Judgment Day(s)

My last grade is in. I am happy with my grades this quarter. Not that I want to get all pre-med-competitive about it, but I am applying to very competitive programs. So I need to show that I take the pre-requisites seriously, and can do the work. I think I showed that this quarter.

I also was evaluated for practical skills in the hospital. I got "Satisfactory" on everything (on a Pass/Fail scale) except "Provides restorative care to residents" and "Applies critical thinking in clinical situations". My clinical teacher gave everyone in our cohort a grade that means essentially "Not enough information to answer the question", as it is her position that our practicum does not provide the opportunity to do either in the time we have available and under the responsibilities we are required to carry out. (UPDATE) The two specific things she said about me were that I am "eager" to take on new tasks, and that I "tend[s] to get anxious" about unfamiliar situations, a state that she expects will resolve itself with practice and experience. That sounds right; I remember visualizing all kinds of awful things, like accidentally dropping a patient, that never happened. Once I had done it successfully a couple of times, the anxiety disappeared. I got a mail today from a physician friend making the same point, "I had no doubt you will be excellent in your patient interactions. Only you doubt you, Ravensara!". Which means I need to get that experience, and sooner rather than later will be a good thing. So that's all good, too. All that remains now is passing the state certification practical exam.

Not only has this week been one of student evaluations, but the publisher of the textbook I'm writing on massage literacy got a batch of reviewers' comments back to me. Overall, they are very good (a lot of praise, which is nice, and even the not-praise is constructive and on-point), and while massage schools are unlikely to make critical thinking and massage literacy a curriculum requirement anytime soon, it looks like the book has the real potential to make a splash as the basis for an elective course. So I am happy. And sleepy. I worked very hard last quarter, and slept like 18 hours today, catching up.

On the 29th, it begins again, this time organic chemistry and biochemistry survey class, nutrition, and some intro medical classes that I need, not for the content, but housekeeping/bookkeeping/pre-requisites.

Until then, WOO-HOO! SPRING BREAK!

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It is finished.

Spring quarter, that is. Developmental psychology and chemistry are in the bag, and I finished my nursing assistant clinicals on Tuesday. The nursing assistant class held a potluck today to celebrate.






Since it's a state school, and has a number of restrictions on alcohol on the premises, I brought sparkling cider to raise a toast to our teachers, ourselves, and our support systems of family and friends.

I also brought special cups for the toast.




Overheard: "Claaaaaassy" and "This is so wrong!"

I think I'm going to make this my very own tradition as I go through nursing school; I started doing it when I got into grad school in the School of Medicine, and it's just so me, I think.

Here's a serving tip if you want to do the same thing--leave the cups in their intact sterile wrappers until you're actually pouring the drink, and let the guests remove the sterile wrapper for themselves. It seems to go over much better that way.

Ten more days, and then it begins again with organic chemistry/biochemistry and nutrition...

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Old school

Ok, I know this has a real risk of coming across as a "you kids get off of my lawn" post, but still...

At 51, I'm returning to school for nursing-school prerequisites as different as chemistry, developmental psychology, statistics, and nutrition. Today in chemistry, we learned the theoretical basis of pH, and the instructor started off by introducing the concept of logarithms. Yes, introducing.

For all my complaints about high school, I have to say they gave me a good pre-calculus grounding. Logarithms, trigonometry, Boolean algebra--all these things I take for granted, until I run into college students taking classes with me who haven't been exposed to them. And I mean pre-professional students to whom these are new concepts.

Thank you, Huffman High School, and Gary Harper of the math team. I really appreciate the foundation in mathematics you saw to it that I took away with me.

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