Anyone who’s been through nursing school knows that it can be one of the most challenging times in your life. You need good resources to help you get through. The Internet is flooded with nursing websites which look good on the surface, but in the end they are short on relevant information. The top four sites on this list are ones that I personally used quite often in nursing school. #5 didn’t even exist when I was in nursing school, but it sure would have been nice if it did!
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National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Diseases and Conditions Index.
The first three sites in my list fall under the NIH umbrella. With a 28.5 billion dollar budget, you have to figure that the NIH will sneak in a good website or two.
The Diseases and Conditions Index is a comprehensive library of information about any disease concerning the lungs, blood, or the heart. This is an especially great resource if you are considering critical care nursing. There’s even a great section on diagnostics, so if you are looking for info on ECGs, CABGs, and cardiac catherization, this is a great place to start.
- Medline Plus Drugs, Supplements, and Herbal Information
When you do searches on individual drugs on the Internet, you are often faced with tons of spam sites and ads. It’s difficult to know what is the best source of info. I bypass all of this by going to the Medline Drug database. I would suggest bookmarking this site and always using that as your first point of contact whenever you need to look up a drug and a nursing drug handbook isn’t handy.
- CDC A-Z
This site is one of my personal favorites. Infectious diseases are always in the news, and many times the reporting is a tad sensational. As a nurse, I feel it’s important to have the most up to date and accurate information about diseases, because my patients (and friends, and family, and strangers) are always relying on me to educate them.
Here’s a good example: Tuberculosis. If you look up TB on the index you get facts sheets, research articles, FAQs and epidemiological statistics. Because it’s a government website, you can trust the source, and it’s free of annoying ads.
- Allnurses.com
It’s true, there are some smaller, up and coming nursing communities like nursingvoices.com. But for sheer numbers of members you can’t beat Allnurses.com
(“Did I hear that right? Isn’t PixelRN the one that dissed allnurses for not welcoming bloggers?”)
It’s true, I’ve dissed them in the past. They certainly aren’t going to win any beauty contests with their clunky interface and tones of ads. But you can’t beat them for their sheer numbers. The usefulness of any forum lies in the ability of its members to connect with one another, and allnurses.com has the largest, most active online nursing community.
So what does this mean for nursing students?
The sheer number of members ensures that if you post a comment or question on their discussion boards, it will get read, and it will get responded to. Try posting a drug question, or what it’s like to work in a certain hospital, and you will get feedback. It’s also a great way to connect with other nursing students, of which there seems to be hundreds, if not thousands on there. - Change of Shift
Okay, so if you’ve came by this article via change of shift, then I’m assuming you already know what Change of Shift is. Technically it isn’t a website, rather, it’s a Blog Carnival, which is more like a roving website. I recommend reading it every time it is published. Reading nurse blogs is the number one way for nursing students to find out what actual nursing is all about.