most difficult skill

Listening! It takes the most effort to stop & listen to what the patient is saying...really saying.

It is easier to just act on something.

I haven't done it yet, but I feel the day is coming....

Putting in a large NG tube, the kind hooked up to wall suction. I have put in a small ng tube for feeding, that wasn't so bad. It's just causing the pain that is so tough!

After I get my R.N. degree (am an LPN now) I am going to work Med-Surg. What do you think is the most diffucult skill you have to do?

I know everyone will be a little different. Mine probally has to do with the computer charting :roll

The most difficult skill is always the one you have had the least amount of practice with or exposure to.

Remember, everything is easy when you know how to do it, everything is hard when you don't!

Take advantage of any opportunities you have while in school to either perform a skill or watch it being done. That will make all the difference in the world when it comes time for you to do it as an RN later :)

I am not good at starting IV's. When I have a pt. that needs one, I usually try once, if I don't get it, there are always other nurses that are good and willing to do it. I just am not good at it at all. I can get it, then it usually blows or rolls or something. I hate to poke more than need be, just for me to get practice, doesn't seem fair to the patient.

Clinical assessment is the most difficult, that is using your eyes and ears and sense of touch to make an initial assessment of the patient. Noting color, respiration, tissue turgor, sweating, cold skin, ability to communicate, etc. Train youself to take all of this in while you are talking with the patient . You'll pick up clues that others will miss.

Managing CNA's, but I've improved.

Learning how to handle difficult doc's.... come out looking professional, & letting them look like the mule's butt!

Picking up the clues as to what is actually happening to the patient and on the unit as opposed to what we are told. Report is often a matter of fiction.