Did you hate clinicals

StudentNurseAbby · Jan 19, 2008

Do I hate them? Hmm, I wouldn't say that. I love certain days, certain patients, certain units and dislike others. Do they cause me anxiety? Always. lol It's a big deal to have that responsibility, especially in my last semester and I'm just nervous about what's going on. It usually ends up going by fast and I handle everything well but I'm always nervous beforehand.

bekindtokittens · Jan 19, 2008

I hope you're not looking for all positive replies, because yes, my first set of clinicals caused me a lot of anxiety.

It wasn't all bad. I loved my experiences with the patients and actually seeing how care is given and giving it, rather that just reading about it in a book. My anxiety came from wondering whether the staff was going to openly mock me that day or just be generally unfriendly and unhelpful. I'm hoping my next clinical site has a more positive atmosphere for students.

nurserynurse55 · Jan 19, 2008

I hated them in school. In med/surg our meds were always late (even insulin and pain meds) due to our instructors checking and grilling each student forever. Some instructors were mean and tried to wean students out rather than teach them, and I just plan hated working in certain areas (like tele for example). It gets better when you find you dream job, but boy is school hard sometimes.:pumpiron:

Dublin37 · Jan 19, 2008

It totally depends on your CI. When I had an evil CI, I hated them, because there was just so much darn stress. But when I had a patient and/or kind CI, I LOVED them.

danh3190 · Jan 19, 2008

I hate feeling stupid and incompetent.

So at the beginning of my Med-Surg rotations I hated it. Always had a stomach ache. However I kind of sorted out in my mind what I liked and what I hated. I loved being with the patients. I hated doing the paperwork and Care Plan. I hated always being late with the meds. By our 3rd med-surg rotation, the teachers trusted us with meds more so we weren't late so often, and I'd found a rhythm so I wasn't always late with the charting etc. and I really looked forward to it.

Unfortunately now I'm in a trauma ICU rotation and am hating it. I don't know how to do anything so everything takes much too long and I'm always behind. I just keep telling myself that it'll get better as I keep learning. I don't know how easy it is to flunk clinical with this particular instructor though. Only 5 more weeks to go...

TazziRN, RN · Jan 19, 2008

The only one I recall dreading was psych, because it's an area I've never been comfortable with. Otherwise I never dreaded the clinical, only certain instructors. The instructors are the ones who make them good or bad.

feliciamac · Jan 19, 2008

Enjoy your clinicals I am in my second semester I love having clinicals I take it as my chance to learn everything that I can hands-on. I think that your clinical instructor does make it good or bad though. My first rotation we were at a nursing home I didn't like that as much because it was slow pace then we went to a med/surg floor and I love it I still get nervous every time I meet a patient and get scared that they are going to be mean or not like me but thats part of it I guess.

locolorenzo22, BSN, RN · Jan 20, 2008

I did my first semester...cause I'd never worked as an aide and was expected to just KNOW what to do with LTC clients....tough to really get through....

Then, 2nd semester, I was working in the hospital at the same time.....as I picked things up in lecture and clinicals...I saw those cases at work. Started to understand why things were done for each process....

It just takes time to become comfortable...now, I approach it like going to work, and not getting paid....enjoy interacting with clients, and just relax with the CIs....but a bad one will make any clinical day seem like a week....

Sillynicunurse · Jan 20, 2008

I wouldn't say that I have hated them but there have been some that I liked more than others. I think that I had huge expectations in the beginning that I would be learning tons of stuff when in reality we just assisted with ADL's and had nurses that were not patient enough to wait for the clinical instructor to be available so that the student could perform the skill. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't say that I learned nothing it just wasn't what I expected. Clinicals are what you make them. You have to be assertive with your learning. I would tell the nurses on the floor that I was needing to work on IV's, dressing changes, NG tubes or anything else they thought would be a good learning opportunity and I actually wound up with more learning opportunities than some of my classmates that just sat around and waited for things to come to them. I am now in my last clinical rotation (wahoooo!!!!) and have also learned that when I graduate I really need to be conscious of the way that I treat student nurses when they are on the floor that I work.

Dublin37 · Jan 21, 2008

I did my first semester...cause I'd never worked as an aide and was expected to just KNOW what to do with LTC clients....tough to really get through....
but a bad one will make any clinical day seem like a week....

I totally agree. My first day of clinicals, I had my patient crying, saying she just wanted to die, but noone would let her! The next day, I left the bed up on a different pt, and got reamed for hours, and later written up in my permanent file. They just expected that we should know how to deal with everything, no training, just some notes and films, and plop, "that's your patient!" She was a CI from hell. I was never sure I wanted to be an RN because of her. Later semesters you get comfortable with the very unusual environment, and can deal with things better even if they are new.

APBT mom, LPN, RN · Jan 21, 2008

I don't necessarily hate clinicals, I just hate certain things that go on during them. Like when we have orientation and the DON comes in and tells us how the staff just loves when students are here, they'll help you as much as they can, they'll show you all the interesting things that they do, they'll give you procedures that they need to be done on patients, blah blah blah.

Then when you get on the floor the nurse your assigned to won't talk to you, ignores you when you have a question about THEIR patient, won't even let you do vitals or BS, but they're more then happy to tell you patient in bed 2 had a BM all over the place could you clean it or the patient in room 4 is a self feed and combative (oh no that's right they tell you that part after the patients already tooken a swing at you....Must have slipped her mind), or can you go check on patient XXX he's in isolation and said he needs help (you go gown up and he needs the bed pan, a new linens because their wet/have feces or insert body fluid here on them, something to drink, has four trays that need to be removed, and his IV's been going off for 30 mins which is what he wanted the NURSE for in the first place).

Then you have the nurse that wants you to do everything for all of her patients BUT she tells you everything one at a time like you have short term memory loss (can you get patient Z something to drink [go and come back], can you get patient X something to eat [sURE it's just in the same room that I gave the patient to drink and the same room that I went to for the drink]......).

Now NOT ALL OF THE NURSES are this way but the ones that do really make you want to fake food poisoning after break so you can go home.

What I enjoy about clinicals is that I'm not sitting in lecture watching those wonderful videos from the 70's (you know the ones before gloves and the tests that they don't even use to diagnose dieseases anymore) that when they're over the instructor tells you it's wasn't a very good video. That I actually get to do/see something on a person instead of reading it from a book or simulating it with a dummy. That I actually get to see my instructors as NURSES and they talk to us like we are equals instead of someone who has no idea what we are doing, that they really are their to back you up when you get nurses like the ones above and then tell you "I wonder why they never remember what it was like when they were in school when the nursing students are here asking for help".......wait I didn't know they had ESP because I was thinking the same thing. That the nurses that love students WILL hunt you down to give you a procedure or show you something that happens on the floor (here this patients coding jump in and clear the room, do CPR because you know your doing it right when your break a rib and you your abs are killing you).

The main reason that I like clinicals is because I'm able to see in the real world what kind of nurse I want to be and KNOW that when I get my very own student(s) they will never have to feel the frustrations that I did during clinicals.