Exams!

Hi to all!

As I am sure you can appreciate it has been a very long two weeks of exams and revision. My last exam is tomorrow and then I start my final placement on Monday. 

It has gone so quick and it has been hectic to say the least. It has not been the most easiest of weeks and we have this one last exam to go. 

But I am very glad that I have put the work in and revised as I went as it has helped a lot with exams. 

We have had four exams, plus our OSCE's, which takes it to 5. I found out I passed my osces which I am over the moon with! Those who failed had chance to resit the following week, so hopefully they have now all passed. 

We then had chance to collect our marks to see percentage wise how we had done in our osce exam. This is then stapled in to our practice portfolio. This allows our mentors to see how we have done in our osce to ensure we have been assessed as competent in our clinical skills. 

We have then had our mathematics exam, which was our nursing drug calculations. This was assessing how to correctly calculate the correct dose of a medication, whether it was in tablet form, liquid or injection. We had to demonstrate our working out using the correct formulae. Then we had to work our the answer and demonstrate how to measure this out using a syringe, medicine pot or number of tablets.  This was all completed online using a special program that has been designed for nursing students. 

It was very good to use until several people got confused or their work wouldn't save! Never trust technology I say...

Again, just a little tip for revision. 

Know your learning style. 

I am a visual learner. It took me years to suss this out! But once I realised, I have discovered that watching anatomy videos on youtube, redrawing diagrams and rewriting notes in a different format and using colour codes really helps. I have also purchased some anatomy posters from the internet and stuck them on my walls in my study. Looking at them has really stuck in my head. I have used colour coding, drawings ( i'm not very good but it sticks in my head!) I have worked with others on my course to go through things and I have also redone tutorial work we were assigned. They don't just give you work for the laughs, trust me! This work has been a revision god send. I remembered a lot from doing the work for tutorials then going over it again for revision. 

If you aren't a visual learner, you may be more for lists or acronyms or poems or songs. 

Make rhymes from acronyms or lists, for example, 

7 at breakfast

12 for lunch and

5 for dinner.

(Spinal vertabrae)

Things like this make it easier to remember. 

I always remember dorsi flexion and plantar flexion from this.....a plant... grows in the ground....dorsi...dorsal fin, comes up out the water (like a shark).  Thus dorsiflexion is moving the foot upwards, plantar flexion is moving downwards. 

(Bet you wont forget that in a hurry!)

Your lecturers and tutors will always be willing to give a helping hand. They arent there to spoon feed you, but are there to guide you. University is about self learning and self discipline. Your university student's union will provide help, and you may also have a guidance centre which can help you on this also. 

Exams are tough and can be stressful. So remember to take time out and focus on yourself. Try and keep a regular sleep pattern too. It may be easier said than done, but if you're studying nursing, you know what you tell your patients also applies to you! 
I am now almost finished first year. I cannot wait to get this last exam done, catch up with everyone afterwards before hitting placement on Monday. Then it is 6 weeks before summer. 
Do you have any plans? Make the most of it. I shall be working full time, having a holiday then will start working on the pathophysiology we have to learn. It gets a lot harder in second year and from talking to them, it is the patho exam that they all struggled with. So any little head start helps. 
The life of a nursing student!