Posted in Tips and Advice

As you have likely heard a million times already, nursing school is tough and it takes a special person to survive with their sanity intact. With these five simple attitude adjustments, you’ll be in the right frame of mind to conquer nursing school and anything it can throw your way!

1) Learn to be flexible
Many of you are super detail oriented, super organized and super good at planning out your study schedule and your life. Nursing school isn’t always quite so kind in that regard. If you go into it with the attitude to “be flexible” you will save yourself a lot of frustration, I promise! Assignments will get changed, due dates moved, lecture PPT slides posted at midnight the night before your class, and clinical assignments flip-flopped. Just take a deep breath and reeeelax. It will all work out, you’ll learn what you need to learn and you’ll eventually become a safe nurse taking excellent care of your patients. So, if flexibility isn’t your strong suit right now…try to get into that frame of mind. To quote the movie, Nell…be like a  “tree in the wind.” Did I just age myself?

2) Embrace the idea of “early to bed, early to rise”
There’s no getting around it. Nursing school requires a lot of early morning starts…namely for clinicals, but for lectures, labs and exams as well. Most likely, you will be meeting your clinical professor BEFORE the shift starts, which means you may be at the hospital as early as 0600. Learn to embrace those 0430 alarm clock blarings by setting the coffee maker to brew automatically and getting to bed at a decent hour. Otherwise, you will be pretty miserable, and tired, and grumpy…and that’s just not the real you at all.

3) Check that competitive attitude at the door
With so many nursing schools turning applicants away, the pressure and competition to just get INTO a program can be intense. During your pre-reqs you may have felt the pressure to be the best student in the class, to get all As and score the highest on your admission exams. Ok, turbo. Now it’s time to chill. You’re in! One of the things you are going to learn pretty quickly when you start clinicals is that nursing is a team sport. You are all on this crazy ship together…so replace competitiveness with cooperation and work together. Share notes, quiz each other, do your part of group projects, and offer a helping hand at the hospital. You get the idea.

4) Be humble…no one likes a “know-it-all”
Yes, you may be incredibly bright and ridiculously booksmart. But when you’re in the hospital and learning hands-on nursing from someone with way more actual hands-on experience than you, adopt a humble and thankful attitude or you may find the welcome is not so warm. The reality is, things in the hospital aren’t always done exactly as you learned in school and that’s usually OK. To borrow an old Southern expression, accept that there are multiple ways to skin a cat and learn from the opportunity. Now, if you are working with a nurse or a patient who instructs you to do something that you KNOW isn’t safe you can always fall back on the old line that “my nursing professor requires me to do it this way.” But for the most part, you’re going to be humble, and smart and wonderful…all rolled into one irresistible package.

5) Learn to accept criticism graciously
Oh, there’s just nothing quite like the steely eye of an astute and observant clinical professor. Get used to being called out on your shortcomings as in, “Why didn’t you chart X” or “Did you do Y?” Never ever get defensive or try to offer excuses. Just say “No, but I’ll go do it right now. Thank you.” Did you see that? SAY THANK YOU! Your professor isn’t getting his or her jollies off being such a stickler. S/he is trying to keep you safe. S/he is trying to keep you from killing someone. S/he is trying to keep you from doing something stupid that will get you booted from the program. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! What’s the name of the game? It’s THANK YOU!

Get this on audio in Episode 85 of the Straight A Nursing podcast!

As always, be safe out there!

____________________________________________________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this website are for educational purposes only. No content on this website is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider’s scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this website is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Looking for even more resources to help you crush nursing school? Get my FREE guide The 20 Secrets of Successful Nursing Students