Thinking of quitting

Nursing Students General Students

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I'm in my 4th week of clinicals, and I'm having a MAJOR problem. The first 10 weeks of clinicals are in nursing homes. I am getting physically sick whenever I go in to help these poor people. How do i get over that? Controlling my nausea is becoming the most physically exhausting thing I've had to do. I'm not sure I'm cut out to do this kind of work.

Any suggestions?

Kelly

A little Vicks Vaporub right on the end of your nose and you will never smell anything else...

It helps to remember (as far as being around elderly people) that we will all be there someday...and wouldn't we like someone like us there, even if for only a short time?

Euwww -- convoluted grammar, I know, but you get the picture.

I dont like nursing school......actually i hate it.....but i know i will eventually find something i enjoy with nursing..I guess you have to learn the bad stuff first......I dont think anyone really enjoys cleaning out bed pans and wiping rear ends......if they do....they are REALLY special people. Hang in there....at least that is what i am forcing myself to do.

just read your thread and i figured that it's almost 2 years old so i was just curious what you end up doing.

Specializes in critical care; community health; psych.

What helps me when working with the elderly is thinking of them as my mom or dad. When my mom was so ill before her death, I helped care for her. It was at the same time that I started my first clinicals. Every elderly woman I encountered was my mom. It made me look into their eyes and gave me a genuine desire to care for them that overcame the ickies and the yuckies. These people are SOMEONE's mom and dad. It's really not hard to imagine them as yours.

Specializes in Endocrinology.

gomedina,

I checked when her last post was and it looked like it was 10/14/02. I hope she didn't quit. Maybe someone knows and can update us.

Hopefully she was able to stick it out. . . The LTC/geriatric semester really is the most depressing. For anyone else reading this who is looking for ways to avoid the nausea and smells, here is what I did.

*Get outside to sit with or walk your patient as much as possible

*Wear flavored, smelly chapstick (masks the smell)

*Suck on a piece of hard candy (helps control nausea)

*Avoid walking past the kitchen if possible

*Open window in patient's room if warm enough

Good luck Geriatric Nursing semester students. You can do it!!!!

Specializes in Gynecology/Oncology.
gomedina,

I checked when her last post was and it looked like it was 10/14/02. I hope she didn't quit. Maybe someone knows and can update us.

Maybe someone could e-mail her? I didn't check to see if the address was listed.

remember to breath though your mouth. as for being around these people you will get use to it. after you get though this you will be off to the next stage of nursing. but i know how you feel believe me except i am afraid of the day i have to put in a cath. i just can't see myself dealing the the "one eyed winkie" that is what i call it :chuckle

it's the smells, and just being around elderly people. just thinking about going there gives me a headache, and once i'm there, i try so hard not to be sick, and sometimes end up in the bathroom vomiting.

when I experienced this it was because I was thinking more about how I was affected than about providing the client with nursing care. Talk to the client, even if they cannot respond. If your anxiety is due to feeling incompetent (that was my problem the first semester), then talk to your instructor and tell them you need verbal feedback about your performance, and some coaching. The other posts gave you good advice too. Don't quit just yet. You need to learn something about yourself so you can handle future situations, regardless of whether you are a nurse or not.

Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

LTC definitely isn't for everyone, but with the aging population ... unless you plan to work in pediatrics or L&D, you will almost certainly deal with large numbers of elderly people in all other acute care settings. It would make sense to get comfortable with it.

I just remember that all of them are someone's mother, grandfather, or nice neighbor. We'll all be there someday too.

At our facility the residents get wiped off twice a day and get a shower once a week. Their clothes get changed twice a day and we periodically change their briefs and do the peri care to be sure they are clean and such and put any necessary ointment on their skin. But BM does smell and you just have to remember, even if they get snotty, that they are human and have feelings and what it must feel like to have to have someone else cleaning you down there. I know personally this would upset me to no end. So just be emapathetic as possible, stay calm, and by no means quit nursing school.

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