Care plans- student nursing

Peeps Mcarthur · Oct 13, 2002

Although I appreciate your positive attitudes,I have to call Bu**sh** on the use of the phrase "critical thinking skills".

It's too easy to fall to that when we can't see the true meaning of something such as the need for anything above the most basic algebra for instance.

I'm sorry to say it,but nursing school is obsessed with teaching us how to micromanage psychological

tendencies and goes about it in a most complicated fashion.

I'm sure it was very progressive in Ms Nightengale's era,but these times we live in call for patient turnover to be a little more focused on medical problems than with the supposed movement towards goals that patients will forget the moment they step back into reality.

It's very simple................practicing nurses don't really diagnose anything,or have the time to ponder such things. When the patient seems in distress you find out why by looking or asking,and if the answer is not forthcoming you get them a different colored pill and move on to the next 89 tasks on your list.

I'm glad for anybody that finds what they are doing rewarding,and I don't mean to try to discourage you from striving to obtain a greater understanding of patient care,but I am saying that this method is dysfunctional to any real application...............I wish it wasn't so..........but it is.

Nursing is just not this deep. We should be concentrating on what we will be doing,not what some of us wish we will be doing.

Wyldeflower · Oct 13, 2002

Yes, I do see what you are saying about the critical thinking...I guess what I mean, is that it helps me to understand more about what's going on with the client...that what I can do for them while they are in my care makes a difference in their health. Some students in our class are already EMTs, LPNs, CNAs and such, but most of the class, like myself are brand new to all of this, and don't have the benefit of previous experience. I see your point, just wanted to clarify that for me, careplans have taught me more about body processess than my textbook or lectures because the book and lectures only cause me to memorize and regurgitate...careplans make me understand the why's and apply my thinking better. I was going to add a bit about the "real" world where we won't have time to worry about such detailed care plans, but my post was already long.

Peeps Mcarthur · Oct 13, 2002

Well,

I do come from a background of some healthcare experience. I see the need for you to explore cause and effect without that prior experience base,but remember that care planning began implementation over 30 years ago! Abilities that were once of value to patients laid up in a hospital for months at a time are now considered unworkable due to incredible pt turnover.

You will simply point and click a stock care plan out of a database and never see it again. Your counterparts in report will probably never ask about anything you are learning. You may indeed help someone sometime with some sort of psychosocial bit of trivia,but when it's time to report all they will want to know is if you got all the work done:chuckle

I just think it's dangerouse to develope someone's clinical philosophy around anything other than time management ,drug calculation,and med errors.

All this psychology gives me a headache:o I just want to go drop nursing altogether. My experience is just the opposite from yours. I feel useless to provide the care that my patients need and find it excruciating to be studying a dynamic,undefined,and vague(to me) theory.

If I had known all this before I invested all the time and money,I never would have enrolled. Maybe some of this is frustration from having a concept of what a nurse is from the viewpoint of having worked with them,and thinking that there would be more of a medical basis for our training.

I do not want to become a social worker with a stethescope. I guess I was just disallusioned.

dianacs · Oct 13, 2002

I do not want to become a social worker with a stethescope. I guess I was just disallusioned.

I see where you're coming from. Right now we're talking about all that therapeutic communication stuff, and I'm thinking, "if I wanted to be a counselor, that's what I would have done instead of nursing". Sometimes it all gets a little too touchy-feely for me. But I guess you never know what might come in handy down the road. Or so I tell myself.

Alice McDonald · Jun 15, 2003

I am currently a student in the LPN program at Platt College in Lawton, Oklahoma. I am having problems with writing my care plans. I would appreciate any input from you that would help me get better.

Peeps Mcarthur · Jun 15, 2003

I wanted to chime in real briefly here,

As you can see from my above posts I am the last person on earth you would want careplan advice from. I actually just made stuff up at the end of my last rotation with a mixture of catchphrases from my care plan book................I got an "A":chuckle

I have since quit nursing and am working towatds a bachelors of science in physician assistant.

I want you to notice the date on the last posting so you don't feel bad when you get very little response. This thread has been bagged and tagged for awhile.

Might try making a new thread, but the topic has been discussed before. Try a search on the board for "care plan".

Bevi · Jun 15, 2003

oh my....... i'm getting nervous reading all this care plan stuff.......

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jun 15, 2003

Oh the memory of all those careplans, and how we had to repeat all the former things we learned, and then added them to the new info. By the time I graduated, I truly felt my brain had been traumatized! Although, being an EMT and a CPR-Basic First Aid instructor, as well as assisting in skills training helped a lot. I already had a lot of knowledge of the body systems and medical terms for positioning, and assessing the patient.

When I think back on it, when we responded to an ambulance call, we were already performing critical thinking and careplanning just by the type of call we had. For instance, if the call was for an MVA, we automatically began to critically think about what equipment we would need. We knew that supplies for an MVA would possibly take the stretcher, the backboard, first aid kit, portable suction unit, o2 tank, BP kit, and cervical collar.

If it was for a possible AMI or CVA. we would take the BP kit, the defibrillator, the o2, & the stretcher.

The State Health Dept exam, although it was a written one, they were the same type as those used in nursing school, but it paid off because I did well in school. The thing I didn't like at all, was when the school's DON would patronize me. She would attempt to tell me what to expect when I took the practice exams when I had already had lots of experience with them. UGH!

The thing I didn't care for concerning the EMT exam was that you were sent a ticket telling you where and when your exam would be given, and then when you arrived at the testing site, you had to sign in. There was no way to cheat, but I'm happy there wasn't. Cheaters don't learn what they really need to.

shyne · Jun 16, 2003

Has anyone ever used any careplan guide books? If so what are some that you would recommend for students?

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jun 16, 2003

I used

Nursing Care Plans

_________________________________

Guidlines for Planning

and Documenting

Patient Care

by Marilyn E. Doenges

Mary Frances Moorhouse

Alice C. Geissler

This was a required textbook for the class of 1997.

I hope this will be of some help to you. No guarantee though.:)

kat57 · Jun 29, 2003

Hi !

What is a care plan ?! have an idea and I see this all over the BB. Not a student yet but will be entering LPN classes Jan. 04.

Thanks for the details ! This board is addicting.

Kat

Vsummer1 · Jun 30, 2003

To the best of my knowledge, LPN's do not do care plans, RN's do.