Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

(warning: cadaver image in this post is likely not work or child friendly)

About 30 minutes into Anatomy & Physiology 1 I texted my doctor sister-in-law, “Does this ever get less gross?” and instead of the reassuring “of course!” response I was expecting, she asked “What do you think is gross?”

This.  This was what was threatening my lunch.

She was a little concerned about my ability to make it through the ‘grosser’ things ahead.

For the record, I still find this pretty stinking gross.  But the good news is that yes, yes it does get better.

And I think that’s important to say.  I think there’s this quiet idea that if you think this stuff is gross, you don’t belong in medicine.  But I don’t believe that.  I think if you’re going into nursing because you love PEOPLE, you might not love standing over a person that has been cut into pieces. And that’s okay.

So anyway, yes, I was grossed out by EVERYTHING in the beginning.  Including this diagram of skin.  But it gets better.  And it’s not so much that I think it’s completely the opposite of gross (because if I really look at that diagram and think about how that is IN ME it still makes me want to die a little bit) but I learned to put up barriers.  Instead of seeing these types of diagrams and thinking “oh my gosh–that’s going on ALL OVER ME RIGHT NOW” it’s purely an academic exercise.  “That is skin.  Must learn those layers and their functions.  Don’t need to think beyond that.”

I took A&P 1 online, and one of the biggest differences between taking A&P online and A&P in person is the lack of a cadaver.  While the zillion dollar lab kit includes a mini model skeleton (most expensive Halloween decoration I’ll ever own), sheep brain, and cow eyeball, you don’t gain experience with human body parts. Here’s an example of a lab from the online A&P 1 that involved dissecting a sheep’s brain:

So while I had learned how to cope with A&P 1, when I took A&P 2, I had to learn to figure out how to function in the presence of a cadaver.

It was a shocking experience for me.  They bring in the cadaver on a stretcher in a body bag and you’re sitting there thinking “there is currently a dead person in the corner” and then they open the bag and begin taking off panels.  It is like those lift-the-flap books from your childhood, only the horror movie version.  It gets better once they cover the face with a sheet, but odds are that if you are going into medicine because you like people and not because you’re a psychopath, your brain is going to be doing this: “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  THERE IS A DEAD CHOPPED UP PERSON HERE!  I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY SCREAMING IS THE SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE RESPONSE RIGHT NOW!”

In my case, this basic response lasted for five weeks.   It is very very difficult to learn anything when your inner dialogue is doing this on loop:  “Don’t scream.  Are you screaming?  No?  Okay.  Wait–what is your face doing? Do you look horrified right now?  STOP THAT.  You are a professional.  Lock this up.  Make a normal face.  Wait.  What is a normal face?  Oh my God I can’t remember what my face normally feels like when it’s not being horrified.  Think.  Look thoughtful.  Like you’re learning.  Wait–what would Joey do when he was trying to listen to medical dialogue?  Smell the fart acting.  Yes, do that.  Wait–no.  Don’t BREATHE.  Now it is IN YOU.  Oh my God tiny parts of a dead person are now inside you.  Oh no.  Looking horrified again.  Is anyone looking?  WHATEVER YOU DO MAKE A NORMAL FACE.”

I think this is normal.  (or within the normal spectrum.)  I think it’s the response of compassionate people who haven’t yet disassociated Bodies from People.

If you’re early on in your journey and trying to prepare for what a pin test/practical exam looks like, here is a photo from a mock practical (this was for practice, so it had more pins than you might normally see–normally at my school they try to pin it so that you don’t have to move any structures to see other pins):

And then suddenly all it got better.  I look at this picture and I see structures and functions and I don’t even have to worry about what my face is doing.  For me, things got better with the actual first practical exam on the cadaver.  Because finally there was no hanging back, there was no ‘I’ll look that up on my anatomy app from the safety of my own desk later.’  It was “I must figure out what that structure is and I must do it now even if it means I have to touch the inside of that body.”  And like magic, the spell was broken.  The only fear left was the fear of a bad grade.  And like the diagram, this was no longer a “dead person” to me but a “cadaver” that I simply needed to get an A on.

I think it’s an interesting part of the training that goes far beyond simply learning what human structures look like–I think there’s an intentional disassociating bodies from people that goes on here, and I almost mourn the loss of my old innocence.  But for all of you starting your nursing pre-requisite journey and wondering if A&P is survivable if you hate the idea of working with cadavers when everyone else around you is proudly announcing how not impacted they are by all of this, the answer is yes.  If I got past it, I know anyone can!

As I looked at the daunting list of nursing school prereqs four years ago, I discovered that while a basic college biology course was needed to get into Anatomy & Physiology and Microbiology, it wasn’t actually required by the nursing program itself.  Eager to cut out a course and its related expenses, I looked into testing out of it through the ACCUPLACER biology placement test my community college uses.  (I believe that CLEP tests are also an option at many colleges, but the ACCUPLACER has the advantage of being being very inexpensive–I believe it only cost me $10.)

My biology background to reassure you that you can do this too:  I went to high school in England, where they think it’s perfectly reasonable to let 15 year olds stop taking science classes, so my experience with biology was limited to me=human because I can talk, tree=plant because of photosynthesis?

So, when I tell you that it’s very doable to test out of Biology 111 if you put in some study time I mean it.  Now, there are times when the A&P or Microbiology prof will reference 111 (as in “as you’ll remember from 111”) and you’ll have that deer-in-the-headlights look for a moment, but overall I am very very glad I saved myself the tuition and time and used the ACCUPLACER test instead of taking the course.

How I prepared:

1) I went to my school and asked for their ‘study guide.’  I received a four page rough outline of what the test would cover and immediately began to wonder exactly to what extend I needed to learn these topics.  For the most part I over-prepared and knew them to a much deeper level than was tested.

2) I rented a general college biology textbook from Book Renter (whom I use for all of my textbooks and save tons of money with!).

3) I watched the Crash Course biology videos on the relevant topics many many times.  I cannot recommend these videos enough–they are hilarious.

4) A large part of Biology 111 handles basic chemistry.  I was taking General College Chemistry when I took the ACCUPLACER test (I was only a month from the final) and there were a lot of basic chemistry questions on the test.  I would highly recommend taking the ACCUPLACER biology test once you have taken your chemistry course (unless you already have a great background in chemistry).

I went through the study guide and using the textbook and crash course videos made my own set of notes for the test.  I got serious and actually started doing this about a month before the test.  I went in, took the test, and got a 94.  You only needed an 80 to test out of general college biology.  The adviser couldn’t believe I hadn’t taken a general college biology course before with that score.

What I’d do differently:

A lot of the test focused on microscopes and their parts.  This is something I didn’t pay much attention to on the study guide (I didn’t imagine they’d test on it) and so my photography experience came in handy here and I was able to answer the questions based on that understanding on light and magnification and focus. However, without photography I might have gotten those questions wrong, so don’t neglect to study the parts of the microscope, what they do, what they’re called and how the overall magnification is calculated.

I didn’t learn the visual structure of various organic molecules and this was something that hurt me on the test.  I’d be familiar with the structure of common molecules.

Disclaimer: I took the test in the spring of 2013.  I’m sure it changes from time to time but before taking the test I did many google searches to try and find out more about it and there just wasn’t any information.  I hope this is helpful to someone as they try to prepare for it!

I logged on to wordpress today to start yet another blog.  As a pre-nursing student and CNA I am constantly pestering the internet with questions I hope it can answer: “can I test out of bio 111?” “what are the odds of ACTUALLY getting hired into my dream job?” “if I work nights do I REALLY need childcare or can I just take a nap while Ellie watches The Little Mermaid if I’m only working part time?” and I am ever so grateful to the People of the Internet for answering these questions for me.  I feel like I’m getting to the part of my journey where I might have helpful answers for people just starting out and it sparked in me a desire to start my own “RN or bust” blog.  But then it occurred to me that I already have half a dozen blog urls already and I should stop leaving abandoned blogs like a trail of carnage in my internet wake.  So I’m taking back this one (which, if I remember correctly, is at this point a collection of three previous blogs/tumblr accounts).

Where I’m at today: I’m finishing up my nursing pre-reqs NEXT MONTH (!!!!) and will be starting nursing school in the fall.  Unless something goes horribly wrong in the next month, I will have 4.0ed my nursing prereqs while working as a photographer, homeschooling my youngest, and staying married (IT CAN BE DONE, MOMMAS!  YOU CAN DO IT!).   I also have other exciting news but I won’t share it until I actually maybe have worked there for a year or seven because at this point I’m still scared I’m going to get a “ha ha ha–never mind–we don’t want YOU” phone call.

So that’s me.  And my plan for the blog going forward.  So on the off chance that you’re one of three people that read this blog when it was active and that you still have me in your feed, that’s what will be happening around here!