No more careplans!

Fraggle · Apr 27, 2005

haha! I do kind of like them:chair: , sometimes. It makes me remember exactly what I did, why it was right, things that I should do next time. But it's mostly when it's a pt with a disorder I haven't had before, I think.

collegegurl_2003 · Apr 27, 2005

I am so happy for you..I wish they would come and talk to our school..lol..but thats great..They are helpful but when a person is staying up until 2am to finish it and they have to be at the hospital at 7am that is not good...I wish that our teachers would care more about the care we provide other than the careplans...It seems that there is too much emphasis on the careplans than the actual care. But hey thats my opinion..I'm happy for you.

suzanne4, RN · Apr 27, 2005

You will be doing careplans the rest of your life, if you are a nurse..........

Sorry, but it is something that is actually required by JCAHO, your plan of care for your patient. Just because it isn't needed for an exam, doesn't mean that you won't be using it.................. :rolleyes:

babynursewannab · Apr 27, 2005

I do them in the open-heart ICU every day.

SmilingBluEyes · Apr 27, 2005

We use careplans every day where I work. For every patient. So will you, if you work with patients.

Kelly_the_Great · Apr 27, 2005

Sounds like they're leanin' more and more to "teaching the test." I mean, I understand this is the goal in sight, right? But, wow, seems like you're missing out on care management skills too, this way.

Then again, believe me, I sure understand the relief of having something eliminated. Like one of the previous posters said, staying up 'til 2:00 AM needing to be at the hospital for report at 6:30...been there, done that... :eek: .

On the same hand, there's so much evolving information out there it's taking longer and longer to get it all crammed in. My school required 18 hours for the 1st semester! UT @ Houston has extended their program to 5 semesters and it takes most people 3 years to get a 2-year ADN.

Maybe I'm totally off base here. But I think, perhaps they could eliminate some of the courses like OB and mental health. I understand the need for a "well-rounded" education but how much of the nursing population goes into these fields? Why not make those specialized fields?

What do ya'll think? Is that a totally crazy idea???

HappyNurse2005, RN · Apr 28, 2005

Maybe I'm totally off base here. But I think, perhaps they could eliminate some of the courses like OB and mental health. I understand the need for a "well-rounded" education but how much of the nursing population goes into these fields? Why not make those specialized fields?
What do ya'll think? Is that a totally crazy idea???

Sort of. OB is important in the sense that even if you don't go into OB as a specialty, you could always run into a pregnant patient (unless you do geriatrics). Mental health is the same-it is always good to know about these things so you can recognize them in your other patients. Plus, in my psych lectures, we learned about eating disorders, alzheimers, suicide, drug abuse, etc that is relevant to other areas of nursing

Plus, nursing schools try to get you to learn something about every area of nursing-how else do you get prepared for the nclex? how else doyou know where you want to work?

mariedoreen · Apr 28, 2005

Hey I'll be the first to throw back a beer and cry with my peers about care plans and pathophysiology papers but the sorry truth of the matter (which I will only admit here because no one knows where I live) is that I learn an incredible amount about my patient, their condition, how their labs and diagnostic exams delineate what's going on, and why they're on the meds they're on. I choose their diagnoses, plan their interventions, and come to understand exactly what I need to focus on the next day by researching it all out the night before. I also come, through experience, to learn which interventions work and why and which are paper filler and need to be tossed. I honestly cannot even fathom trying to do clinicals without the safety net of my care plan and clinical prep-time right now. As time goes on and I do certain things over and over the diagnoses and interventions become more and more routine and better understood. I may never write a formal 8 page care plan complete with concept map and pathophys paper on my patients as a nurse (and especially not at 2 am the night before) but all this care plan work now is preparing me to do the job later on without them.

LOL, sorry I don't mean to rain on your parade because I WAS jealous when I saw the title of your thread... but then I started to think about what clinical life would really be like without them and I realized I'd lose a huge chunk of my education. So much as I hate it all, I just can't vote for getting rid of them.

It's kind of like that really awful tasting medicine that you know you have to swallow in order to get well...

feelalone · Apr 28, 2005

Just wanted to make you all jealous.
NCLEX writers came to our school Monday and had a workshop with the teachers. Apparently, they told our teachers that they shouldn't be worrying so much about making us write careplans. So, today our teacher told us that next semester (our last) we will not have to do any. You should have seen everyone in our class. Woo-hoo.
I understand the importance of careplans but who really does them in the real world? And, besides, you learn your interventions in theory class. I thought I was going to die this semester. It would take me about 6-7 hours doing all that darn paperwork...on ONE patient!

Could you send them to New York, to explain this.

My professors say the same thing, but they have to teach and make us do them so at least we'll know how. Personally, I HATE doing them.

Imafloat, BSN, RN · Apr 28, 2005

I'll duck....

I don't mind them.

nrse2B2005 · Apr 28, 2005

You will be doing careplans the rest of your life, if you are a nurse..........
Sorry, but it is something that is actually required by JCAHO, your plan of care for your patient. Just because it isn't needed for an exam, doesn't mean that you won't be using it..................

I see that you are highly educated. Do you recall a time when you spent several hours developing careplans for your patients, only to have to redo them to the specification of that particular instructor's criteria?

I live this everytime I get a different clinical instructor. Though I understand the rationale for developing my own careplans (aids in critical thinking, prioritization and planning for future nursing), the fact that in the real world of nursing, careplans come in checkoff boxes and take 10 well-thought out minutes to complete just makes me bitter at this point. I am in the last weeks of third semester and am resentful at the time this takes away from my lecture readings, which do factor more into my future outcome as a nurse. I too wish they would do away with careplans after the second semester. Perhaps a quota of fifty would suffice--who knows?