Clinicals??

Hi! Congratulations on your journey to becoming a nurse. :clphnds:

Usually at the beginning of nursing school, you have clinicals from 7A-3P. I always used to arrive to clinicals early (around 6:00 or so) so I could go over paperwork, talk with the instructor if I needed to, and give myself time in case I had car trouble. I could also get a cup of coffee and mentally prep for the day. I'm curious as to how far along you are in nursing school? Early on in school you take one or two patients on a medsurg floor and are an extra pair of hands to the nurses on the unit. You learn to make beds, with and without patients, give bed baths, hygiene care, medication administration (as well as info ABOUT the meds you're giving---very important!), lab value interpretation, catheters, IV's and IV fluids, and stuff like that. If you go to a specialty unit, you merely observe and LEARN! Let your mind be a sponge for the day. Take a pen and paper and your tools (stethoscope, penlight, scissors, black pen, maybe some extra bandaids and alcohol swabs, any paperwork you might need can probably be kept in backpack out of the way or a locker).

How far along are you in nursing school?

My first clinical was in a nursing home. I volunteered to do evening clinicals (3p - 11p) but most clinicals at my school are 7a - 3:30p. We would have a pre-conference before we started our day. This would include discussing what we were going to be working on (glucometers, shots, meds, etc.) and then being assigned to a patient. Since it was our first clinical, we only had one patient a day. After we were done with our assessments, we would help out the nurses and CNA's with whatever they needed. We did a lot of bathing, glucometers, toileting, and answering call lights. Every day was different though. There were times when someone would need a catheter, trach care, flu shot, etc. and someone would volunteer to do it or our instructor would make us check off on it. At the end of the day, we had a post conference to discuss our day and anything we learned.

It is scary at first being by yourself but we worked with other classmates and it made things a lot less stressful. Plus, our instructor was always around if we needed help. And remember to always be on time!