Clinicals

I keep a PDA in my pocket and IF ever in doubt, I look the meds up as I have learned things are constantly changing with medications!

Check the patient's chart constantly for med orders, changes, lab values~

The standard medication administration guidelines~

I don't think a list will help because every patient is individualized to their needs, allergies, etc.

Don't you have to do a CWS prior to your clinical day and list the meds by trade/generic, the dose, rationale, indications, nursing interventions, desired outcome/actual outcome, and any side/adverse effects?

We had to do that for every single med, even PRN's and many a night I was up until 2 or 3 AM due to my patient having 19 - 25 meds! One time during the past 7 weeks I was lucky and had a patient who only had 6 meds, otherwise 18 meds at minimum~~~

We have an hour prior to going out on the floor on clinical days to go through our patient's chart and list of medications. We all have a med deck, and we have to pull out each medication card. If it's not in the deck, we have to look it up in a reference book. We need to know the drug name, classification, how it works, possible side effects to look for, and contraindications. We keep the cards in our lab jacket and carry it around with us for fast reference. It can take awhile to find every drug. I remember my very first client, from my very first ever clinical, and he had 32 medications! It was stunning. Since then, I have learned to keep the most frequently used drug cards (antibiotics, pain medication, COPD drugs, etc.) out of the box so it's easier to find. It cuts my pre-clinical time in half.