The first 5 weeks

I haven't said much about starting the nursing program. It's been a little confusing and halting, but I feel like we're about to fully swing into the schedule now. Here's what I'm doing:

Health Assessment
In this class we learn the very basics of a health assessment (duh). We started by talking about interview technique and how to get a full health history. Then we started learning about the examination, starting with the head and working toward the toes. So far we talked about palpated the head and neck region, and checking for skin, hair, and nails. This week we have had lectures on the eyes (acuity, peripheral vision check), the ears (visual examination and tuning fork tests), and the lungs (auscultation and percussive exams). In lab Thursday and Friday we will practice these techniques.

Professional Nursing Role part 1
This is a touchy-feely, getting to know yourself type class held in one weekly 4 hour class session. Last week we told stories about what our name means to the class, had a long lecture about the Service Learning component, filled with fluffy meaningless verbage about philosophy and diversity and charity (Amanda knows all about these talks), then we went to the nursing home where we will be "volunteering" for the Service Learning. Basically SL is part of the Jesuit tradition, where students must spend time doing charity and journaling/writing essays about how it helps them grow. Blah. I'm trying to get my hours done as soon as possible. This week we spent the entire class session each giving the class a 5 minute presentation on "Who am I? Where did I come from? What can I bring to Regis? What do I expect from Regis? How will I take care of myself during this program? Gag. Most people went on for 10 or 15 minutes instead of the allotted 5. So the teacher scrapped the rest of the day's activities "because what you were doing was so important, I didn't want to interrupt, and it accomplished much of what I wanted to do." This class is supposed to eventually cover other aspects of the nursing role, like duties as part of a health care team and legal knowledge. I hope that makes up for this fluffernutter stuff we're doing now.

Pharmacology I
A class about drugs. We did a couple introductory chapters on drug research, drug laws, and drug names last week. Today we talked about pharmokinetics, or how the drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted. Tomorrow we start on GI drugs, probably only covering diarrhea and constipation, she said.

So that's what I'll be doing for the next month or so. The classmates are still great. I love that I easily find 2 or 3 groups to eat lunch with me (I've eaten lunch alone for years). A good bunch of them are already getting their pants in a twist, fretting over the first two exams next week. They're doing the sample tests before we have covered all the material! Whenever people ask me questions about what I think will be covered and how we should study, I respond simply and reasonably, trying to get them to chill out. I figure there's no reason to worry until there's something to be worried about.