Did anyone else have a bad 1st day of clinicals??

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First off, we went to a nursing home.......not my favorite place in the world. Then at the end of the day after writing nurses notes, my instructor pretty much called me out in front of everyone :uhoh3: So, embarrassing.....i wanted to cry on the way home and was doubting whether I can do this.

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My first clinical was in a nursing home too. I liked it, because the residents are usually happy to work with students and are very nice. What did your instructor call you out for? In any case, it was just one day, and I'm sure there was a lot of anxiety associated with it. Now that you know the drill a little bit, it should get better. It helps to review whatever you're expected to do before you go so you're more comfortable and confident with it. Don't let one experience discourage you -- you will have plenty of clinical instructors, and different clinical sites and each experience will be different. If you ask questions and volunteer to answer questions that you know the answer to, your instructor will be less likely to call on you out of the blue. Be prepared, be confident, take it one day at a time. You can do this!

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I am sorry you had such a bad day. I don't start clinicals until January so I really can't offer any advice, but hang in there, I am sure it is bound to get better. Go home, drink some wine, get some rest and remember tomorrow is a new day. Good Luck.

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Specializes in Med Surg - Renal.
First off, we went to a nursing home.......not my favorite place in the world. Then at the end of the day after writing nurses notes, my instructor pretty much called me out in front of everyone :uhoh3: So, embarrassing.....i wanted to cry on the way home and was doubting whether I can do this.

I had a great day my first day of clinical - also at a nursing home. I saw some classmates have earth-shattering horrible first days at clinical though.

They all made it through and graduated - so will you!

Most of the difference between a good first day and a bad one was whether you ever worked as an aide. If you had, it was a vacation (ONE patient?? Are you kidding me??), if you hadn't, it could be a real crapshoot.

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I can tell you the times we did clinical in a nursing home we weren't allowed to do anything but were expected to care for patients or residents or whatever they were called then. I opted instead to sit in the conference room and eat cookies the kitchen manager made for me. I made a care plan based off the patient's chart, and passed with flying colors. My being able to get away with that is another reason I think nursing school, as I know it, is silly.

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Specializes in Acute Care.

I had a longer post- but I was worried it came off as discouraging. Basically- I'll just say, its the first day of MANY. Keep your head up and you will be just fine.

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

after my first clinical day was almost over, i got up and headed for the door, mentally patting myself on the back for not making a fool of myself, hurting someone, or getting reprimanded.

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boom! i kicked over a very stuffed metal wastebasket!:eek: :o

you'll be just fine when you relax just a little and gain some confidence.

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Mine could have gone better. There was another student assigned to this pt as well since her case was pretty complicated. Admitted with an anoxic brain injury (following an incident of food aspiration and vomiting), and had a neuro status change (speech unintelligible, increased anxiety) s/p 2 seizures she had in the hospital a couple nights before we were assigned to care for her. Pt was complete quadriplegic from a spinal cord lesion and had a demyelinating disease similar to MS. We got through taking vitals just fine and the CNA brought in some linens and supplies for a bed bath. When we got started with that, the CNA left (without saying anything) and there we were with a pt hooked up to an NG tube, PICC line, cardiac telemetry device, and foley. We found out when we rolled her that the motion and manipulation made her agitated and anxious and her O2 sat took a dive, not to mention we hadn't turned off the NG tube feeding and she could have aspirated with the head of the bed lowered (lesson learned!). Thankfully, at that point the skin nurse came in on her rounds and was able to give us some direction and get situation under control. We were probably 2 seconds from hitting the call light. So, basically I feel like we got thrown to the wolves on day 1. We're lucky the pt wasn't harmed, but seriously, there is no way we should have been left alone to deal with that by ourselves.

The pt I am assigned to tomorrow was crying when I entered the room to introduce myself this afternoon during clinical prep. She was polite, shook my hand, and agreed to let me work with her tomorrow, but didn't want to talk about what was bothering her. *Fingers crossed* for a better clinical day.

ETA: I guess our first clinical was technically the flu shot clinic for hospital employees. That pretty much rocked, I got to do about a dozen IM injections and placed TB skin tests for most of those people too. Nice blebs on all of them! Feeling much more confident about the whole poking people with needles thing after that.

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on my first clinical day one of my classmates was helping pass breakfast trays and found her patient stone cold dead in the bed. that's a bad start. but i'll bet she laughs about it now, more than 40 years later.

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

On my first day in the hospital, I came in early, excited to work with my patient. I had met her the night before and she had agreed to let me work with her the next day. I had researched her conditions, drugs, everything. I was totally prepared, and since this was my first patient, I was overly prepared.

Things started to go sour with her when I went in to do vitals and realized the sphygmomanometer on the wall had a hole in the tube so it wouldn't work. I apologized and combed the halls for another one, couldn't find one, and finally feeling like a dope asked a nurse where one was. "Oh, we just use the electrical ones. All of the wall ones are broken." Uh, ok? Why did my clinical instructor insist we do them manually?

So I go back in the patient room, trying to do my best, but I'm still nervous and now annoyed. She needs a blood sugar and I don't have the equipment, so I go out to get the kit. When I come back in, she refuses to let me take her blood sugar. She says she doesn't want the test. I am totally confused and try to educate her about blood sugar, insulin, etc. No, no, no. So I go out and tell the nurse she has refused the test.

While I am waiting in the nurse's station, my instructor comes over with my nurse. "The patient told me she doesn't want a student anymore" the nurse told me, as nicely as she could. I felt SO BAD. My huge care plan...my first day...my instructor standing right there...all I could think of was to hold it together because I didn't want my instructor to think I couldn't handle a difficult situation! So I held it together, was assigned another patient, and made it though the day. My bad 1st day of clinicals! :)

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Don't feel bad or embarrassed. I'm in my preceptorship and I actually cried on the unit. My preceptor was telling me I need to be more organized, I should review my skills and questioned me what we actually get taught as I was in the middle of doing my checks on medications for a patient. I was already stressed out when she was telling me all this, I ended out bursting in tears. Everyone tried to comfort me. I'm happy that you were strong and kept those emotions until you left.

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