Care Plans - What's their purpose? - What do you think of them?

[jjjoy]

I saw a nursing student and her instructor reviewing a care plan today and she was reviewing something about wording of the care plan and it reminded how frustrating nursing education can be and how mixed up it can seem to be sometimes!!!

At my school, anyway, a care plan for something as post-anesthesia nausea would be grilled for the wording of the nursing diagnoses, the specific wording of the nursing interventions and goals.... to make sure that we were using impractical "nurse speak" as opposed to - oh no! - referring to a medical condition directly (eg pt constipated, possibly d/t medication side effect, keep hydrated, adm laxative as ordered, etc). Students should ideally be able to rattle off quickly the what's and why's. I think the nitpicky round-about descriptions required in nursing school make simple concepts more confusing... and end up wasting the valuable time of students.

[Milla9436]

I recently completed my first semester in nursing school and I can honestly say that I really did not understand the total reason and the process of completing a careplan. I want to thank you for taking the time to answer this burning question for me. Thanks again!!!

[vtrice1988]

Im having more of a difficult time coming up with nursing diagnoses. I understand the concept and everything. My instructor even showed me this bubble exercise, but I still dont understand how to do them. Call me stupid, I know I am.LOl

[s2udeus]

At the beginning of my nursing education, I too had a difficult time configuring nursing diagnoses.

[nhensleyLPN]

Students from graduate on down to jr high have bemoaned the question, "Why do we have to learn it THIS way"? One conjecture I might add is maybe to teach us how to follow orders? Another might be that the NCLEX will present it the "book" way and the instructors want us to pass boards?

I absolutely HATED care plans; I could never get it just right. My assignments were always handed back to me with red pen liberally etched all over them!! Did I finally learn the basic ADPIE concept? Yes.

[nhensleyLPN]

If any of you remember "The Nursing Journal of Jocularity" (my issues are buried in a box somewhere), there is a great cartoon that shows the nurses student going to the bedside of a now deceased patient and moaning, "How dare he die! I just spent 10 hrs on his care plan!!":lol2:

[nhensleyLPN]

Oh, and the APA stuff. Yeah, if you are going to graduate with a college degree, you need to know how to write on a professional level. That is why the APA is a big thing. EVERY profession with at least a bachelor's degree has to learn to write on a professional level, even if you will never use it. Comes with the territory of getting a college diploma.

I have seen some really atrocious penmanship, spelling and grammer from nurses. Even we LPN's with (at least)one year of nursing school should be able to write comprehensively!! We still walked across that stage and received our diplomas!?

[erevis]

They are evil and I cant wait to burn my nursing diagnosis book! :)

[Laurenslovely]

I HATE them!!! On top of not being able to use medical diagnoses each instructor teaches us different ways of writing them and each is nitpicky in their own way about them. I just began my FIRST yet, but I dont think the critical thinking involved is worth the time it takes to write them. I could be HANDS ON LEARNING instead!

[Laurenslovely]

I have seen some really atrocious penmanship, spelling and grammer from nurses. Even we LPN's with (at least)one year of nursing school should be able to write comprehensively!! We still walked across that stage and received our diplomas!?

I'm in a BSN program and I wonder how some students with their spelling errors managed to complete the application to nursing school. Grammar may not be that important in nursing, as long as you don't mix up teminology, but I wonder in the future will they ever make a medication error?? I think there does have to be higher standards somewhere.

[studentinnursing]

I think there do have to be higher standards. I'm kidding, just proof for a living and came across it and I thought it was ironic. I make mistakes all the time, but if these students actually have read what they wrote, they'd catch the mistakes I think. I always put on here, sorry for typos, not proofing cuz I'm not working LOL.