Common Sense & Nursing

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  1. Common Sense in Nursing: Is it intuitive or experiential--or something else?

    • 14
      Completely intuitive
    • 7
      Completely experience
    • 60
      I have a good case for a "Both" answer
    • 2
      Other. Tell us what you think and why.

66 members have participated

Overheard this morning:

Nurse #1: I dunno about the new girl, I don't think she can handle it.

Nurse #2: Why?

Nurse #1: She has to be told everything. She has no no....no....common sense. I mean, you'd think she'd use a little common sense!

What do you think?

Is "common sense" something that good nurses have intuitively before they have experience, or is "common sense" nursing something that is built by experience?

Specializes in cardiac/critical care/ informatics.
I can't agree that common sense nursing is built by experience for all. One i work with who's been a nurse for 30 years, and STILL has to be told some of the most basic stuff. Not to mention her pt/ safety priorities are always out of whack.

Do we work at the same place:uhoh21: I work with someone just like that, I amazed all the time how she can be a nurse. She has worked on the same floor for at least 20 years and knows less than a new grad. :o

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Specializes in Internal Medicine Unit.

I believe that common sense is something that you either have or you do not. To me it's common sense that tells you to pick the trash, telephone, etc up off the patient's floor BEFORE they slip, trip and fall. It's what tells you to put up siderails and turn on bed alarms. Common sense tells us to wash behinds, change wet linens, turn thermostats up/down, and to offer a blanket. To me it is common sense to turn on/off a light for a patient that cannot do it for themselves. It's also common sense to use clean supplies and NOT to use something when you do not know where it has been. (Actually had an RN use a thermometer probe that she found lying in a tray of used probes because she "didn't know that they were used." But that's another story.) People can be taught to do the above tasks by rote, but with common sense they see that the task needs to be done without being taught. Somebody without common sense probably will not think to perform these tasks in a different setting. Common sense does not take special skill or learning. That's why it's "common." :wink2:

Now that's as clear as mud!

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