First Clinical research night.

Nursing Students General Students

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Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

Well, I ended up going to clinical tonight to research on my patient for Friday. Spent 20 mins looking for the chart only to find out that a student in tomorrow morning's clinical had it, so we shared the chart. We have a database where we record background info, drugs, ambulation problems, items we should be aware of before assessment or items we won't get during assessments, etc.

So, I'm trying to work with her, but she kept going SLOW....and I mean I'm done with a section and we need to move on to the next section, but I'm waiting 10 mins or so for her to finish. We're only allowed there during visiting hours(8PM), and I showed up at 5:30, so we're talking 2.5 hours. However, she left at 7:30, and I found more info during the last half-hour than when we were together.

Not dissing her for being slow, but anybody else find it strange that people wait until 11 hours before clinical to go do their research? LTC-wise. I could understand if it was a hospital, acute-based clinical.

All in all, learned a lot and now have to go look up drugs and abnormal lab results and why they could have been abnormal....

Such is the life of a nursing student!!

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Hmm, that's interesting. We're not allowed to look at charts until we actually go to clinicals (LTC here too). So yeah, looking at it 11 hours before clinicals seems a little strange to me:) . Then you research stuff before assessments? Seems like a good idea... And what is this "database" you speak of?

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We can't show up to get info until 5:00 pm the night before and are due in clinical by 6:00 am the next morning so we only have 13 hours to eat sleep and prepare for any and all patients. Sleep on that night is a thing of the past.

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We can't show up to get info until 5:00 pm the night before and are due in clinical by 6:00 am the next morning so we only have 13 hours to eat sleep and prepare for any and all patients. Sleep on that night is a thing of the past.

You sound like me on the night before clinical! I get my patient info between 4-5pm and then I have to go home feed my family and stay up late finishing my patient database... and my clinical is the next day at 0600. Good to know others are suffering like me LOL! :nurse:

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Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

Ok, they must just be taking it easy on us as we're first semester. I had a feeling future semesters will be 8-9 people hanging on the hospital floors looking up info.

"a good idea... And what is this "database" you speak of?"

Trell,

We use the Orem self-care model at my school, and have a database containing the 8 self care catagories. We have spots for information we need to find before we care for patient(drugs, dxs, why they're there, etc.) We look at chart, find as much as we can before, show up at clinical, fill in the rest by talking to patient/family, and doing physical assessment.

It'll be tough for me cause my guy's got Alzheimer's and becomes combative, so I wonder how I'm going to interview him.....

oh, well, I'm sure my instructor will help out.

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We don't get to research our patients until we get assigned them the morning of clinical. Then we're so busy, it's hard to get a look at the chart to give a good report. I usually stay late or come in early to copy down information for care plans (they won't let us make any photo copies). Then the care plan is due by noon the day after our second clinical. It can be hellish. Twice I had to stay up until 4:00 AM to get it done (I've got kids and needed to look after them).

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We don't get to research our patients until we get assigned them the morning of clinical. Then we're so busy, it's hard to get a look at the chart to give a good report. I usually stay late or come in early to copy down information for care plans (they won't let us make any photo copies). Then the care plan is due by noon the day after our second clinical. It can be hellish. Twice I had to stay up until 4:00 AM to get it done (I've got kids and needed to look after them).

This was how it was for us during 1st quarter. I think it will be this way during the first half of 3rd quarter as well because it is OB/LD and how would you know who is coming in to deliver? Other than that though we are expected to have at least a working knowledge of their chronic and acute disease processes/surgeries etc.. appropriate nursing interventions, meds and treatments etc... It is a lot of work but I figure that the med part will get easier because I just keep the ones I have already done each week and can reuse some of the med sheets and pathophysiologies. Either way i feel like I am learning a lot. My issue is that even if I finally get to the point where I could get to bed by 10pm the night before, I normally stay up studying or doing housework untill 1am so I can't get to sleep early. Running on 3 hours of sleep on my clinical day is not good. I can tell by the end of the day that I am on pure adrenalin...:(

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We have a short clinical day 1430-1800 the day before our long day that we get to familiarize ourselves with our patient, and I think with clinicals themselves (we really don't have a lot this semester)

If our care plans aren't done at 0600 we don't get into clinicals until it is.

Our clinicals start the week of Halloween, so I don't yet know how it's going to go but I'm worried about adding clinicals into the weeks we have to pass off skills.

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Ours is done the same way.. someone is in the same boat.

I got really upset last week, because when I went to look up my patient, she had just gotten out of surgery.. she was from a completely different area (pretty common here, because we are a small town, yet manage to have one of the only doctors in the nation who do hip resurfacing).. so my patient had basically an empty chart.. no med history, no labs run, no meds yet, and no way to know why she even had the surgery..

Needless to say.. I left after 2 hours feeling very frustrated and with little info to go home and research. I got up super early and was at the hospital 2 hours before clinical started hoping desperately to find any info regarding this lady.. again came up empty handed.

I explained this to my instructor during our pre-conference.. she said she understood.. turned in my paperwork following clinical and was given several incompletes due to missing info.. What the heck!!

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