Administering meds at clinical

[keeithh01]

I'm in my second semester of nursing school, currently on a med/surg floor. We all have two patients per week and my current clinical instructor has two people do meds a week.

Anyways... We have 15 weeks of clinical, no meds passed the first week and 8 students. So everyone will only be passing meds 3 to 4 times this entire semester. Which seems very... small to me considering I only had 7 weeks of acute care clinical my first semester and passed meds 6 of those 7 clinicals.

Most of the other instructors have half (4) or even all (8) students passing meds every week. Although, I do know from experience having 8 students doing 8 and 9 am meds never ends well.

I was just curious, how often other students pass meds? While I'm fairly confident in my ability to give PO meds, I really would love more practice with injections and IV meds.

[IrishErin]

I remember panicking about the same thing during my placements in school, thinking that we were not getting enough practice in doing med passes. At the end of my program we were required to do 6 weeks of full time placement with a preceptor and that is where I ended up doing most if my medications. However, looking back now, it's one of the things that I needed to worry least about having experience with. When you get a job, you'll be doing it so often it won't matter :)

[pixiestudent2]

At my school most instructors do the same thing, but we can always ask if the nurse assigned to our patient will pass meds with us. Thats actually strongly encouraged...

Eventually you can give meds by yourself, just run it past you instructor first.

[SilleLu]

We are doing the same thing, 3 people pass meds on any given day. I like this arrangement because in previous rotations, everyone passed meds and it was kind of a mess some days.

What you can do on days you are not passing meds is do your assessment then looks at your pts meds...what would give? what would you hold? Then follow the nurse and see what s/he does, if she does something other than what you would do, ask the nurse or your instructor later. You can still look up your meds, know parameters, S/E, compatibilities, etc.

Of course if your nurse lets you do the meds (with instructor's permission) then go for it. At my school though, no student can ever give meds alone, ever. Not even in Leadership. Not even those that are LPNs.

[smf0903]

A couple of us are actually seeming to come to a screeching halt with meds this semester. Three of us were in the same clinical last semester and we passed meds on two patients for half of the semester. This semester, we are having two students pass meds a week. It is what it is. We still have to look up and know all the meds for our patient, we just may not be administering them that week. We are still expected to be prepared if a patient has a lab skill we can do...IV, IVP, IVPB, etc, because if we have an opportunity to do one of those skills, we're expected to step up to the opportunity (even if we're technically not passing meds that week).

[RunBabyRN]

We had to have our instructor with us the first time we passed oral meds. First semester, our nurse had to be with us every time. From there, we were allowed to pass them on our own, but our instructor did ask us questions about our meds to make sure we knew our stuff. We were allowed to hang IVPB meds second semester, but IVP not until our preceptorship.

[Jenngirl34RN]

We have to have our instructor with us the first time we pass meds, and then after that we are allowed to pass anything that is not a high alert med on our own. We can have the nurse there for those, or the instructor, but someone has to double check those. The facility I am in this quarter allows students to do IVP meds as long as they are supervised, but I know the students placed at some of the other facilities are not allowed to do so. We can hang IVs and IVPBs on our own as well, as long as they are not high alert meds.

[krisiepoo]

I passed meds at every.single.clinical. If it wasn't with my instructor, it was with my assigned nurse and after we proved competency with our instructor, we could pull the meds, do a second check with her (or our assigned nurse) and then give the meds ourselves.

With IVP, IV meds and injections, once we proved competency with our instructor we were able to administer them.

[SubSippi]

It was pretty similar to that when I was in school, some teachers did a little more, some a little less. I worried about it, too, thinking I'd need more practice.

But trust me, giving out medications is the absolute easiest part of being a nurse. Spend your time doing assessments. Ask the CNAs if you can help them give a bed bath, or get a patient on a bed pan. You'll learn a lot more helping a CNA than you will pairing up with another nursing student. Learning those types of skills now will save you MUCH time when you're working as a nurse. They know a lot of tricks that will help you get in and out faster.

[Z0LIN]

I did not pass 1 med until my preceptorship. This was due to our hospital switching over the a computer system from paper. They made a policy to restrict medication passes with students until the hospital gets re situated.... When I got to my preceptorship only the first pass was a little shaky due to the fact that I've never actually passed meds. After that one it turned into a breeze and was no big deal.

[Dranger]

Med passing means nothing and is probable 15% of what RNs do. Think outside the box.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

At the program I'm attending, we only get to do a couple med passes with our instructor in the 1st semester. Then in 2nd, once we're checked off for PO meds, we're able to give them on our own in a Med/Surg environment. Other meds are done with an instructor (IVPB or injections). Third Semester has us doing our own PO meds and most other meds are done with either instructor or primary RN present. Basically by 4th Semester, if you're not putting it into an IV, you're giving it on your own.

They beat the Rights and Checks into you... so it's very much 2nd nature, regardless of route. It's also a very small part of the day... important, but small.