What is something from nursing school that has been the most beneficial to you

Just wondering what things or skills that you learned in nursing school have been the most beneficial to you as a working nurse. Is there something that you learned that you still do that way because that is how you learned it in nursing school or have you just built upon what you learned there. Anyhow, tell me what you think, I am interested in hearing what you all have to say.
1. Straight "A" students don't always make the best nurses (obviously I wasn't one of them!)2. ALL nurses will make a med error at some point in their career. If they deny this fact, they are wrong (maybe even dangerous)

Always carry hemostats, scissors, penlight, pen, and everything else you were required to carry on your person in nursing school. At least once per shift, someone is asking to borrow something I'm carrying (usually my scissors). And always know where to find resources because you will never know everything you need to know.

Quote from j621d1. Straight "A" students don't always make the best nurses (obviously I wasn't one of them!)2. ALL nurses will make a med error at some point in their career. If they deny this fact, they are wrong (maybe even dangerous)

Quote from deftonez188I was a straight A student, and it took me awhile to get my clinical skills to match, but we all get there eventually. No one is ready 'out of the box.' I think we're more similar than we are different

When I was a freshman in nursing school one of my instructors said, "The first muscle the heart feeds is itself."That's not a skill or a medical fact, but it has always stuck with me and been my reminder that, if I don't take care of myself, I can't take care of anyone else.

Document, document, document!

CYAPeriod. It doesn't get any more specific than that.

In my opinion, nursing school does not prepare you to be a nurse--it prepares you to LEARN to be a nurse after you graduate. A new nurse graduate should have the skills s/he needs to learn to be a nurse, and hopefully will start a job where the rest of the staff and their preceptor will be prepared to help complete that education.

"If you didn't chart it, you didn't do it." That was drilled into us repeatedly before we even started clinicals. I follow that today and hold other nurses to it as well. It's not just CYA either, documentation is also communication between staff. If I need info about something that happened on a previous shift (even a previous day) that wasn't passed on in report, I look to the documention to find an answer (particularly when I'm being asked about an order that was written).

Quote from pers"If you didn't chart it, you didn't do it." .

1. Not documented, not done.2. Check the pt, not the monitor.3. Tubing/syringe/kit not labeled? Throw it out and start new!4. Always have fresh vital signs when something seems afoot.5. Something looks wrong? Get a second pair of eyes - you're probably right!Much more, I'm sure, but those five have served me pretty well in my first year.

I will never forget our first clinical day. After passing bkfst trays (one of my classmates delivered one to a patient who was stone cold dead in the bed!) we assembled in the clean utility room at one point during our tour of the unit. Our instructor picked up a big brown glass jar of sterile applicators (essentially long wooden-handled Q-tips) and said, "Who can tell me how to get one of these out without contaminating the rest?" We looked at each other nervously. Finally one brave soul said, "Use a pair of sterile forceps to pick one up?"And our instructor said, "Very good. Who can think of another way?"And the light just dawned on me. Another way? It's OK to think of another way? She WANTS us to think of another way? There IS another way? Wow!Ever since then-- and it's been more than forty years, good lord-- I have looked for another, evidence-based way to solve problems. It's a very satisfying way to practice when the immediate answer isn't to hand and you have to figure it out.The bad side is that I am VERY bad at hearing, "That's just the way we do it here."