And I wonder if I even remember anything I learned in the past year -- someone recently was asking me about heart conditions, and I was describing basic heart anatomy, and found myself stumped as to the location of the mitral valve -- left or right side??? If a non-medical person is reading this, knowing the location of the mitral valve is among the most basic of basic heart anatomy structures. It would be placed on slide one of a lecture, consisting of many dozens of slides. Needless to say, I felt horrified when I realized I'd forgotten that basic thing already...and I'd done really, really well in those classes!
I guess I'll just call it 'summer brain', and hope that the basics will be repeated and repeated in the coming years of nursing school, until I know them in my sleep. I also think that with clinical rotations starting in the fall, and learning 'hands-on' will really help to cement the textbook info we learned last year.
Here's to hoping -- and to enjoying these precious summer weeks that I'm priviledged to be able to spend with my amazing children.
"It's never too late to become what you might have been."
-- George Eliot
