Today was the 6th clinical day of my med-surg II rotation (2nd year of a 3rd year program) and I'm starting to think that maybe i'm not good enough to be a nurse?? I really love learning about pathophysiology and I'm really good in theory, I even had the best grade of my class on the last exam. When it comes to clinicals it's a little bit different. I am not the best of course, but the comments I get are always good.
But today was just rough and I can't see myself being a good nurse in the future.
Today was our first day with a new clinical instructor (she is soo nice and calm but I found her very intimidating) so 4 students of our group of 6 (including me) only had one patient. Mine was admitted for hematuria (with a foley at home) and he also had chronic renal failure. Since it was our first day on this unit (with really heavy cases), we started at 10 instead of 8. The thing was that my patient was leaving for hemodialysis at 13h30, so I had to do everything I had to do before 12h30 (the time we're taking lunch break)
During those 2 hours I probably looked so dumb and incompetent.. At 10 I had to go change 2 dressings on the feet of my patient because he had two seriously infected wounds (probably caused by his diabetes). Anyway, I only bring 1 IV cath to plug on the syringes, but I needed to have 2. Also, I should have brought an extra pair of pliers to manipulate the sterile material with, so my instructor had to go get one. Okay, I forgot material it's one mistake, not so bad. The thing that is bothering the most is that one of the two wounds was on a heel and after cleaning it and applying silvadene, I tried to apply the dressing (which was like a sticker if I can say) and it wasn't adhering to the skin very well. So it ended up very ugly with a lot of little folds, and I even had to put some adhesive tape so it could stay in place It was basically the ugliest dressing I had ever seen.
After that, I started to make a lot of little mistakes : washing hand of the patient with soap and water instead of using an alcohol swab before a blood sugar??? (we've been teached both), in my meds, I forgot to check that I applied " dermabase " cream in my meds, I didn't wrote the right amount of Humalog units that I gave in my charting (I wrote the dose who depended on the blood sugar result, I didn't add the regular dose), I almost forgot to write about neurovascular signs in my dressing note, etc...
I thought I was A LOT more disorganized and slow today with one patient than 3 weeks ago with two. I always had more difficulties to be good with performing skills and I think i'm scared I'll never be good at IV's, blood samples, dressings, etc. Also, I
was always told my communication with my patients was my strenght but today I didn't felt it was so good, due to my stress. How am I supposed to be a good nurse someday if i'm running like everywhere like a headless chicken with only one??
I know this is probably a longer post than it should, but thanks to those who took the time to read :)
that did sound like a bad clinical day. But you are forgetting that this is the best time to make those silly mistakes because after all you're still a student! I'm currently half way done with my accelerated program and finished up with med surg (thank goodness!) and we never got to do THAT much in one day. So my point is although it was a bad day, the next time you have a patient with a similar scenerio you'll be an expert at changing the wounds and remembering all your materials!
Best of luck, nursing isn't easy. Keep your head up high and just keep moving forward.
Oh, my goodness! I remember those days as a student, and I've had more of them as a nurse, and even as the nursing instructor! Sometimes we are just off. What tells me you are going to be a great nurse is that you recognized all of those little mistakes; you didn't blame anyone else for them; and you CARE so much that you made them. Hang in there and keep moving forward. I'll bet you're going to have a great clinical day next week!
Wow! I didn't expect to get so many responses! Reading those really nice comments and good advices made me feel a lot better, so thank you all! I think I am blessed to have this particular clinical instructor because she's giving patients that gives us the chance to work on our weaknesses. I also completed a self-evaluation and I'll see monday what my clinical instructor thought... Next week I'll be better!
Don't let one bad experience put a damper on your goal to be a nurse. You're still learning hun...and just take this bad experience and learn from the small mistakes you've made. You'll get the strength along with time. If this is of any help, I was terrified of being a med surg nurse; I was afraid of being incompetent and never doing anything right. But let me tell you; I've been a medsurg nurse for 3.5 years already and I've had the time of my life. Skills come second nature to me like riding a bike. I understand your frustrations; but please please don't let that discourage you sweetie. You'll get it!!!
1) If you never felt like you weren't good enough at LEAST once, you're in the small minority of student nurses and new nurses.
2) If you think that dressings and things like that get done and look "perfect" all the time or without much practice, you're hugely mistaken. Sometimes you have to McGyver things like glass IV bottles just so they do the job you need them to (and it doesn't look pretty). That's the nature of the beast.
I had the opposite problem. I really had to work for good theory grades, but did well in clinicals. Everybody has their strong areas and that's what's great about nursing. You can usually find a specialty that suits you and your methods, which isn't always possible in other lines of work, while staying in the same field.
I've been a nurse for about 9 years now (switching to ICU after my first year-and-a-half) and I still am always finding out better ways to do things nearly every shift. Just the other night another nurse taught me to make an NG tube holder with a single Band-Aid as opposed to the actual holders (which this hospital never stocks)! There are, and will always be, shifts where you can't get everything done when you're supposed to. If it happens every shift, that could be a problem, but if you've never had a shift where you haven't been able to do everything or had to pass it on to day shift (or night shift...whatever shift is your opposite) you're pretty alone. haha
You don't want to be lax, however, and you always want to be making forward progress, no matter how small the steps, but you're so early in your career! Don't beat yourself up over something you've barely started or that will capsize your "nursing" ship :)
It was basically the ugliest dressing I had ever seen.
at27
32 Posts
that did sound like a bad clinical day. But you are forgetting that this is the best time to make those silly mistakes because after all you're still a student! I'm currently half way done with my accelerated program and finished up with med surg (thank goodness!) and we never got to do THAT much in one day. So my point is although it was a bad day, the next time you have a patient with a similar scenerio you'll be an expert at changing the wounds and remembering all your materials!
Best of luck, nursing isn't easy. Keep your head up high and just keep moving forward.