Bad day

My motivation and enthusiasm for school at this point is in a downward spiral. Here is the problem:

Here are the course goals for “sygdomslære” where we learn about different diseases.

Mål:
At den studerende opnår forståelse for diagnosticering, behandling og pleje af patienter med somatiske og psykiske sygdomme.

At den studerende opnår teoretisk viden om de hyppigst forekommende sygdomme, herunder ætiologi, kliniske og parakliniske manifestationer samt opnår viden om behandling og profylakse.

At den studerende opnår teoretisk viden, således at den studerende kan medvirke aktivt i behandling, pleje, rehabilitering og forebyggelse i relation til patienter med de almindeligst forekommende akutte og kroniske tilstande.

Placering og omfang:
Obligatorisk kursus som udbydes i 2. semester og omfatter 6 ECTS.

(Lektionskatalog for 2. semester)

So we’re supposed to get a feel for the most common acute and chronic diseases, so that we can actively participate in the treatment, care, rehabilitation and prevention necessary for patients suffering from these illnesses. OK, so far so good.

Sygdomslære er placeret på 2. semester af H:S Sygeplejerskeuddannelsen og omfatter 6 ECTS enheder (European Credit Transfer System), som svarer til 12 undervisningsdage. Hver af de 12 undervisningsdage arbejdes der med et specifikt emneområde, og det er specialiserede undervisere der varetager undervisningen.

(http://tinyurl.com/2ljrpx)

Yes, 12 class days to do this. If that seems a little on the spare side, it is. For example, the sum total of our exposure to pediatrics–unless we have had a clinical placement on a pediatric unit–is 1 day of lecture on childhood diseases, which in our case the lecturer decided to focus on feberkramper or fever seizures (or whatever the hell they are called in English). Plus 2 weeks of following a community health nurse while she weighs babies and makes sure that mothers are breastfeeding.

On the other hand, you have something so critical to the repertoire of future nurses as sociology and anthropology:

Omfang og placering
Obligatorisk kursus som omfatter 7,5 ECTS, heraf 2 ECTS til antropologien og 5,5 ECTS til sociologien. Faget er placeret på 4. semester.

Mål
Faget skal medvirke til, at de studerende udvikler en kritisk, samfundsvidenskabelig indsigt, som sætter dem i stand til at anskue sygeplejefaglige problemstillinger i en større samfundsmæssig og kulturel sammenhæng.

(Lektionskatalog for 4. semester)

Now that the old fifth semester has rolled around, we’ve kicked things off with an interdisciplinary conference together with some physical therapy and occupational therapy (ergoterapi) students. The topic: clinical prevention. It has basically been EVEN MORE repetition of subjects we’ve had before: sociology, pedagogy, psychology, all these warm fuzzy things. Not to say that they’re totally useless, but there is a total lack of balance here. 12 days of specific lectures in concrete knowledge we can actually USE in the real world, and then about 400 hours of lectures on how to motivate chronically ill patients to stop smoking.

No wonder there is such a huge dropout rate in the nursing schools. When I go to work, I have a great time. I love it. I can’t wait until I’m done with school so I can go to work. But now I’m wondering if I’ll be able to make it through the fifth semester. People in my class are talking about taking a semester off, because they just can’t see the point. We are totally uninspired.

Here’s my suggestion. Free up a bunch of ECTS by making one big fat interdisciplinary course in clinical prevention that we’ll share with occupational and physical therapy students, where they can get sociology and pedagogy and motivational conversational techniques and communication and God knows what else out of their system by presenting them as TOOLS we can use in clinical prevention, instead of wasting everyone’s time, energy, motivation, interest, and brain cells by dragging us kicking and screaming through incredibly boring and long classes at the mercy of very poor instructors in each subject.

Then instead of running anatomy and physiology as one class, pathology as another class and pharmacology as a third class, and microbiology/hygiene as a fourth, make modules instead. The heart and circulatory system: anatomy, physiology, diseases, medications and treatments. So when we ask a question about high blood pressure in anatomy, the teacher doesn’t say “Don’t worry about that, you’ll learn about that next semester.” Or when you get to pathology and have to do an exam question on asthma, you’re sitting there thinking Well, how do the lungs work anyway… I can’t remember. (Or whatever.) Maybe a module on the immune system and how it works would be a really good time to talk about different microorganisms, including the evil Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (of MRSA fame), which would be in turn a fantastic time to bring up the whole idea of antibiotics, not to mention hygiene and isolation principles.

Alas, this is not the case. So we’ll just keep wasting our time and getting really pissed off and frustrated. Our study group is back down to three, since Maria left to go be a dental assistant instead.