Fundamentals of Nursing Clinicals

[Samm06]

Good morning everyone,

I was just curious as to what you guys did during your Fundamentals of Nursing clinical rotation. I'll be starting that class on August 24th and I am really nervous to actually be going into hospitals for clinical. Any advice or tips?

Thank You.

[cocoa_puff]

My clinical rotation is 6 hours long for one day, was your clinical time this long for fundamentals?

I think my clinical rotation was 7 hours twice a week, like Tues/Wed from 0700-1400.

[sjalv]

We did ours in a nursing home, 6-hour days twice a week. It really varies based on your clinical instructor but we mainly practiced physical assessments. We might have given an SQ injection or two, but that's about it. We did a lot more when we got into the hospital setting the next semester.

[mnw9412]

thanks everyone for your feedback. My clinical rotation is 6 hours long for one day, was your clinical time this long for fundamentals?

My clinical started at 6:45 and ended around 3. So knocking at 8 hours if you don't include the 15 minute lunch break

[AnchoredRN]

My clinicals right out of the gate are 12 hours!!

[Twinmom06, ASN, APN]

don't forget pre-conference where you discussed your patients and the pathophysiology of their diseases and why there are in the hospital and post conference where you discussed what you saw and learned throughout the day! We did our fundamentals on med/surge so by the end of the semester we were also passing meds...

[Plutonium261]

Lots and lots of vitals, bed baths, cleaning of incontinent patients, helping patients with eating, wound care, assisting the wound care specialists, changing lots of linens, I's & O's, probably minimal basic med passing, and head to toe assessments. I know everyone gets excited (and sometimes a little nervous) to start your first clinicals, and everyone always wants to jump straight into assessments and passing out medications. What we have to remember though is that without a great foundation in the beginning, all of the skills previously mentioned, it is us who look mediocre, less able, and less prepared or inadequate, and it is our patients that suffer. Do not brush these things off or stand on the sidelines when it comes to doing these things in your fundamentals rotation because you don't like one of them, or you think you're above bed baths, changing incontinent patient's, or changing linens. I am in my senior year of my BSN program, but I also work as a NA at a hospital and I see it from both sides of the fence, and I work with plenty of RN's who are not above helping me with doing any or all of these things if I need the help, although I try to do most things if I can because again I see it from both sides and I know they many times have much more important things to worry about. Still sometimes we are just too busy, or the mess is too big, for one person to handle. And I love those nurses who without question or a doubt will help me when needed. After all, a nursing assistant is just that, someone to assist the nurses with some of their daily tasks. These things are still a part of the RN's job. P.S. Yeah, our clinical rotations, even in fundamentals, were on a med-surg floor and were 12 hours.

[Plutonium261]

I think some good goals for fundamentals would be:

--find ways to practice any assessments you've been learning

--practice safe transfers

--practice communicating with patients

--ask the staff lots of basic questions about how things work (how do the bed controls work, how does this IV machine work, how does this O2 thing work, what procedure do you use for getting supplies)

These are also some great goals to have going into your funds rotation.