Clinical Uncertainty

[Stephalump]

I felt really out of place during clinicals last semester. We took one patient as our "own," but because our skill set is limited I tended to spend time with other patients doing what was needed there as well.

As I'm sure everyone else has experienced, I had a mixed bag of nurses to work with - one flat out ignored me the entire time (except to give me a speech on how awesome she was compared to other nurses. Kind of bizarre) and one that yelled at me multiple times for things I had no involvement with. One that really went out of his way to teach me little things he knew might be overlooked by other nurses and found me new and cool things to do, and one that really dedicated herself to showing me the ins and outs of it all. I definitely learned from all of them (good and bad) and I'm looking forward to going back, minus they early wake-up call. :)

I start back up in a week and this time we're taking two patients. I'm happy because I'll have more responsibility (I know we're supposed to be grateful for them, but slow days with only one patient were killer) but I feel like I still have no clue what I'm doing. I can do a bunch of separate stuff (skills, assessment, communication) but I have no idea how to actually put them together to actually be a nurse. I love my clinical instructor, but I really don't see her often and I'm never quite sure what questions I should be asking when I so.

So I show up at the hospital, pick a patient, get report, do my head to toe/safety, look up whatever diagnoses they have, look for any scheduled stuff and then.....? What is my day supposed to look like? After that point I'm pretty much just doing whatever the nurse asks me to do because I feel out of the loop.

I feel like I'm missing something, but I'm not sure if it's something that comes with time, or something I'm just not getting. This is probably the most vague post ever, but any insight would be useful! We stayed in med-surg all last semester and this semester we're rotating through all the non-ICU units. I feel more pressure about that because I won't have as much time to get settled and orientated.