Clinical teaching strategies

If you were assigned a patient earlier than the night before, it is highly likely that your patient would be gone or changed so much that your care plan would be useless.

Try to get all your other homework done on other nights, so you only have clinical work to do that night. Do drug cards for common drugs ahead of time, ask other students what drugs they've had to give and just keep cards for those ready and waiting.

Nursing diagnoses can cover different disease processes, having a plan for pain control, deep breath and cough with IS, protecting skin for bedridden patients, preventing blood clots. Keep these ready to attach to careplans.

We've all been there and survived, you can too

One night a week, almost every week until October. I'm sorry but our patients deserve that you lose some sleep so they can sleep better! Look at it this way... Program A allows for you to come in on the day of your clinical, get your assignment then begin your care, without any paperwork to get the "total clinical picture". Now, you go to see your pt who you will need to assess, prioritize care, create a plan of care and then implement that plan. This will take up to an hour or two just getting to the implementation phase. By then, the student at school B who prepared the night before will be able to assess the pt, prioritize, look at the plan of care and begin implementing that plan way before you even know what the pathophysiology of their disease process is. Time is at a premium in LPN, ADN, BSN, MSN, and PHd programs around the world, in preparation for nurses like me who are in their 50's that will be retiring within the next few years. Hey, I know from whence I speak...I went to LPN school as the only male out of 23 ladies, I then obtained my ADN, from there I got my BSN and finally after writing a ******* book ,got my Masters! Sleep came when I could get it but along the way I learned the one thing that all students in nursing classes must remember...preparation= good nursing! I know I'm old fashioned but I really feel that student do better when they are prepared and sleepy! With an assertive personality such as yours, you're going to do fine anyway!