how are you asked about medications during clinicals?

tookewlandy · Jul 4, 2007

I go to a community college, and for my school, it gets super stressful trying to plan for care the night before clinicals because our instructors GRILL us about our medications.
we have to know generic/brand name, classification, category, side effects, action, and by acton i don't mean something like "for hypertension" we are required to know, for instance, that lasix inhibits the reabsoption of Na and Cla in the loop of henle and distal tubules.. stuff like that.
How are you guys asked about medications during clinicals? I'm just curious if it's the same for other schools

We have to know Name(both) Class, Action(down to cellular level), Side effects, Nurisng measures( bp before, monitor electrolytes etc) and the most important Why the patientis getting the med, If we don't know this we get sent home...It seemed so overwhleming the first semester of school but now going into the 4th( hopefully if i get through this monster summer med surge) it doesnt seem bad at all.

Survivorsue · Jul 4, 2007

I also attend a community college, and in clinicals we need to know the medication names, brand, generic, classification, why the patient is taking the med, what we need to know before we give it, like the pt's BP, pulse, wbc, rbc, platelets, K level, BUN, Creatinine, etc., side effects, and the action. If we don't know something we are required to look it up and report it in post conference.

StudentNurseAbby · Jul 4, 2007

We are required to make med cards with all of that information. We get our assignments the night before the first clinical day. We go to the hospital that day and get the list. Most of mine were 15-20 meds just for the morning. We only had to get 9am and noon meds, usually. So, I had to make that many med cards. That was the worst part of the whole year. After awhile you start building up a good pile and you have a lot of them already.

During the actual time when I was passing meds, depending on the instructor, they would ask random questions about the med itself or the technique to pass the meds. It is scary but you catch on.

MikeyJ, RN · Jul 4, 2007

I think most schools are pretty stict when it comes to knowing the med you are giving inside and out.. and they should be! Medication errors account for over 10,000 senseless deaths a year, and because the nurse is the last line of defence for med errors, nurses should know not only nursing implications, side effects, precautions, and why we are giving the med. But nurses should know the general idea of how that med will interact with the body to perform its intended action.

tingutz · Jul 5, 2007

haha, alright then, so it is pretty much the same, everywhere, all around. I was just curious. thanks guys

labman · Jul 5, 2007

haha, alright then, so it is pretty much the same, everywhere, all around. I was just curious. thanks guys

You got it right

Ours was regular and generic name

its general action-cellular level

common side effects

what as a nurse would you look out for

Why this patient is recieving this medication

At first we got to look up these drugs an hour before hand at our first clinical our second clinical we had no prep time and had to look up these medications for two clients so get good at doing medications.