Anyone else hate their clinicals?

Indy, LPN, LVN · Feb 19, 2005

It's a learned skill, finding ways to "stay busy" while not going beyond your scope of practice (which is constantly changing and growing, and some clinical instructors will have different sets of boundaries for ya), and still getting in a good learning experience.

I know my first quarter was plain awful. Nothing but bed baths, enemas, and it took me forEVER to chart because I was still learning how to assess, and how to remember what I had seen. Not only that, the unit I was on had tiny nurse's stations with no sink, tinier staff lounge, and a lot of people that really did need the chairs. I hope to never feel that much underfoot again. In fact, I know of two hospitals out of town that I'll apply to for a job before I apply to that one, five minutes from my house.

One suggestion is to look for the friendliest nurse on the unit IF your patient load got light, got discharged, or whatnot and ask if you can shadow him/her. If they look friendly to you, they may just be eager to show a student how they do things. And if you get to work in different facilities during your clinicals, you may see a big difference in how you enjoy them.

sme_nurse · Feb 19, 2005

Since I just graduated two months ago, I remember clinicals and I can admit that I hated them. I was much happier on the days that I could just sit in class. But for me I think clinicals bothered me because you were never in the same place for long. By the time you figure it out and begin to recognize the friendly faces and know where everything is, you are thrown into someplace new. And knowing someone was watching and grading. Yuck!! I too tried not to go to sleep because I knew what morning brought.

But here I am working in the ICU and I love it. I know where stuff is, how to move the beds, some employees aren't mean because they know you are a student... Everything is much better.

But it is different for everyone. Gotta find the place in nursing that you like. And you don't have to find it right away. That is one of the best parts of nursing!!

Good Luck

BadBird, BSN, RN · Feb 19, 2005

I hated my Psych clinical, I took it in the summer session and it was only 6 weeks of hell. That was more than 10 yrs. ago but I remember it like yesterday. Believe me, clinicals are nothing like the real world. Hang in there.

stressedtwin · Feb 19, 2005

I really enjoy my clinical time. I am in OB right now and I love it!! I am not to fond of Med Surg but I learn a lot better during clinical time than I do in the classroom. It helps me when I go to take a test if I have been out on the floor and seen some of the things we cover in class.

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.

weesyanne · Feb 19, 2005

I have almost always hated clinicals or some portion of them. As others have said, when you are in a unit you know you would never want to work on it sucks.....When there were limited skills when you were there and lots of students wanting to do these skills. (one foley insertion-8 students. 7 lose out). when the staff nurses are hateful (really, i've not seen that too often) or worst of all, the instructor is horrible, the care plans suck and are focused on more than what you are actually doing, not being able to do anything unsupervised (not so true anymore this late in the game, though, that was more of an issue early), having clinicals be unrealistic, doing so much CNA work there isn't enough time for all the RN work, and so on.
I have learned a lot from my clinicals-not only nursing skills, but also lots of communication issues, dealing with difficult patients, pt education, prioritization, meds, etc etc etc. But the role of a student really stinks sometimes!

I graduated almost 20 years ago, and there were many days that I hated clinicals. The nurses on some floors were so darn hateful that I went home and cried about it sometimes. :crying2: One unit secretary would never let me have my charts when I needed them. She would deliberately pile other charts on top of them and then glare at me and snap if I dared try to retrieve the ones I needed to see! I made a vow never to be like that and I don't think I have ever been that way to students or new nurses.

The careplans were an absolute nightmare to complete! I would frequently be up until 2-3AM working on them. The least bit of criticism would cause me to cry sometimes. I don't miss those days at all, honestly.

landonsles · Apr 1, 2005

I am having a blast in the specialty areas, loved L&D and ER! I am not really liking the med-surg part of my clinicals this semester, though. (I think it's the staff that I am not liking.)

The nurses on some floors were so darn hateful that I went home and cried about it sometimes. .

I had one of those days today. Got yelled at in front of no less than 10 other people (nurses, doctors and even pt family members) by a nursing supervisor just b/c she was in a bad mood. She saw me talking to a fellow student and thought we were having "too much fun". Too bad she didn't take the time to find out what we were talking about--patient care and hospital policy related stuff. Don't even get me started on how unprofessional and down-right rude she was. Makes me not even want to go back tomorrow. Oh well--at least I only have three more weeks!!

KacyLynnRN · Apr 1, 2005

I HATE clinicals and always did, but I LOVE my Med/Surg job. The clinicals I am in now are especially horrible. I don't know if it's because I am already an LPN and am bored out of my mind with only one patient, or what, but I hate them too. They are a complete waste of my time, and believe me about everything I've learned in nursing I've learned at work from experience and older and wiser co-workers. So I wouldn't worry. You will probably enjoy nursing.

rach_nc_03 · Apr 3, 2005

moonbunnie,

last year, before i started nursing school, i took an emt course to see how i liked hands-on care. my first night at clinical (we did each clinical alone, assigned to either a paramedic or er nurse), we had a man come in after a horse vs. car- his skull was cracked and he had grey matter coming out. i was *enthralled* and KNEW i would love nursing. well, clinicals started my first semester of nursing school, and we were on an oncology floor...talk about trial by fire for green students! my first patient was a liver cancer pt. in alcohol withdrawal...second was stage IV breast cancer with mets to the hips and spine- she had to have a 17 mg morphine drip PLUS a bolus anytime she was touched. and *i* was supposed to give this woman a bed bath! i went home and cried for hours, and i'm *not* the emotional type- or at least i wasn't before nursing school. i was certain this had been a stupid idea, and i needed to go back to my old career posthaste.

well, i got through that semester because i knew there'd be something different coming up. and actually, i got an excellent clinical review that semester (and every semester since)...because i found ways to find new stuff to learn during (almost) every shift. when all we did was cna stuff, i would get my am care done as quickly as possible, finish my assessment, and chart it- then i'd go find my instructor and ask if there was anything interesting happening on the unit that i could observe. over the course of time, i got to know some of the friendlier nurses, and i'd make a point to say hi whenever i was there, and ask them to let me know if something interesting might be happening. i also wasn't afraid to ask the md's rounding if i could come in while they rounded on a patient, or talked to them (with the patient's permission, of course). i'm telling you, i learned a TREMENDOUS amount from listening to the other healthcare team members- MD, PT, RT, OT...even the chaplains.

i hate to sound pollyanna about it, but sometimes you have to work pretty hard just to find a learning opportunity. i have classmates who took their sweet time doing bedbaths that semester, and guess what? here we are, 20 days before graduating, and they're pretty incompetent. they also haven't done well in the classroom and labs, probably because they don't have an integrated knowledge, nor have they seen many things first-hand.

also, have faith- med-surg isn't for everyone. i figured that out sometime in 2nd semester, and just hoped i'd love OB, as i figured i'd either get my masters as a CNM, or end up in the ER. Much to my surprise, during my peds rotation- and my 2 weeks in the NICU- i absolutely fell in love with that population. i arranged a shadow on the PICU in the hospital where i work as a cna, and i felt like i'd died and gone to heaven- i didn't want to go home! i accepted a position there that starts this summer, and it was hard to face going back to clinicals when i knew where i wanted to work, and that the rest of the semester wouldn't teach me much i'd need in my RN job. now i'm in advanced med-surg, and it's an ortho floor- like another poster said, i don't want to see another THR or TKR for the rest of my LIFE. it's boring me to tears. but i try to get the sickest patients, if i can, and i always volunteer to help the other students when they get bogged down. when we're all bored to tears (we often get to the point where the patients ask us to stop coming in, there's so little to do), i bring nclex review books and we have study sessions in the dayroom.

think of it this way. not only are you NOT getting paid to be there, you're PAYING for the privilege of spending time at that clinical site. if you spent $250 on a textbook, then opened it at home and discovered it was filled with nothing but blank pages, you'd be pretty angry. that's how i look at it- i paid my money, so i'm going to get something out of those hours, even if i have to search it out.

hope that helps- and remember, you'll have a lot more rotations, so don't worry too much if med-surg isn't your thing. there's a whole world of opportunities out there for you to explore!

RN4NICU, LPN, LVN · Apr 27, 2005

I thought clinicals were absolutely horrible (with the exception of about 4 days). I hated med/surg. Still do. Always will. I hated psych, OB, and community health too. I really didn't like peds either, but it was tolerable. ER was okay (it wasn't trauma - it was just plain old ER), as was ICU. I loved the OR and the NICU. I got one day in each (ER, OR, ICU and NICU) over the entire 2 miserable years of clinicals. I didn't let it get me down, though, because I knew that what I actually wanted to do as a nurse was COMPLETELY different from what I was doing in school. Most of my classmates and all of my instructors thought that I must have some sort of brain damage to want to work with sick/premature babies. That's the way I felt about med/surg. It wouldn't work out too well if everyone wanted/liked the same thing. There wouldn't be anyone to do the other things.

mysticalwaters1 · Apr 27, 2005

I HATED clinicals. The sleepless nights beforehand. Constantly feeling like you are under a microscope, the hours upon hours of research and paperwork, that you will never see again once you graduate. The fear of making a mistake.
Believe me it is all worth it. Once you graduate it is a whole new world. You will feel lost for a while, then suddenly that first year is behind you and you realize just how much you learn that first year. Nursing school is incredibly stressful, incredibly hard. Nursing is more stressful and harder...but at the same time much better. I love being a nurse and have no regrets whatsoever. Just keep smiling and keep your chin up, it doesn't last forever, it just seems like it does.

I agree I absolutely HATED clinical for the exact reasons mentioned above. i kept thinking is it the profession but I hate not being detailed at work so being absolutely brand new to the health profession I was terrified of making a mistake in front of the professors or not knowledgeble enough to answer their questions since they quiz you. I look back now and my professors were great it's just the pressure I felt to do well and suceed and just learning all complex info for dealling with pts that really really got to me. I can tell you once I started my internship and then geting into a position at a hospital i started to enjoy it way better. The funny thing is my preceptor who was an excellent nurse said she hated clinical as well also for all the things mentioned here. So make sure it's not fear of not knowing and just not liking the profession. And if you are fearful just keep doing your work and get through it and with more experience it gets way better, still very hard, but more enjoyable when you start getting to be on your own and understand things better.

rogramjet · Apr 28, 2005

I thought clinicals were absolutely horrible (with the exception of about 4 days). I hated med/surg. Still do. Always will. I hated psych, OB, and community health too. I really didn't like peds either, but it was tolerable. ER was okay (it wasn't trauma - it was just plain old ER), as was ICU. I loved the OR and the NICU. I got one day in each (ER, OR, ICU and NICU) over the entire 2 miserable years of clinicals. I didn't let it get me down, though, because I knew that what I actually wanted to do as a nurse was COMPLETELY different from what I was doing in school. Most of my classmates and all of my instructors thought that I must have some sort of brain damage to want to work with sick/premature babies. That's the way I felt about med/surg. It wouldn't work out too well if everyone wanted/liked the same thing. There wouldn't be anyone to do the other things.

That is the wonderful thing about nursing. There are so many opportunities out there. I knew before I even applied for nursing school that I wanted to be a diabetes educator. Being a diabetic myself I can relate to the patients. It took me two years of med/surg nightshift, but I got my dream job and love every minute of it. My friends think I'm nuts and can't understand why I want the job I do. Hey, it's not for everyone but it is the job for me.