Today was our first day of Therapeutic Communications and Pharmacology. Therapeutic Communications scares me. There seems to be a lot of busy work mixed in with a lot of heavy work and group projects. This will be the class that attempts to make us all as culturally compassionate as possible. Very important, I know... and also not terribly exciting for me. I'm already dreading the long research papers... and writing in APA format!
Pharmacology is really interesting. It helps that our instructor does not necessarily follow the "pills and doctors are the only way" mentality. Mixed in with learning about generic drug names vs trade names was discussion on herbal medicine and other non-western medicine approaches. She also talked with us about medication errors, and personal flaws of some past nursing cohorts. Not in a bad way, but letting us know that some nurses will go to great lengths to divert medications, and you are often shocked that nurses you really thought were completely upstanding may have dark secrets.
I felt that both instructors really wanted us to succeed, and enjoy teaching. And, they made it all seem not so scary. Which is sort of scary.
Pharmacology is really interesting. It helps that our instructor does not necessarily follow the "pills and doctors are the only way" mentality. Mixed in with learning about generic drug names vs trade names was discussion on herbal medicine and other non-western medicine approaches. She also talked with us about medication errors, and personal flaws of some past nursing cohorts. Not in a bad way, but letting us know that some nurses will go to great lengths to divert medications, and you are often shocked that nurses you really thought were completely upstanding may have dark secrets.
I felt that both instructors really wanted us to succeed, and enjoy teaching. And, they made it all seem not so scary. Which is sort of scary.