clinicals

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Just a general question. In clinicals do you get to go to lunch on your own or do you have to stay at lunch with your instructors? We aren't allowed to even step outside for anything. We have to stay with our instructors even during our lunch hour. Starting to feel really hemmed in and ultra controlled. Just wondering how other places handle this.

At the clincal this week the aides were sitting playing on their phones because they had nothing to do either lol. I'd love to be able to study at clinicals, but we are not permitted to do that, on down time or even at lunch (which brings us back to the original post lol.)

In a busy schedule such as what you have through nursing school, why are you complaining about down time anyway?

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Specializes in Pschiatry.
No, they can't just take you elsewhere. You have to stay where your CI tells you. If you're not allowed to leave then you can't leave. You have talked to your clinical instructor & she said no. We also gave you reasons why. If you are not happy now, will you be happy when you start working as a nurse?

I was just asking. Sorry

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Specializes in Pschiatry.
In a busy schedule such as what you have through nursing school, why are you complaining about down time anyway?

I'm sorry, I was simply asking a question.

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
I was just asking. Sorry

And you got your answer.

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I'm sorry, I was simply asking a question.

Relax. I am just saying to take advantage of down time. It'll make you appreciate when you have something to do.

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Relax. I am just saying to take advantage of down time. It'll make you appreciate when you have something to do.

Don't we all miss those days!!! Haha!

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Specializes in Pschiatry.
No, they can't just take you elsewhere. You have to stay where your CI tells you. If you're not allowed to leave then you can't leave. You have talked to your clinical instructor & she said no. We also gave you reasons why. If you are not happy now, will you be happy when you start working as a nurse?

No, you will never be able to study at a clinical site. Once again, you represent the school. If you are on your phone, sitting down & reading a book (even if it's a school book) or studying notes, how professional does that look on the school?

Just for the record, I don't even take my phone into the clinical site.

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Don't we all miss those days!!! Haha!

Exactly! That's what I'm saying lol. That's why I was trying to figure out why OP was mad about down time. I wish I could complain about down time lol

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Exactly! That's what I'm saying lol. That's why I was trying to figure out why OP was mad about down time. I wish I could complain about down time lol

I remember one time working in a NH, it was particularly hectic. It was my turn for "lunch". I go to the break room, get my sandwich out & sit down. As soon as I sat down an aide came to get me (family member needed me). I knew if I didn't inhale my sandwich I would get to eat. So I shoved the whole sandwich in my mouth, chewed as fast as I could, drank & then went to deal with the family member.

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I remember one time working in a NH, it was particularly hectic. It was my turn for "lunch". I go to the break room, get my sandwich out & sit down. As soon as I sat down an aide came to get me (family member needed me). I knew if I didn't inhale my sandwich I would get to eat. So I shoved the whole sandwich in my mouth, chewed as fast as I could, drank & then went to deal with the family member.

Lol. Lunch...what is lunch??

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I'm sorry, I was simply asking a question.

I think it's a good thing that you are trying to be as productive as possible. You want to stay busy, you want to learn, and that is a good thing.

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Specializes in Early Intervention, Nsg. Education.

It's very possible that the "students can't go anywhere or do anything without the CI's direct supervision" has nothing to do with you, your classmates, CI, or even your school. In addition, your CI may be forbidden to discuss the reason for the strict rules.

There are at least a dozen PN, ASN, and BSN programs within a 25-mile radius of my community. There are several community hospitals, so there were numerous placement options for Med/Surg rotations. However, there were only a few places for all area programs to go for pedi, OB, and psych clinicals. As a result, students ran into the same over-saturated clinical situations that you are describing. When it was time for my clinical group's psych rotation, we were extremely fortunate to have the extremely rare opportunity to work on a locked unit at a VA hospital. We were the only students at the site, which had never happened before. Then, things got weird...

When we arrived, we had to wait outside the building until our CI arrived, and then all of us entered the building together. Not the ward. The building. We received report as a group, took breaks as a group, ate lunch as a group, and left as a group; picture a duck with a single file of fluffy ducklings waddling along behind her. That was us. On top of that, we were forbidden to share any information with the patients, including the name of our school or even our full names. We had to put tape over our school name pins and could only refer to ourselves and each other as Mr. A, Ms. M, Mrs. C, etc. We were not allowed to pass any meds, and while we could read the chart, we were not allowed to write anything in them. We did write care plans and SOAP notes, but they were for classroom use only. The nursing staff barely gave us anything more than a glance, and we were instructed to consult our CI with any questions. It was not a comfy situation, and really turned me off to psych nursing altogether.

Several years after graduation, I bumped into a classmate who was now working at that particular VA hospital. He said, "Oh, you didn't know about the student from X University who got everyone kicked out because she had an affair with her patient?" Yep, that's what happened. The hospital refused to allow any nursing students to do clinical rotations there because of one student's incredibly poor judgment. Several years later, I was part of the small "test group" of heavily-supervised nursing students who were permitted to do our psych rotation there, but only if we followed the hospital's super-strict rules. We were never told the rationale for all of the weird rules or glares from the unit staff. Really, as students, it wasn't something we needed to know, anyway.

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