Any of you make excellent grades but suck at skills?

[aem31]

I'm curious as to how many of you started off with really good grades but found yourself floundering and feeling awkward in lab and clinicals. I've made straight A's so far during this first semester but I feel so clumsy and unnatural with skills. I certainly have the knowledge but I become an idiot when I have to do stuff. Any tips?

[RevolutioN2013]

I go blank when someone is "grading" me. I can sit there and watch the other students do the skill and in my mind I'm like "Wait, you forgot xyz!". I know the skill! But when I get up to do it my mind just goes blank. I know it's performance anxiety, and I'm only a pre-nursing student in a CNA class learning to make a freaking bed! God knows what it will be like when I'm trying to stick a tube in someone's urethra!

[ComeClarity]

I've noticed there is a HUGE difference in the way our instructors want us to perform skills for check-offs and how they're actually done out in the real world. Usually I will fumble the first time I perform a skill, but once I do something on a real patient, I remember the steps and equipment much better than I did when just practicing on dummies.

[SBW4RN]

New to this post and will start my 1st semester next Spring.

After reading this post, I feel pretty good with clinical as it seems like most of basic skills I have been doing every week at work as a CNA.

[InERisiTABEREin]

I think taking a CNA class (if your not already in aprogram) would be the best way for people to avoid this problem. Youll still probably struggle, but you will learn some basics in a lower pressure environment. The most important thing you will learn is how you respond under pressure, how to deal with that pressure, and what you need to do to get skills done correctly under that pressure. At least in my class there seems to be a sort of sink or swim mentality, but if you respond well you get more thrown at you if you respond poorly you eventually get help, but they let you try first. It helps that these skills aren't life and death. I feel like this will help me in nursing school clinical, though I known it will still make me nervous, lol.

[whereslilly]

New to this post and will start my 1st semester next Spring.

After reading this post, I feel pretty good with clinical as it seems like most of basic skills I have been doing every week at work as a CNA.

It definitely will help! I worked 2 p/t jobs all thru Nursing school. One was as an aide in a large SNF. It was very hard work, but it allowed me to practice my Nsg skills. The Nursing Supervisor knew I was a student so whenever a sterile dressing needed to be changed anywhere in the house, I got called. So by graduation my sterile technique was perfect! This job also taught me how to prioritize, make 42 beds in less than an hour, gave me real time pt contact. When I landed my first RN job I wasn't ill at ease at the bedside. Most importantly I never forgot how hard those Nurses aides work!:)

[nurse simmy]

Same here and the only one they look at for placement for our capstone is the lecture. Doesnt matter I got an A in lab/clinical, but because I got a C in lecture I cant go anywhere. Grrrrr, I wish i did better on tests.

I'm an A student, and I'm scared that when they go by my grades that I will do capstone in the ER or ICU. I am not an adrenaline junky, if someone drops in front of me, I am afraid I will freeze.

We do clinicals 2 8hr days/week for 4 semesters and I've only had the opportunity to do 1 IV start, and 2 foleys, so I feel extremely lacking in skills, and my instructors don't seem to worried about it. Most of the instructors are really good at walking us through things as many times as necessary, I just wish I had more opportunity to practice on "real" people cause they are so "realistic" compared to the simulations.

~Simmy

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

[quote name=does any one have a test bank for potter and perry ( fundamentals of nursing? )

mail me on thanks!! :)[/quote]

With all the effort you put in to finding the test bank(which you won't because these book editors are smart and keep them from the public), do some real work and study? And even IF you somehow manage to graduate by means of cheating(which are slim to none because you'll probably be kicked out along the way), you can't cheat on the NCLEX...and if SOMEHOW you pass(which won't be likely at all since you know nothing from school since you cheated), you can't cheat your way through a job and will end up having something really bad happen(killing patient, losing a license from not knowing your left from right, termination from lack of nursing knowledge, your pick)..so just suck it up and study. Stop asking others to help you cheat, this isn't the place for it.