When does care planning begin?

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I just began my first semester of school about eight weeks ago and I'm just curious when we as students can be expected to begin care plans? I know it varies from program to program (mine is a two year ASN) but would it begin during Med-Surg rotations? I know for next semester we have to report to the hospital the day before clinical for a few hours to prep for the next day. Does that mean we would be starting care plans?

Thanks!

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Specializes in SICU, MICU, CICU, NeuroICU.

Pre-care is a pain in the butt, but if you do develop a system, it'll be a little more tolerable.

Check with your teachers to see if they allow for you to type your stuff on the computer. It'll help down the road when you can copy and paste. Especially if you have to write out your meds for precare.

I started doing care plans practically the first day of clinical and they haven't stopped yet. I have every care plan saved on my comp so that if I have the same situation, it's a simple cut and paste.

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Specializes in Oncology, Med-Surg, Nursery.

I'm also in a 2 year program and we started them the 2nd semester of our program. We did OB, Peds, Psych, Surgery, and Med-Surg that semester. When we started out, we were allowed the weekend to finish our paperwork and we'd turn it in the following Monday. Now from where I am in 3rd semester, we're given an hour after clinical to write them in the hospital and turn them in before we leave. I'd say it depended on your program. :)

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I started care plans in the first semester of the ADN program. I didn't really start pounding them out until the third semester though.

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Thanks for the great responses everyone!:)

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Specializes in ICU.

ABSN here...............first semester in Assessments.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

I've been deliberately staying away from answering this thread, but the title with the words "care plan" just always catch my eye. ilivet0surfxx, nurse-to-be, you have to understand a few things.

  1. school work that you do is dictated by your school and your instructors. Why would anyone on an Internet forum have an answer to your question? Talk to some of the students who are in the semesters/quarters ahead of you in your school and find the answer to this question.
  2. a care plan is a written work. Look at it as kind of the nursing school equivalent of a term paper. Depending on your school, the kind of degree program you are in and what your instructors want, it can be anything from as simple as an essay to as complex as a thesis!
  3. a care plan is the written expression of the nursing process. The nursing process is what being an RN is all about. It is how we solve problems. RNs spend their workdays solving all kinds of problems. That is mostly what we do. That is what I have been doing as an RN for the past 32 years. So, learning the nursing process is what you will be doing for the entire time you are in nursing school.
  4. Writing a care plan is part of learning about the nursing process. If this is something that you are already scared of, you need to face this demon because it is not going to go away. And, I can guarantee you that there will be other demons in nursing school and the profession of nursing that you will have to face. Life is way harder having to haul around demons you fear rather than facing them and dealing with them.

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I've been deliberately staying away from answering this thread, but the title with the words "care plan" just always catch my eye. ilivet0surfxx, nurse-to-be, you have to understand a few things.

  1. school work that you do is dictated by your school and your instructors. Why would anyone on an Internet forum have an answer to your question? Talk to some of the students who are in the semesters/quarters ahead of you in your school and find the answer to this question.
  2. a care plan is a written work. Look at it as kind of the nursing school equivalent of a term paper. Depending on your school, the kind of degree program you are in and what your instructors want, it can be anything from as simple as an essay to as complex as a thesis!
  3. a care plan is the written expression of the nursing process. The nursing process is what being an RN is all about. It is how we solve problems. RNs spend their workdays solving all kinds of problems. That is mostly what we do. That is what I have been doing as an RN for the past 32 years. So, learning the nursing process is what you will be doing for the entire time you are in nursing school.
  4. Writing a care plan is part of learning about the nursing process. If this is something that you are already scared of, you need to face this demon because it is not going to go away. And, I can guarantee you that there will be other demons in nursing school and the profession of nursing that you will have to face. Life is way harder having to haul around demons you fear rather than facing them and dealing with them.

While I appreciate your experience and honesty, I was simply curious as to when the actual writing of care plans begins in school. I was also interested in others responses and experiences from their programs. In my program, we have just begun to incorporate the nursing process and have not begun writing care plans yet. Perhaps I worded the thread wrong. I'm fully aware that care planning and the nursing process continues all through a nurse's career, and I did not state anywhere in my post that I was fearful of this.

I'm sorry if I offended you, but I was under the impression that this was a student forum, and questions are posted everyday on here. I've learned many helpful things so far by just reading other responses. I thought mine was harmless enough to post as well. :o

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We started care plans as soon as we learned the nursing process, which was during first semester. Some of them have been shorter, more abbreviated versions (thank goodness) and some are huge multi-week projects (few and far betwen). We do a "preplan" on every patient we see, which is the shorter version. Each rotation (3 this semester, junior yr) we do a major care plan (last one was over 25 pgs)

Hope that helps a little.

Richard

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we learned care plans and how to write them during the first semester. we had to be prepared to write care plans for our patients during clinicals.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, IM, OB/GYN, neuro, GI.

We did one care plan about two months into the program that was a group project and wasn't graded or critiqued. When we started our junior clinicals we were assigned to turn in one every week and these were graded. The instructor graded them at first by seeing if we had the general idea and now we are being graded by if they are done properly and relate to the patients problems.

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Specializes in Emergency.

We started care plans almost immediately in my 2 year diploma program.

I don't get the problem that folks seem to have in writing 'em though. A care plan simply outlines what you're going to do for your patient. What's the threat to the patient? What are you going to do to intervene and why? What do you expect to see as an outcome?

At this point, I'm doing quick care plans in my head as I get report. Writing 'em up takes very little time. But then again, that's why we had to practice so much during the 1st year....

JMHO

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