[lemonlimeEMT]

I guess the thing you have to remember is: you aren't limited to patient care only for your patient. Just because the lady next door isn't the patient you are doing all your paperwork for, doesn't mean you can't go into her room and change her diaper or watch someone start a PICC line or even just go in and talk with her.

[Alternator81]

Ok.. This is mine

0645-0700:

Look for new orders in chart, MAR for new medications, SEARCH for the nurse. Get report.

0700-0800:

Introduce myself to my pt (make sure they are breathing ), check PAIN, Take vitals.Do full assessment

0800-0830:

get 0900 meds ready

0830-0845:

Get glared at by nurses cause I am taking too long on the pyxis!

0830-0900:

Find instructor so I can give 0900 meds

0900-1000:

Give Meds, Give bed bath, change bed

1000-1100:

Usually help my friends give baths --visa versa

1100-1200:

Give more meds, Blood glucose/insulin, vitals, do charting .

1200-1300:

Still doing charting, give nurse report , say goodbye to patient.

[natania]

I have never been bored at clinicals, and for the record, I am at the hospital from 6:30 am - 7:30 pm. In addition to everything that was mentioned here, I do a lot of wound care and deal with a lot of tube medications (I tend to choose these patients intentionally). sometimes the wound care can be quite time-consuming and gruesome.

Oh, and I had total care for 3 patients this semester. We weren't allowed to delegate anything, and I never got to shadow a nurse. We schedule our clinical instructor for IV push medications and certain IV meds; otherwise we were pretty much on our own.

[lemonaidangel]

My usual schedule:

0600: Get assigned patient, get report from nurse, go through client's chart for important information (diagnosis, meds, new orders, etc.), pull out drug cards, review labs.

0730: wake up sleepy client, introduce self, do vitals and full assessment

Chart

0830: go with instructor to med room to pull out 0900 meds, give to client

chart

0900: help with bath, change of gown, change sheets

1000: ask fellow students if they need help with anything

1030: start interrogating client. (We have 13 page assessment profile sheets we need to fill out on each client before we can start a care plan. Most of it is subjective information. Very detailed! It usually takes at least an hour to ask all the necessary questions, sometimes longer.)

1200 or 1230: second set of vitals and head-to-toe assessment

chart/ review to see if new orders came in

eat lunch

1330: ask nurses/classmates if they needs help with anything, check back with client to see if he/she needs anything.

chart as needed, report to nurse

1430: post floor conference with instructor and clinical group

1500: go home!

The rest of the day is spent finishing filling out the assessment profiles, looking up lab results and reasoning why they are important to the client, creating a care plan related to client's assessment

Schedule repeats itself the next day!

We're allowed to do pretty much everything except IV's (that comes in the fall). Catheters, injections (including insulin and heparin), dressing changes, you name it, we do it.

[Alternator81]

1200 or 1230: second set of vitals and head-to-toe assessment

Dude.. 1 assessment is hard enough when you have full-care! But 2???

[lemonaidangel]

Yeah, I know. Our school is crazy! But it must be done, so we do it. Thankfully it doesn't have to be as in-depth as the first one. Basically just vitals and see if anything has changed since the morning assessment. It's not that bad. I've found that the further along in nursing school I go, the faster I become. By the end of clincals each semester we are assigned more than one patient because we actually get bored!

[AtomicWoman]

Originally Posted by jackson145

OB/Peds was the worst for the guys because there wasn't a single patient who would allow them in their room.

Gosh, that's something I hadn't thought about! How are those guys supposed to get OB experience?

[AtomicWoman]

I assume you have to introduce yourself as a student nurse. Have any of you ever had a patient insist that they only wanted to be taken care of by a "real" nurse?

And how do you stop your hands from SHAKING the first few times you do even the most mundane things, like BP?

[natania]

Originally Posted by LoriS

I assume you have to introduce yourself as a student nurse. Have any of you ever had a patient insist that they only wanted to be taken care of by a "real" nurse?

And how do you stop your hands from SHAKING the first few times you do even the most mundane things, like BP?

I have never had anyone refuse me. I tell those who have expressed any hesitation that I have more time to attend to them than the licensed nurse, and because I am a student, everyone watches me like a hawk to ensure I don't make a mistake.

As for being terrified about the first patient, my first was a patient who was just short of comatose, so the poor woman was probably not even aware of what I was doing.

[multicollinearity]

Originally Posted by LoriS

I assume you have to introduce yourself as a student nurse. Have any of you ever had a patient insist that they only wanted to be taken care of by a "real" nurse?

I never had a patient express to me any desire to NOT have a student nurse. I did see it happen to a classmate, though. After that, I started introducing myself as a student nurse, and I'd say, "I'll be helping to take care of you in addition to your registered nurse."

I figured parsing it that way would preempt any objection due to them thinking they were getting short-changed by having a student. I think the way some of my classmates introduced themselves, the patient might think the student was taking care of them and no regular RN.