School Supplies

School Supplies

Wanna know what all nurses seem to have in common? We're all perfectionists and we always throw 110% of ourselves into everything we do...oh and we freaking love school supplies!

In this post, I'm going to outline all the essential school supplies that you need and that I have found helpful while being in nursing school!

The first thing I'm sure your anxious just-got-into-nursing school self is going to want to get is your uniform!

Here I have these fabulous galaxy blue scrubs (yes, I really do love them!)

My awesome stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, a CPR mask, a penlight and the calculator that my school requires us to have.

On the right, you can see the two badge reels that I picked for this semester, which I got from Cool2BeChic, an awesome little shop on Etsy. And one of my trusty watches. My school's only requirement is that we have a watch with a second hand, so we get to personalize these a little. I have a total of three watches, the black one you see, a blue one like it and a faux leather brown one.

When you get to the hospital, rush to the supply room and grab these:

These alcohol swabs and IV preps just happened to make it home with me last semester. Oops. Now they sit around waiting to be used in a prep war. 

You may also want to take a little notebook that can fit in your scrub pocket or a clipboard, I just forgot to take pictures of those! Oops! My clipboard is one of the ones that has storage so I can store pens, paper, and other random things in it. 

Next is going to be your organizational supplies. I use a one inch binder for my lecture classes. I do this because when we get done with a section, I take that section out and put it in a file folder, rather than keeping it in the same binder all semester. Some students use a huge binder for each class and some use a different binder for each class. It's going to vary person to person.

Anyway, when you open my binder the first thing you see is a couple of plastic sleeves. In the first one, I have a calendar and then in the second one I have a lab values sheet.

After that, I have all of my classes schedules made to look like a calendar. All the little details, like reading pages are stored in another place.

For clinicals, I keep a folder. These will hold the syllabus, care plans and other sheets of info that we get throughout the semester.

I always make sure to have these one hand because you never know when you will want to make flashcards or just jot something on a notepad or a post it!

When I'm reading, I like to have a ton of things near me. Pens, highlighters, colored pens and sticky tabs. 

When using the sticky tabs, I usually use a different color for each week of reading so that when it comes time to study for the test,  I can easily flip to the right topic.

When you read, take notes.

When you listen to lecture, take notes.

When you talk about the notes with your friends, take notes.

Are you getting the picture?

And always use a different color.

So you know exactly where you got the information.

For instance, if my lecture notes are in red

and my friend notes are in blue

and they contradict each other, I automatically go with the red information

I'm a visual learner, so I keep these around all the time too. This way I can draw out pictures or charts for the information that I need to know.

If you are lucky enough that your school doesn't require a certain calculator, here are a couple from walmart that are only a dollar and are super cute! Just thought I'd share!

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