clinicals

you will do clinicals in every type of nursing unit. the nclex tests you over a general mix of questions concerning all areas of people's illnesses including ob. ob nurses need to have a well-grounded knowledge in general nursing as well as in the principles of ob. believe it or not, even women in ob have medical problems that affect their ob status and you will need to know how to deal with them. c-sections are grounded in principles of surgical nursing which you will learn before you even study ob. all those ivs are part of medical nursing skills. when an ob patient has seizures from eclampsia they become a neurological concern. if they develop hypertension along with them they have cardiac concerns as well. so, this goes way beyond just knowing about pregnancy and babies. ob is not as simple an area to be a nurse in, as you would think. too many things can and do go wrong with ob patients.

before penicillin and modern surgical methods childbirth was the biggest killer of women. women who went into the early hospitals to have their babies before the early doctors knew the value of handwashing died of agonizing postpartum infections (peritonitis) or hemorrhage. if a baby got stuck in the birth canal, both the mother and baby died. a c-section meant the death of the mother if it was performed. childbirth was something that was feared, not always welcomed as a blessing as it is in today's world with all our modern methods. peritonitis, hemorrhage, surgery. . .these are all subjects learned about in clinicals elsewhere, not ob.

Your clinicals will usually match up with your class, so in Med-Surg class you'll probably be on a Med-Surg floor; OB class: in a L&D and/or post-partum unit; Psych class: in a Psych unit, etc.