Clinicals????

[Shell26]

Please someone tell me what clinicals are like. What do you do and how long do they last and are they done at night??

Thanks:)

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

wow! some of these clinicals seem easier than mine, some harder. i love clinicals-most of the time. its where you really learn to be a nurse.

Semester 1-one day clinical a week, 645-1245.location varied. some in ortho, some in rehab, some in med/surg.i was in ortho go day before to get history, current complaint, meds, labs, etc.interview patient to get a detailed patient database. go home. write long long long careplan. pick one nursing diagnosis to focus on. pick one short term and one long term goal for it. write out interventions to accomplish each goal.research all meds. go to clinicals. this semester you can't do much.before clinical meet w/ instructor to go over plan for day. vitals, am care, bits of head to toe assessment as learned. we didn't do our own charting yet, here, until the end of the semester and we started writing nursing notes at the end of hte semester. no meds. dressing changes, occasionally, near end of semester. meet at end of clinicals to discuss

Semester 2-two days a week, 6 hours a day. some in ortho, some in rehab, some in med/surg-again. i was in ortho again, at different hospital. same thing before clinicals w/ all the looking up and stuff, still the care plan, but this time we had to research even more info about the meds. so all the same paperwork.

what was different about this semester from first-we got report from our primary nurse on our patient, though not in their report-we went to them on our own. we did head to toe assessments now. we did our own documenting on the chart. we did procedures as they came up-caths, bladder scans, remove staples/sutures, etc. did meds, too, but not every day.

First year additions-mixed in there, we had a 3 week OB rotation that was 2 days a week, 6 hours each day. 1 week in labor/delivery-observe only and write up. 1 week in newborn nursery-lots of baby assessments and documenting. 1 week in postpartum-again, lots of assessments.

plus in first year we had many observational days. had to go to 9 hours of diabetes education classes iwth actual diabetics. we observed in a wound clinic for a day, in the OR for 3 days, in a peds clinic for 1 day, etc. the OB and these observations you were just pulled from your normal clincal to go to the other place.

Third Semester (where I am now!)-split in two halvess, so you go to two differnt sites, for 7 or 8 weeks each. sites vary-some in oncology, PCD, med/surg, vascular PCU. paperwork is the same-still lots of it. but now, we do so much more. we get report with the nurse, we do the am care, the breakfast, the meds, the head to toe assessments, the documenting, the IV's, Foley's, dressings, etc. We write nurses notes, and just do what needs to be done. Did post mortem care 2 weeks ago. start out with 2 patients at beginning of semester, move on to three, depending on your location. same procedure for each half of the semester, just in a different place. im in the vascular PCU now.

third semester observations include the emergency department, resource nurse, dialysis, interventional radiology, etc.

also will have a 3 week rotation in peds or psych. whichever one you do third semester, you do the other one 4th semester.

4th semester-im not completely sure yet. i know the locations are the same as third, but we obviously wont be in the same ones. we'll just go to whichever of those we haven't been to yet.

anyhoo, its great fun. and nerve wracking to begin with, but it gets better :)

love, rose