Bad day in clinicals

Nursing Students General Students

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Never mind, tantrum over.

Specializes in ER.

Just to commiserate with you a bit...

That MUCh "help" and supervision would drive me batty....too many cooks in the kitchen. I am quite revlieved that out school does not structure clinical that way.

As far as pain meds go, I felt the same way you did...a patient whose pain is a 10 should NOT have to wait on me for their relief! After the first couple times with that situation, if I encountered difficulty getting someone to come with me to do my pain meds, I let the nurse know so she could do it, then explained my rationale to my instructor.

But hang in there! As others said, the further you progress, generally the more autonomous you become. You also get quicker at things, and learn that you can be strategic and beat all the other students to the instructor in the morning to get you a.m. meds done first;) .

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I came home defeated, beaten, and tired and re-thinking my decision to become a nurse yesterday. I'm not crazy about the floor I'm on, but people are people and I'm there to take care of them. Ok, I'm done now....thanks for letting me vent.

It's okay to vent. We all do it from time to time.

It gets better, trust me.

and, good luck!

Wayne

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Specializes in Neuro, Critical Care.

Wow. Our clinicals aren't like that. We have primary nurses of course and our instructor but no other student supervising. Most of my clinical instructors have been pretty laid back while at the same time being completely safe. This is the second semester i've had my clinical instructor and while she likes to be there while we are passing meds, if we have to she is ok with us passing meds with our primary nurse. The hospital we are at is very very safe with meds as we have a computer charting system. We first have to scan the patients bracelet, the meds, then our card. We check and double check the meds and the computer does the same. I love clinicals, but ive been lucky that ive never felt time crunched or stressed out...I know its coming and the supportive learning environment I have now, well, I hope that my work environment is the same.

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I love clinicals, but ive been lucky that ive never felt time crunched or stressed out...I know its coming and the supportive learning environment I have now, well, I hope that my work environment is the same.

Ok, I'm transferring to your school.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
You're right. Thank you for reminding me not to jump off the deep end so quickly. I was mostly frustrated about not being able to help my patients with their pain. I will mellow out and roll with the punches bettter; I've come too far and worked too hard to throw up my hands because I had a bad day. Thanks again for the kind words of encouragement.

You're welcome. I just wanted to remind you that you weren't a bad nurse because there's so many roadblocks to you providing good care. That's a lesson we all learn early.

Good luck.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Why'd you delete it, that was a valid rant. What a pain in the a$$ day. One night I was giving MS IV push and per school policy had my patient's nurse there to witness. The patient smiles and says "Don't get nervous with her looking over your shoulder like that." I just laughed and said, "I'm used to it, I've been nervous for 2 years now!" The nurse then laughed and said "Just remember, it's a lot easier being a nurse than it is being a nursing student."

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Specializes in LTC and MED-SURG.
When I first started clinicals I hated it! I wondered why in the world did I want to be a nurse. But as time went on, it kinda grew on me. Now I am in what my program calls practicum. We are on the floor taking care of 4 patients and we are able to pass meds, do treatments and any other skill that is within the scope of practice for an LPN. I even do IV's since I am IV certified. It is so much better than clinicals ever were. Hang in there I am sure as time goes on and you progress in your program, you will be able to do more and more. The best of luck to you in the furture!

In my LPN program, clinicals and practicum were the same thing.

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