Am I the ONLY person who had trouble just making a bed to nursing standards?

suzy253, RN · Feb 20, 2004

I am sorry, but I am getting a giggle. I am currently in the practical nursing program. Just started last month, part time. I had to remake my bed 3 times last night in lab. I was getting the miter edges just fine, but that darn seam on the sheets..:angryfire ..anyway, finally, it was right, and all checked off...

Groovynurse73: Don't apologize....please! better to laugh than to cry. :rotfl: I love a good laugh myself. And we've had some real funny times in lab where we just cracked up completely. Like one of our male students (bald) putting on the wig of one of the mannequins. I almost wet myself! :imbar You'll probably always remember last night remaking the bed 3 times.

Cheers!

zambezi, BSN, RN · Feb 20, 2004

It's funny that this was brought up...Just this week at work I was talking to another RN telling them I had hated making beds in nursing school clinicals. Well--I do it all the time now. I work in critical care so many of my patients are ventilated..so no help from them..truly, making a bed with a person in it is a valuable skill, as much as I had to admit it. Never forget to put a sturdy sheet under the patient so you can pull the pt. up in bed or turn them. As for making hospital corners etc, I never ever do that- as others have mentioned, all of my patient seem to prefer it loose at the bottom, I just make it look neat/tidy. I prefer the sheets loose at the bottom too, that way when I look at the patient's feet for edema, color changes, pulses etc, i don't have to untuck them every time. I will say that keeping as many wrinkles out of the bottom sheets is important for those patients that can't get out of bed and are dependent on you for skin care and maintence. Wrinkles cause pressure points on the skin and can attribute to skin breakdown--in the very least it makes your patients skin look like a waffle!

mom and nurse · Feb 20, 2004

I hated bedmaking. First skill we learned. I remember thinking, "oh great, I've survived microbiology, A&P, Chemistry, Statistics, etc. and I'm having trouble making a bed to standards ...this is like living in the twilight zone"....I'm about to graduate and I still dread bedmaking.

PJMommy · Feb 20, 2004

Ditto here. I can't make a nice bed to save my life. As another poster mentioned, I'm also in critical care and bedmaking is a really low priority on the list of things to do. Have you ever tried to make a KinAir bed? Like...there is no way to "tuck" or "mitre" sheets.

Puh-lease...I'd rather be a horrible bed-maker and have great assessment skills and know how to read an ABG or converse intelligently with a doctor -- than to have someone walk in and say "she missed something and the patient died but, d**m, that bed looks GOOD..."

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Feb 20, 2004

One of the nurses at work had my sentiments exactly. He said "Want a perfectly made bed? I'll need some straight pins and an iron first..."

ShelleyERgirl, LPN · Feb 20, 2004

Puh-lease...I'd rather be a horrible bed-maker and have great assessment skills and know how to read an ABG or converse intelligently with a doctor -- than to have someone walk in and say "she missed something and the patient died but, d**m, that bed looks GOOD..."

:rotfl: You aren't kidding! I hate making beds, when we got tested out before clinicals, my instructor made me so nervous, I actually sweated on my mannequin during the bed bath and to top it off, the stupid thing's arm FELL OFF when I was turning it over for the "back rub"! :imbar

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Feb 20, 2004

Makes me think of last year when i was demonstrating to the instructor for a grade how to do perineal/cath care on the male dummy. The arm was not what fell off. :imbar

gwenith, BSN, RN · Feb 20, 2004

:nono: No complaining - you have it easy. When I was training - back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth we had to not only make drum tight mitred beds BUT the "fler-de-lis" design on the quilts for the state hospitals had to line up just so and heaven help you if you put the ruddy thing on upside down by mistake - TREASON!!!!

We also had to make "split" beds and "post-op" beds and unoccupiesd versus admission beds - there were about 12 different ways to make up a bed AND each hospital had it's own signature method of turning the sheets down - some you only folded one corner some hospitals you folded both corners and then folded that back. One London hospital had us do a complicated triple fold on the corner of the bed after we had made it.

caligirl · Feb 21, 2004

Heh heh.. this thread made me laugh. I was in the military. I always passed my inspections for my bed in basic training.. but for some reason I am soooo awkward making a bed for clinicals!! I hate it!

foreverhope · Feb 21, 2004

I have a lot of trouble with beds also!! I guess I figured I was the only one--I am glad I am not!! :rolleyes:

Gompers, BSN, RN · Feb 21, 2004

Aaaaah, this post brings back memories!!!

When I was in nursing school, the first skill we had to "test out of" was bedmaking, and I remember that we were all freaking out in our dorms, making our own beds over and over again...

While I got quite good at it (being a CNA during nursing school helped) and still make my bed at home with hospital corners...I have to say I'm so glad to be away from all that. I hated doing those two-nurse linen changes with the patient in the bed and yes, that dreaded cover sheet that never stayed on.

Here in the NICU, the beds are much smaller and so are the patients! Though it was a learning process all its own, naturally. It takes some skill to hold your patient in one hand and change all the linen with the other!!!

BETSRN · Feb 21, 2004

Isn't it sad to think that nursing school has nothing better to do than give you trouble if you cannot make a bed the right way? In the grand scheme of things, how you make the bed won;t matter. AS a nurse, you'll have plenty more important thngs to worry about.

Don't worry so much. Just keep on truckin and enjoy being a student. The "real" world of nursing is far more enjoyable than school.