Anyone else hate their clinicals?

z's playa · Feb 17, 2005

What area are you at in your clinicals?

moonbunnie · Feb 17, 2005

right now we are doing med surg...this is my second semester.

abundantjoy07, RN · Feb 17, 2005

I don't hate clinicals. However some clinical experiences are extremely boring. On the other hand some are great! Sometimes they are frustrating...because I'm a student nurse and not a nurse nurse. It all depends on the situation, the patient, and the area that I'm in. I loved wound care, I loved psychiatric rotations, I snore on SNU, I am sometimes bored to tears on Med-Surg and sometimes I love it...

z's playa · Feb 17, 2005

right now we are doing med surg...this is my second semester.

HA!! I'd pay money to be where you are right now.... :chuckle

I'm just staring out in the 4 year BSN program and we're only doing LTC.

Hopefully you'll find your nitch.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 17, 2005

I would do a little soul searching. Perhaps write down what it is you don't like. Rather than a vague statement like "I hate clinicals". What is it you don't like? Is it being a student, like standing around always having to ask for stuff, always having to have your insturctor around? Is it patient care, wiping butts, etc. Is it all the studying?

Then ask yourself, "is it worth all of this to become a nurse?".

We all, many times question ourselves, whether we are doing the right thing or not when we're in school. I remember feeling the same way, I even felt that way for a while after nursing school.

Good luck.

There were some areas I hated like pysch., ob, and peds. Hated it.

moonbunnie · Feb 17, 2005

i dont really know what exactly it is i hate about clinicals...the actual classroom part of school i like a lot, and i have been a cna for almost two years, so i know how to wipe butts and everything...i guess i just hate only having one patient at clinicals, and not even really knowing what to do or getting to do anything besides bathing and MAYBE passing a few meds. I feel like I have nothing to do, but I dont know how to do anything anyway. and the things I am supposed to do, like bed baths and changing sheets, i already know how to do, and dont enjoy doing. im afraid i will never know enough to do everything that a nurse does, and im afraid that it is a job that is too stressful, and i wont be able to perform under pressure. these are all just fears from someone who doesnt really know anything about being an actual nurse, just about being a student though. i applied for a summer intership working one on one with a nurse, so im hoping that if i do that i will really get to see how the actual job is, and then have a better idea of if nursing is for me or not.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 17, 2005

That makes sense moonbunnie.

Believe me it's different in the real world, instead of not having enough to do, you'll be stressed over having too much to do.

But I understand what you're saying. You're just not too challenged right now because you come with experience. Hang in there.

Fiona59 · Feb 17, 2005

Looking back clinicals are wonderful. The real world is hard work. Full patient load, beds to change when least expected. Meds, wound care, unit politics, inservices.

At least when ur a student you are only on a unit for a short time. Remember how they are, which ones were good and which ones ud never go back to as a graduate nurse.

My medsurg rotation was seven weeks, hard weeks, but I learnt alot and loved it. LTC was five weeks of sheer hell, sweating, huge workloads (even as a student) and NA's who loved students for picking up some of their workload, but were only too happy to snarl, if we didn't do it good enought or fast enough.

Student time (cr*ppy as it is) is often better than working conditions.

meesa214 · Feb 17, 2005

I can't give you the "real world" perspective, but I can tell you from another student's point of view...When I was at your point in school (though I'm not that much further along!) I hated my clinicals too. I dreaded even getting up in the morning. I even hated going to bed the night before because that would make morning come faster.

I hated clinicals in Fundamentals (LTC plus an acute care placement--mine happened to be on a Surgical floor) and I hated clinicals in Med/Surg I. Then I hit my OB rotation and absolutely loved it. I'm now in Psych and I love this too. But I'm dreading once again my Med/Surg II rotation that's coming up soon.

So I guess what I'm saying is, you may just need to wait until you find a rotation you enjoy.

LaShell · Feb 17, 2005

I am an LPN just starting my RN transition. I too really hated clinicals, I guess it was mostly nerves and feeling soooo out of place. We sometimes had a teacher we had never met before (too many students so the class divides up) and that was nervewracking. I enjoyed my patients, but never really knew what my place was, especially as an LPN. I never really understood the line between being the "real" nurse?, how much to do myself or let the staff nurse do/direct/teach, etc... Most times I felt totally left on my own, the staff nurse would take the opportunity to focus on other patients or whatever.... My teacher would have a line of students waiting to ask questions so didn't have much time for me.... the skills I was supposed to get checked off on would never happen when the teacher was available (me to staff nurse "uhh, I need to and want to do that dressing change but my teacher needs to watch me so can you wait for me????" Big frustrated sigh from staff nurse....) It felt like how you feel on the first day of a new job every day of the clinical. Plus a really ugly, stiff, starched uniform that I would never wear in real life and that made me look really fat!!!! haha

Now I'm starting the whole process over again as an RN transition student and am dreading clinicals all over again. I'm hoping they'll be better as an RN student...

And yes, I LOVE nursing in real life, it was just the clinicals.

Finallyat40 · Feb 17, 2005

I can tell you that I hated my clinicals....not because I hated the work, but because it was not the population that I planned to work with. All of my clinical experiences (with the exception of one very short 4 week rotation) was with adult and I've always known that I wanted to work in the NICU.

Now that I've graduated and passed my boards, I'm currently working in a Residency program in the NICU at a hospital that either ranks #1 or #2 in the nation in terms of number of deliveries, therefore, the NICU is a very busy,high acuity one. I love what I'm doing....it's so very different from my clinicals (thank God!), even though I'm still in a learning mode.

Do a little soul searching and see if maybe the feelings you're having are based more on boredom with the type of work you're doing, or the possibility that you're really cut out for a different population.

Jamie