Final Consolidation

[Fitscarlet, LPN, RN]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to gauge how nursing schools assign clinical placements to students and whether their placements have prepared them to graduate as a new RN. In Canada, they ask you to choose 5 or 10 selections with the # 1 being your top choice. I was told that it is a lottery-type system and most people do not get their first choices. I have been an RPN/LPN for 2 years prior to getting accepted to the RPN/BScN bridging program. In those 2 years, I worked in retirement homes so I was coming into the program without having done some of the essential skills that you do at hospitals (IV, catheters, etc) since I graduated from the RPN program. Anyway, I knew that bedside nursing is not the direction that I wanted to take as an RN, so all of my first choices for clinical placements have been away from the bedside. And I got all of my first choices except for this final consolidation.

Now I am in long-term care and I might fail my first clinical placement. I'm great with patients, but I lack some of the clinical skills and "critical thinking skills" as per my preceptor.

My question is, has anyone been in the same position? How did you overcome this challenge? I have completed some of the learning goals I have set up with the tutor and preceptor, but it is not enough since my preceptor thinks that I am not up to par with a soon to graduate RN. She is also coming up with other things that I "lack and should have known at this level", so I feel that I'm beating a dead horse, no matter how much I review and prepare prior to each shift. Thanks for reading. I feel very defeated.

Any comments would be appreciated.