This time around I took the Med-Surge ATI. With this test I decided to take more breaks and finish the test over the span of 1-2 days so that I wouldn’t lose as much focus and concentration on the questions. I also made sure to do a better job of fully reading through the questions because I know I had a lot of mistakes on my last ATI because I didn’t full read through. One thing that was challenging for me this time was select all that apply questions. I answers majority of them correctly but then I would leave out one answer that was also correct just because I was insecure of how many answers I was selecting, but I need to be more focused on the answers at hand and what is true/false for the question rather than overthinking how many answers I give. This is something I will work on next time by really dipping deep into select all that apply questions and looking through all of the answers before answering. I really like how these ATI tests are helping me to find problems in my content gap as well and seeing what things I have mastered and what things I need to do more studying on because it gives me great feedback to make me a better nurse in the future.
Prepare for Licensure #1
This time around doing the Pharmacology ATI, I made a plan to just go into it and not change my answers. I made this plan beforehand so I would spend more time on the questions rather than flying through the ones I felt like I knew and then being stuck on other ones and I believe this really helped me. It helped me to not overthink the questions and not get stuck between 2 answers. One thing I could have done better was highlighting key words in the question because the main weakness I had was picking wrong answers for questions that were asking contraindications or “needs for further teaching”. Making sure you read the question all of the way through and thoroughly looking through all of the answers is one thing that I need to work on.
I also found out that I can get very burnt out during tests and then I start to lose focus. One thing that could really help me, especially during ATI is taking my time and doing 10 questions then giving myself a minute to just think and reset as if I am taking a bunch of little tests rather than a 200 question test all at once.
Pre Interview Reflection
The subject I chose for this interview is my father. My father works as a nurse and he is the clinical leader of his floor. He works in orthopedic nursing and has a background in physical therapy as well. He has been working at the same hospital for over 10 years and has taken on a huge leadership role as the clinical leader of his floor. I chose my father because he has been my biggest role model my whole entire life and having the pleasure to also see your role model grow and go from a floor nurse to a clinical leader is something special to me. As a father, he is compassionate, empathetic, understanding and always willing to listen and that is something that he also shows in his work with patients. He is always prepared and professional but still accommodates to any needs that a patient has. He is always able to communicate efficiently and is extremely self aware which is something I have always admired because it means that he is able to always check in on himself and work on things to make himself better for not only his family, but his career as well. As a clinical leader, I find him to be both informal and formal. He is a formal leader because he does have authority over his floor but also connects with others and builds communication with others to find a common ground for people which is seen as informal. I am extremely interested in interviewing him because I want to learn more about how he sees himself and get a behind the scenes of how he came to get this clinical leader position. I am extremely interested in finding out more about what it was like being a male nursing student at the time that my father went to school. During that time period I know it was not as accepted to be a male in nursing and I think those struggles that my father went through really helped him to become the amazing nurse that he is today.
Career Development
During our last class together, we watched NURSES If Florence Could See Us Now. This movie really opened my eyes to all aspects of different nursing and how much it means to be going to school for this career. Watching this movie made me feel extremely lucky and grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to come to UNE and learn everything this is about nursing because even though it is a rewarding career, it is a lot of hard work and dedication to reach your goal. You have to make sure you learn every aspect about all types of nursing before you really know what you want to do, along with some sleepless nights and early mornings studying and educating yourself on things that will help you in your career. One thing I learned from this movie were all the types of positions that nurses can be in, such as a nursing manager or the floor nurse who got infected with HIV and became an educator for others with HIV and workplace needle injuries. This was one thing I didn’t realize about nursing was how flexible it is and how many types of things you can do depending on what you want to do with your life.
An interview is a huge part of the hiring process and can make such a big difference when you’re applying for a dream job. The first thing I would do before an interview is 100% research the facility that I am applying for just to know if that environment is something I want to be in. I would also prepare questions to ask for myself because I feel like that is important, if not more important than answers to questions. I would think about where I want to be in the future and if this facility is going to help me get to that end goal, whether it is at that facility or somewhere else. I believe just being confident in my abilities and my dreams/passions will be able to impress interviewers.
I would say my biggest strength is that when I am passionate about something, I want to learn as much as I can about that particular thing. I may not be the smartest student or know everything there is to know but I am also an extremely hard worker and if I set my mind to something I will do it and never give up. Whatever I do in my life I always give 100% and I think that would be my greatest strength. My greatest challenge is that I am a very visual/active learner so I really don’t understand how to truly do something until I see someone do it and then do it myself. I am taking steps such as making concept maps and putting a lot of work into SIM and clinicals to make sure that that weakness becomes a strength for me over time.
