Advice

SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP · Jan 20, 2014

There are several students from different countries in my cohort. Each & everyone of them passed clinicals last semester. Do they struggle at times? Yes, but we're a very supportive group. I try to help them with their wording when we do clinical paperwork. (Just to clarify, I'm a student, not an instructor).

Make friends with your classmates and let them know when you need help. A good group will support each other and it's a great way to build team work skills :)

Good luck to you!

RunBabyRN · Jan 20, 2014

I agree, I think practicing your English, and even reviewing with your instructor or nurse what you need to say to a patient and asking for feedback would be good.

You can also ask your instructor this question. I think it's a fair question, and depending on your language skills, you could be fine, or you could struggle. Your post above is quite clear, and if your verbal skills are on the same level, I don't think you have anything to worry about. :)

calma · Jan 20, 2014

Thanks for your feedback guys, SopranoKris and RunBabyRun!!!! :yes: Yes, there are excellent helpful people in my clinical group. My major goal in this rotation is to get to put an IV and make a couple of injections:wideyed:.

Let me ask you something: What were the most things you did in your Med-Surg rotation? :whistling:

RunBabyRN · Jan 22, 2014

Is this your first semester? We didn't do IVs until second semester in my program. We did learn how to insert and care for Foleys, NGs (though I've only been there for a couple of those), did lots of ADL/peri care, kind of got the basics down the first semester. We had write ups each week on one of our patients; I'm sure you'll have something along those lines. It'll be a good way to practice your English!

Second semester, we learned how to do IVs, central line dressing changes... I'm trying to remember what else. Most of the "skills" we learned by second semester. We aren't allowed to do IV push meds or handle central lines until our preceptorship, though we did learn about them in skills lab third semester.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jan 23, 2014

Slight correction: Your major goal in any semester is not to learn just tasks that will be boring as heck three months after you graduate. We teach lay people to do injections and IVs all the time.

You want to be a registered nurse; to achieve that, your major goal is to learn to think like a nurse. This requires more thought and study and practice than just learning to stick sharp things into people. :)

As to your English, yes, I have failed a student for poor English. She was a very bright woman who was a nurse midwife in her home country, but her English was so poor that she could not talk to her patients, couldn't complete the requirement to do patient teaching about medications, couldn't take or give report, and couldn't write a nursing plan of care. I felt terrible about it, because I think she would have been an asset to her ethnic community, which was seriously underserved, in large part due to a language barrier.

She asked my advice for how to get better in English. I told her to spend time with our very excellent ESL department, turn off the foreign-language TV and radio in favor of English-language ones, read the daily metro newspaper every day, read nursing and regular news magazines in English, and speak English at home (she said her family needed to learn English too). She did none of these, not one. She lived in an enclave of people who spoke only their native language. I had no choice but to fail her in clinical; she failed lecture too, because she couldn't do the exams (although she got all the med calculations perfectly). She couldn't function as a nurse in this country, or even pass the NCLEX, without English. I hope she was able to succeed later.