Do/did any of you hate clinical?

Published

Do any of you hate clinical, or hated it when you were in nursing school?

Specializes in Tele, ED/Pediatrics, CCU/MICU.

I really didn't like Maternity.... I was pretty grossed out by the whole push-out-a-little-gooey-body-while-you-poop-everywhere ordeal..... I never enjoyed the mushy warm fuzzy mom-baby bonding stuff either... just isn't me.

I couldn't stand psych clinical... (it required getting up at 4:30 am, which was part of it).... and 8 hours of conversation was exhausting for me. I'm a hands on kinda gal... and this clinical consisted of more communication than I could ever want to have....

Spent one clinical day in the ER and I was hooked :)

Now I'm almost done with my novice nurse orientation in the ER!

*Life after clinical is better because you are flexing your skills, you're not following around an instructor, and you can find your niche. You're able to develop your own routines, and discover your place in the world :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Did I hate clinicals? Absolutely. Starting with my first, where a bitter, vindictive, malicious instructor made me seriously consider quitting nursing school after the second day. Ending with the last (in peds), where we had one pt each, were not allowed to help one another (instructor said "If you have to ask another student for help, you must have learning or time management issues that need to be addressed"), and were basically expected to baby-sit for four hours. Bored out of my mind with my sleeping pt. one day, I brought a med. dictionary to the pt's room to look up something the CI had asked me to look up regarding his condition. Instructor comes into the room, I was happy to be able to tell her what chelation meant, then she reams me for bringing a book to the pts room when I should be "interacting with the pt." (Yeah, ma'am, I've been spending the last 2 hours doing that. That's why the little guy is sleeping.):banghead:

In response to the question about why it's better once you graduate, "real world" nursing can not even be compared to clinicals. But I'll try to touch on what's better about it. 1. You don't have to call your instructor to watch you do everything. 2. You don't have to get all your charting double checked before putting it in the chart. 3. (big one!!) You get to do things YOUR way (at least after orientation lol) 4. A sense that YOU are ultimately responsible for your patients' care. 5. Um, no more care plans? well, where I work, we have computerized ones that only are done on admission, where you just click check boxes.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in CVICU, PACU, OR.

I hated med/surg and peds and enjoyed critical care and home health the most. I've always loved hearts I was lucky and had decent clinical instructors most of the time. I was worried that I wouldn't like nursing since I didn't like many of my clinicals but after a year of nursing I'm glad I stuck it out. It is sooo much better after you graduate and don't have someone watching over your shoulder!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTAC, OR.

I'm just finishing up med-surg and I really hate it. It really does feel like glorified babysitting sometimes. And we spend half the time waiting around for our instructor so we can give our meds. And then she wonders why we don't get baths done on our patients...ugh.

What is really frustrating to me is that I don't feel like I have a realistic sense of how to prioritize tasks and how much time I actually have to spend with each patient because we only have two patients! And then (this is really bad) I don't feel like I care as much as I should because I know that the nurse is the one that's really in charge of their care and I'm just thinking about how hungry I am or how much I need a nap.

The worst part is that we're in the hospital on tues. from 11-7 and then again on wed. morning from 7-11. I hate getting home from clinical on Tuesday and knowing that I'm going to have to go back and deal with the same patients again the next day. One week I had this old lady...they took her foley out right before I got there and since she was incontinent, she was wetting herself and calling me to clean her up like every 20 minutes! Oh my gosh...NOT what I signed up for!

Whew! Feels good to vent a little bit. I'm glad to hear it gets better, otherwise I'm totally screwed.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in neuro/ortho med surge 4.

The only clinical I have hated so far is the one I am currently in. It is OB and Peds. It is not the clinical experience it is the instructor. She is so anal about every little thing. It is very discouraging to feel like you can never do anything the right way or good enough. I also hate some of the clinical objectives we have to meet. Some of them are rediculous and what I call time fillers or time wasters. Plus you don't really see what it is really like to be a nurse with two patients. I am hoping working as an LNA will help when I become a nurse in May.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I just hated the fact that clinicals were not realistic. You have maybe 5 patients max and your either doing assessments and medications or your documenting and delegating. It never worked were you have max amount of patients and your doing everything assessments, medications/treatments, documenting and delegating. Now I just started a job in a hospital rehab/LTC and I'm nervous out of my mind. The girl I was orienting with I left her there at 3:30pm the shift was over but she was just starting to do her charts. I'm like are you serious, what is going to happen to me once I hit the floor on my own?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I am one of those people who hated every clinical, but enjoyed my job as a new grad - thougth I am not saying I enjoyed every day of my job and never had any stress. Nursing is hard work and a certain amount of stress is inevitable in life and I was prepared for that. I had realistic expectations and did not experience an excessive amount of reality shock.

But these were the positive differences for me:

1. I always found the student role "awkward." I didn't really have the authority to act, didn't really know what I was doing. I was only there for a few hours at a time, etc. I found that to be interpersonally awkward and that always made me a bit uncomfortable. At work, I "belonged" there and I had a job to do. It was my responsibility to get things done. That gave me a legitimacy that helped me to feel more comfortable.

2. I wasn't being graded by an instructor all the time. Yes, I was being judged by my colleagues -- but their criteria were more clear-cut. I knew what was expected of me -- to take good care of the patients and to be a pleasant member of the team to work with. As long as I did that, I was OK -- and I could do that. The "hoops I needed to jump through" were clear: put the patient's needs ahead of my personal wants and be pleasant about it. Work hard, contribute, don't whine. Yep, I could do that.

3. There was more consistency in the type of care I needed to provide, the people I worked with ,the unit routine, etc. As a student, we were always in a new place, working with strangers, etc. That made me always feel like a "guest" (See #1 above) and made it harder for me to establish a comfortable rythm for myself. As a NICU staff nurse, there was much more consistency.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency.

Totally agree with the post below. I hated clinicals, every one except my final preceptorship in the ER. Knowing that i one teacher didn't like you, they could fail you so easily for subjective crap and that would be it. Only having two patients which isn't realistic, working in specialties that I had no interest in, and having a teacher watch you like a hawk for everything you do--at least for the first couple of weeks. Plus, I found that with my final med-surg clinical rotation, the CI would constantly be running from one student to the next to do a med-pass, drsg change, or skill--all the while a few of us would be sitting there with nothing to do because our vitals were done, pts assessed & tidied, and we were just waiting for our turn with the CI. It was totally different when I started as a new grad......

I am one of those people who hated every clinical, but enjoyed my job as a new grad - thougth I am not saying I enjoyed every day of my job and never had any stress. Nursing is hard work and a certain amount of stress is inevitable in life and I was prepared for that. I had realistic expectations and did not experience an excessive amount of reality shock.

But these were the positive differences for me:

1. I always found the student role "awkward." I didn't really have the authority to act, didn't really know what I was doing. I was only there for a few hours at a time, etc. I found that to be inpersonally awkward and that always made me a bit uncomfortable. At work, I "belonged" there and I had a job to do. It was my responsibility to get things done. That gave me a legitimacy that helped me to feel more comfortable.

2. I wasn't being graded by an instructor all the time. Yes, I was being judged by my colleagues -- but their criteria were more clear-cut. I knew what was expected of me -- to take good care of the patients and to be a pleasant member of the team to work with. As long as I did that, I was OK -- and I could do that. The "hoops I needed to jump through" were clear: put the patient's needs ahead of my personal wants and be pleasant about it. Work hard, contribute, don't whine. Yep, I could do that.

3. There was more consistency in the type of care I needed to provide, the people I worked with ,the unit routine, etc. As a student, we were always in a new place, working with strangers, etc. That made me always feel like a "guest" (See #1 above) and made it harder for me to establish a comfortable rythm for myself. As a NICU staff nurse, there was much more consistency.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Do any of you hate clinical, or hated it when you were in nursing school?

I am currently in my next to last semester of nursing school which will be over soon and I haven't really had "bad" experiences in clinic. This semester was split, have psych and the other med-surg. Psych was a little boring because there was so much down time and I hated listening to everyone's excuses as to why they drank or OD on something. When I switched to med-surg and saw who my CI was, I about quit. I was sure I was going to fail. I had heard nothing but horror stories about this woman, how she makes you feel incompetent, how you will never make it as a nurse, etc. Tomorrow is my last clinic day with this lady and I have to admit, she is one of the best CIs I have EVER had. Don't get me wrong, she's tough, but yet I've learned so much in the past 2 mths. Hopefully my final semester won't be so bad!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in critical care.

ugh....I hated ob/peds! I guess I don't have the mommy thing....the kids were okay it was their family...and ob- the pt were so whiny, just nasty....CAT

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

I love clinical. It's a cakewalk compared to my job. If the patient goes sour, I can just call the nurse. As a student, my responsibility is limited. When I'm on the job, I'm responsible. Also, in clinical I only have one to two patients and so can focus on learning. On the job, I have four to five patients and am focused on getting my work done. I learn, but it's by making mistakes, whereas learning in clinical is by design.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Didn't much like it then, and in retrospect I dislike it even more because it didn't really give me any kind of taste of what floor nursing entails. There was _no_ practice in taking off orders (and variously questioning/recommending them), working with the greater healthcare team (including residents, social workers, etc.), or really giving change-of-shift report and the responsibilites that that carries with it. I don't know if it's even possible to incorporate these things into clinicals, but these are a few of the things that have smacked me in the face coming out of school.

A lot of rotations teach you more about that instructor's pet peeves than about anything useful. I can tell you that my last clinical instructor got headaches a lot, was fanatical about us cleaning up our patients' rooms to her satisfaction, which involved putting all of their belongings away (on an ortho floor, where patients generally preferred to have everything out where they could reach it). She also had a traumatic run-in with her clinical teacher when she was in nursing school that left her pretty OCD about starched collars, perfectly white shoes, etc. Fascinating stuff, though what that all tells us about nursing, and how that all allegedly benefits the patient, is anybody's guess.

-Kevin

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion