Careplans in Nursing School?

[NurseWannabe1129]

I ended up chatting with a woman at my job who is a nurse. We spoke a little bit about the aspects of nursing and what she thinks is different between nursing now and then, etc. etc.

One thing she did say was that she has no idea why nursing schools are making students do care plans anymore. Says that everything is all computerized so you don't even need to write your own care plans anymore. Does anyone agree with this or do you think care plans are still a necessary part of becoming a nurse?

[lemonaidangel]

I think care plans are a pain. And while I secretly wish I could torture the person who came up with the idea of them, I do my paperwork without complaint. I think they do help us practice nursing process, starting with assessment down to evaluation. We may not have to deal with them in real life nursing, but perhaps one day, on the job a few years from now, we'll remember some of our nursing interventions that we had to write, and we might save a life...or at least make our patient a little more comfortable.

[LMRN10]

I didn't think Care Plans were all that bad personally. Yes, it takes time, but once you get the hang of it, I didn't think they were as bad as most seem to think. But I will say, but the end of the semester when she said we didn't have to do them anymore, I wasn't upset about that...:chuckle

I believe the main reason we still do them is to help us understand Nursing Diagnosis and having the ability to come up with interventions for our patients. Sometimes things being computerized doesn't always mean it's cut and dry, so I think it would still be important to know how to come up with all of that on our own rather than relying on a computer...this is the only way we are really going to understand the different steps we need to take in the Nursing Process...JMO

Lori

[donsterRN, ASN, BSN]

Ditto that.

The process of writing careplans helps to teach students about the nursing process, the pathology of illness, and appropriate nursing interventions for patient problems. Admittedly, you won't be writing 15-20 page plans for each of your patients you'll encounter as an RN, but you'll be able to recall what to do when you get them.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

here's my thoughts on this. . .this is a case of someone who, after years of being a nurse, still doesn't know what the theory behind a nursing care plan is. that, i think, is very sad. this, i think, is someone who doesn't give much thought to why she does the things she does as a nurse. she just does them. on the other hand, i was, and always am, asking "why am i doing this?" it sometimes took me years to find the answers to some of these questions. that, i think, is the scientific aspect of the nursing profession.

you can tell this lady that the reason care plans are still required to be done in nursing school is because if they are done correctly it assists the students to learn the pathophysiology, signs/symptoms, usual tests ordered, and medical treatment for the medical disease or condition that a patient has, helps the student to learn what is most important in assessing the patient and helps the student to learn about nursing procedures and interventions and why they are doing them. care plan writing assists you in learning to think logically. maybe that nurse forgot what her very early years in the profession were like.

in the hospital and on the job, nursing care plans are the written documentation of our problem solving process. they are mandated by medicare to be included in each patient's chart. she's very fortunate that your facility thinks enough of the rns time to have invested in a computerized program that saves her the time of handwriting out care plans. these computerized, canned plans are a documentation tool is all. her understanding of what a care plan is stinks.

[danh3190]

I thought care plans were useful for the first rotation or two to drum the idea of nursing diagnosis into my head. After that I'd gotten the hang of it so could knock them out pretty fast and they were just a minor annoyance. In our school we also had a lot of backup paperwork such as a pathophysiology summary and summary of lab values and meds, which I found very useful all throughout school.

I got the impression a lot of our instructors weren't too crazy about the care plans as later in the semester they switched to "verbal care plans" or concept maps.

[bluerthnu]

I personally hate doing careplans, BUT I definitely feel they were a useful tool in school. Anytime I felt like I didn't know what to do, I could refer to my careplan and form a plan. Sometimes the whole idea of what to do seems overwhelming until you sit down and break down a person with a certain medical dx into a list of nursing dxs that you can work with. I'm glad we did SO MANY careplan in LPN school and am kind of looking forward to doing new ones in RN school now. Weird!