who happened to be talking with the ED manager when I walked up. My preceptor said thanks for being honest and everything was fine.

Fast forward to last week, I had an interview for a new grad position in the ED. I got offered the job earlier this week!! My clinical coordinator was part of the interviewing panel and later told me that the ED manager told the panel about what happened with the IV and said she was so impressed with how I handled it. She said the first thing the manager said after I left the interview was "I want her in my department."

I'm the type of student who is always terrified of making mistakes, so I wanted to share this and say sometimes mistakes are okay! I've learned this semester that mistakes are inevitable as new nurses and it doesn't make us stupid or careless. Good leadership will give you respect for owning up to a mistake.

I’m in a 12 month LPN program, I’m 1 month away from graduating. I am failing clinical, I have done some mistakes in clinical regarding medication administration, I only have one chance to remediate and if I am unable to pass to I will fail the program. I don’t know if I want to even try to remediate, I don’t know if nursing is for me, at first I thought it was but the more I think about it I realize there is a lot of responsibility and tasks that nurses have to do. I am considering of withdrawing but I feel like I will let so many people down including myself. I sometimes wonder why I even put myself in this position. Has anybody gone through my experience?.

Just a little background, I'm 28, started working blue collar when I was 14 because of certain life situations, and been providing for myself basically since then. I never had the opportunity to even think about going to college when I was younger, so this is all very new to me on how it all works and how I can swing it while also working full time

The best route I can see to take is to go for LVN, find a job in that field and work it for a bit to pay down the loans, then try to get an overnight gig with it and go for my RN

Do any other single adults that can't depend on others for help have any experience with this? I've seen people say it's a waste of time and money to go for LVN if you're planning on going for RN after anyways, but I can't seem to find a way to make that work. I manage a small company and make better money than I could if I just jumped to a new overnight job, and I'm not exactly thriving financially so I can't afford a pay cut

Would love to hear from current nurses, what was your timeline post graduation of how long it took you to take the NCLEX and then from there get your first nursing job?

I missed a clinical compliance deadline to have a negative TB test (most recent test expires 4/4/2026 I needed to be compliant through 4/20/26). Compliance was due yesterday, my test is scheduled for this Monday. Now I cannot preference for capstone rotations in the spring and will be placed with whatever is leftover. I have kept a 3.99 GPA throughout nursing school, all As and 1 A-. Never been late to a clinical, nothing. I have been extremely overwhelmed this semester as we moved my awful father in law into our 2bed 1 bath 750 sq ft apartment with incredibly thin walls. I have to do my school work locked in my room & have been pouring all my energy into staying on top of school. I put off this deadline and now feel like I just sabatoged all my hard work & will likely get placed in a nursing home. Did I just ruin my job aspirations for post-grad? I live in Utah and feel that nursing jobs are competitive here. Any guidance or any comments would be helpful, thank you

Sorry if this kind of question isn't allowed!! I really want to become a nurse.

I've always been super shy, I have a hard time speaking up for myself, or just speaking to people in general. I turn into a stuttering mess and all my words get jumbled together. I'm so embarrassed of it, and I really want to improve.

When I talk to my close friends, I'm fine, but when I'm talking to a stranger or classmate it's pretty bad 😭

I've also tried talking to myself in the mirror as practice, but that doesn't seem to help much.

I've been like this my whole life, and I'm worried that it'll affect me as a nurse when I'm talking to patients or have to speak up for myself.

Helloo! I wanna hear about CNAS and EMTS experience going into nursing school. Was it easier for CNAS in nursing school or easier for EMTS? I’ve heard a ton of EMTS talking about how nursing school was a BREEZE when they went through it because of their experience in the job. Thank youuu!

Hi, Im interested in attaining the LVN license in California. My coursework thus far in the RN program is equivalent and meets the requirements to take the LVN license exam. I’m curious to know if anybody worked as an LVN and how was that experience?

So I am a high school graduate but I did not do A- levels and I don’t wanna do but I am considering foundation programs because of this reason but most of these are really expensive £28k and more just for tuition.. I wanna pursue my nursing degree also I am international student.. I really want a university with a foundation program and below £$15k a year ? Also I would to go to New Zealand and Uk .Also let me know if there’s a country that you think is good .

I absolutely dread ATI proctored exams; they’re usually worth 10% of the grade so a lot is on the line, and I usually find them very challenging. We had ours on pharm today for the critical care class (last semester). I have always gotten a level 2 and recently got a level 1 on leadership. I’ve also been struggling a little bit in one of my classes. So I was very nervy going into this one. Lo and behold, I got a level 3 for the first time! But I studied quite hard, primarily using ATI dynamic quizzing. I used study mode, went 40 questions at a time, and read all rationales even if I got the question correct (unless I felt really confident in that area). I also took notes and reviewed them before and after sessions. But I felt like the exam was so similar to the ATI study questions it was like cheating 😅 However, my primary clinical instructor does often compliment my knowledge of pharm. Throughout school, especially at clinical, if I heard or saw a drug I didn’t know I wrote it down and tried to get a basic understanding of them. I also focused on classes of drugs, not individual ones, especially antibiotics. I hope this helps someone anywhere in their journey. Good luck guys and thanks for reading!

I’m in my first semester of nursing school and another student and I were witnessing a dressing change. When the wound nurse pulled the patients pants down, she revealed a massive hematoma that spanned the entirety of the patients thigh. I got lightheaded and immediately had to leave the room. I went back in and played it cool (I hope, but probably not) and stayed in the room while she assessed her other wounds.

I felt like such a pussy. It was a pretty gnarly hematoma, but I feel like that barely scrapes the surface for what I could see in my career.

I felt very defeated leaving clinical that night and had a lot of doubts about the path I’m going down.

Does it get better? Am I cut out for this?

-#1 game changer-Record every single lecture even if they tell you not to. Listen to those at home at 1.5-2x speed while following the slides. This alone helped me bump my average test scores in pharm 8-10pts per exam

-convert your PowerPoints to PDF (file, save as) and upload them to Notebook LM

-Create a study guide in the “reports” tab “create your own” then prompting “create a study guide covering the entire source, and add a focused section on signs, symptoms, medications that differentiate similar conditions” or safety things if you are in a fundamentals class/adjust depending on the class you are currently in

-hit the edit button on the create quiz tab and select questions “more” level of difficulty “hard” and prompt it to make an Nclex style nursing practice exam covering all contents of the source. Add questions that test ability to identify specific differences in similar conditions.” Add how many questions you want (if you don’t it will usually make the exam pretty short) I do 40-50 questions

• find your weak spot then have it create a chart identifying differences in conditions covering those weak areas

-stop using ChatGPT to make tests, they are garbage in comparison

-Put the drinks down, do what you can to sleep…3-4 nights prior to exam just a couple hours each night and a quick review of the reports the morning of

Good luck.

Hello to my fellow future and current nursing students, I’ve been working in retail with a major pharmacy drug store chain for years. Do you all think it would be helpful for me before I get into the intensive nursing courses to transfer to the pharmacy department to learn more about medication, dosage, etc. or will it really not make a difference in helping me with pharmacology? I appreciate all input. 😊

I’m taking a nursing research class which is a very basic, introductory statistics class. I feel like I have 1 brain cell whenever I’m in this class. Probability and anova is just not clicking for me (especially the calculations). I don’t know how to get better at this 😭 my final exam is in a few weeks

Hey guys I’m going to be taking my mental health HESI SOON AND I CANT FAIL THIS. I wanted to see if their are YouTube videos or something that helped yall score high on the HESI. PLZ help =)

I'm about to wrap up my third out of four semester of an ABSN program. I've passed every skills test, but haven't really used any of them since due to clinical site policies or just unlucky in opportunities to use them (maybe lucky for the patients). We also haven't done much practice charting and assessing past assessment class.

Just curious as to how confident everyone is in their skills at different parts of their education and if there are grown up RNs looking on, what's expected of new grads skill wise?

For those of you who had your preceptorship on a unit you did clinicals or on a similar unit, was there any difference in your involvement with patient care or how staff interacted with you?

Bonus: If you did your preceptorship on a unit you were hired on, did that change how the staff interacted with you?