Frustrations with Clinical

[rachelgeorgina]

I've just finished my second day of my first year, first semester clinical - i.e. the first clinical ever for first years. Frustratingly, I've done this clinical once before (same time last year, different hospital - I'm repeating this subject) & I work in both a nursing home and a children's hospice. You can imagine that I've got the basic skills pretty together.

On this placement the extent of our practice is supposed to be personal care (showers/sponges), manual observations... and that's about it. The rest is just... observe observe observe. I guess you can imagine that it's frustrating when you're enthusiastic and want to learn and are restricted to basic care that you're already relatively skilled in.

Our facilitator (who also works in the same hospital) has been getting progress reports from the NUM - who hasn't spent any time with us at all. I'm disappointed that our facilitator hasn't spoken to the RNs that we've been working with, because I'm sure the reports would be more pleasing and ACCURATE. The NUM has so far reported a number of untrue things about my performance to my facilitator, including that I attempted to mobilise an obese MRSA patient with chronic cough and confusion WITHOUT speaking to the RN and before handover. This is entirely untrue and inaccurate and I think it's unfair that the NUM only bases her observations on what she sees from the corridor every now and then.

At the moment, I'm in danger of not receiving a satisfactory grade (I'm getting the impression that the NUM doesn't like me despite only speaking to me twice!) and I feel that if my facilitator spoke to the RNs on the floor that we've been working with instead of the NUM, who sits in her office, the reports might be a bit more accurate (and a bit more pleasing) and therefore give me a better chance of hitting a satisfactory grade.

How do you think I can address this with my facilitator appropriately? It's only a short clinical (5 days) so I don't have long to turn things around!

[BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN]

in an affort to better understand your situation:

i've just finished my second day of my first year, first semester clinical - i.e. the first clinical ever for first years. frustratingly, i've done this clinical once before (same time last year, different hospital - i'm repeating this subject)

again, why are you repeating the course???

at the moment, i'm in danger of not receiving a satisfactory grade (i'm getting the impression that the num doesn't like me despite only speaking to me twice!)

why are you assuming she doesn't like you? i have had many students i felt were below satisfactory in clinical. it doesn't mean i do not like them!

[rubystar]

That first clinical rotation can be pretty frustrating when you are a carer already.

I suppose the best thing that you can do is cover your backside, I'm sure you've had lots of paperwork to write about your experiences, make sure you write about these things in a professional way stating what you actually did and about has been said about you. Make a point to speak to your supervisor and tell her that these things are being said about your performance and say these things didn't actually happen and rather than argue about whether other nurses are lying because that goes down very badly, ask her to spend some time with you watching to work to prove that you are capable.

I had one or two nurses that nearly cost me my prac over things I thought were complete rubbish and my clinical supervisor pointed this out to me very late in the picture, I had 2 days to prove myself or fail. Excellent documentation and being able to work with nurses that I hadn't worked with before made all the difference and between those two things I got to pass with a reasonably good report.

I'm sure that between having good documentation and speaking to your supervisor and in some way getting the chance to prove yourself as a skilled person you can make it through. Its just all about approach.