I need to get this off my chest. It is just a rant. I know how important and how relevant everything is in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes I wonder why?! Thank you. Anyone else feel the same?
I understand the importance and purpose of those clinical preps. We arrive the day before to gather information on our patient's, but we can't be there before 5 PM since assignments are not posted before then. Spend at least 2 hours copying the information so that I can rush home and enter it all in to the prep worksheet. Since we must individualize the reason for every individual lab result (i.e. every single result that appears under the umbrella of CBC, urinalysis, LFTs, etc.), diagnostic test, and medication or risk upsetting the professor if we skip some of the results (oh and if the patient has multiple comorbidities, which may apply for the reasoning, we have to select only 1 or be told that we don't know what we are doing and are guessing at the reason for this test). If we don't finish because at 2 AM you decided that it was better to get 3 hours of sleep and be safe for your patient the next morning, the professor lets you know that what you have done is not good enough, you should have finished no matter what. SERIOUSLY?!
Whatever happened to patient safety, if you are too tired to pay attention in clinical, aren't you a danger to everyone?
What about the times when you spend a lot of time looking up procedures so that you don't make a fool out of yourself. All that practicing, learning, watching instructors demonstrate the skills in lab during your first semesters? Then one day you are finally able to perform the procedure and you know those steps like you know the inside of your eyelids. You are doing it exactly as you were told since "The current research supports this being done this way for XYZ reasons."
Then the nurse and your instructor are both horrified at how you are doing the procedure and you are told to review the steps in the book. Did I really do it wrong? (I looked it up again and I followed the steps to the letter. To make sure my book wasn't mistake, a quick online search and a very recent youtube video modeling the steps confirmed that I did know what I was doing. The professor and nurse seem to be out of practice with this one procedure.) Out of annoyance and anger, I e-mailed a copy of the page clearly outlining the steps to the professor and have yet to hear back...next clinical will be interesting since I am now going to be stuck sitting with the professor going over the prep and asked question after question after question. Should I fail to be able to answer one of those questions or have one of my own, I will be asked to look it up.
Sorry about this, but I really need to express this.
THANKS FOR TELLING ME THAT IT IS OK TO ASK QUESTIONS WHEN YOU RESPOND TO MY QUESTION WITH ANOTHER QUESTION OR TELL ME TO LOOK IT UP SINCE YOUR TELLING ME THE ANSWER WILL NOT DO ME ANY GOOD. Also thanks so much for telling me that I pay your salary as a clinical professor and it is your job to answer my questions and assist me when necessary when you are hardly ever to be found and have a way of deflecting questions. In case you haven't noticed, the nurse you are very good friends with, and you continually pair me up with doesn't want students and told me the first week that I shouldn't bother her and to stop asking her questions. When I tell you this, and that she is one octave short of shouting at me for taking too long for taking meds out of this monstrous alien looking machine (i.e. one that I have never had the opportunity of using and am NOT accustomed to using) because I do not want to make a mistake and am not familiar with 'tower meds', why do you fail to believe me and act shocked and respond with, "That doesn't sound like her at all." I love being stuck between walls, rocks, and hard places, really I do.
Back to the clinical preps. At some point, I feel like they are busy work. It really has nothing to do with getting to know our patients, knowing what to expect how to prepare. I think that there has to be a better way. I understand that we are supposed to be getting used to looking at this information and knowing exactly what it is for and how to respond to abnormal values. I know that we need more practice with care plans and assessments. But there seriously has to be a better way because getting no sleep trying to finish it to your high standards is not working. I have to read and learn everything I need to know about these labs on my own; with time and repetition I know I will eventually remember them. We are not given any formal lessons on this in classes, this is a self-study deal and seeing certain labs for the first time hours before I am supposed meet this client is not a good way for me to learn about it, especially since most people (myself included) need sleep in order to process and remember large amounts of information, especially new information.
I really needed to say this out loud somehow. I know that this is supposed to be a learning curve and that is why we are students, and how hard it is for nurses to be burdened with a student when they already have a heavy load, and that clinical professors are supposed to be there for us. But it makes me feel better expressing this.