I just wanted to share about my first day of clinicals. It was awful. We had partners to take care of one patient. Our patient was 95 and her daughter was glued to her side. I was to start vitals. The daughter insisted on BP first. I was afraid because she was frail. Then after two tries I couldn't hear ANYTHING. My instructor had to do it. Then after that we were to do a full head to toe assessment and a bed bath. The daughter would not let us do it because the patient was tired.
Finally after two hours my instructor assigned us to another patient. We performed the full assessment and helped her to the commode. She really wanted her bath. She smelled like feces. I felt so sorry for her. But, no. We had to then hand in some nurse's notes to our instructor by 10:30 so we had to wait on the bath. In lecture, we learned about fidelity. If you tell your patient you're going to give her a bath, give her a bath. So about an hour and a half later......We started her bath. We didn't have much time and were rushed because we HAD to meet for lunch by 12:30.
We were unorganized because someone had taken our bath supplies and linens out of the room and we had to go hunt down more. How does that happen? Only to me, right? LOL So we gave that sweet lady a bath. And we started to get her out of bed and to the chair to give her lunch and change her linens. I had the foley bag to make sure it stayed where it was supposed to. I looked up on my partner's side where the iv was and it had come out. NIGHTMARE. I hung the foley bag back on the bed (but too high. I was panicking about the iv) I went and told my instructor and the nurse. The instructor was furious about the bag. It was on the side rail. I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. Sucks when you learn from mistakes sometimes. The nurse was so sweet to us. The patient was so appreciative.
After lunch, we met with our instructor and had a little conference about the day. Everyone but us had a good day and did great. I said, "I feel bad because of the mistakes that were made." My instructor said, "You should." I guess I should expect that. She said if it happens again she will fail us. I'm definitely not used to that. I have been doing so well in the lab and in lecture. She pulled me aside and said I wasn't aggressive enough and I needed to not shuffle around so much. I was running my butt off, not shuffling. She yelled at my partner and said she was making excuses.
I went home last night and felt like a complete FAILURE. My instructor told my parter after I left that "we need to figure it out." Next week I will be by myself and I know it will be better. I can organize a little better and we will hopefully have a patient from start to finish. All night I tried to make sense of the day and how I could have done it differently. And I learned some things from it. It still feels REALLY bad. Up until yesterday I thought I was doing so well. One day can just shatter my confidence.
Sorry this was so long. It feels better to get it off my chest.
