why are some students getting 2 patients?

Nursing Students General Students

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why are some of my classmates getting 2 patients and others are not?

Some of these girls are not better.

I am 3rd term lpn student. We dont get multiple patients till 4th.

However we are responsible for doing an head to toe assessment, then doing focused ones as we meet abnormalities, passing meds (except for IV of course) setting up solutions and drip rates, monitoring those solutions, documenting vital signs every two hours and documenting I's an O's if needed. Also bathing the patient if needed. The nurses love to have us because we do almost everything for them.

It will take some getting used to with more then one patient heh. Then again with more patients we will be required to delegate more to the CNAs which would help alot.

In my second semester, by the middle of the semester, all five people in my clinical group had two patients with total care, all meds (BSN), all assessments, any procedures we could do - basically everything. Oh, and we could delegate nothing to the CNAs.

We survived, but there were days we doubted it...

Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

We started acute care clinicals with 1 patient and then moved up to 2 by around our 3-4 week...some sooner than others. It depends on your workload with patient, their acuity, if you have a lot of meds, or if the instructor just feels you aren't ready to move up to 2. By the end, we'll have full patient load for capstone, then have to be the leader for ALL students on floor for around 9-10 patients a piece (know all drugs, do research night before, etc....basically all clinical prepwork....).

Don't take it personally.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Cardiac.
In our clinical we are supposed to only take one patient however there have been times where some of us took 2 for various reasons.

2 of the girls in my group kept picking patients that were too easy, and did not need a lot of care, so she started making them take 2 patients so they weren't constantly walking around complaining of being bored and there being nothing for them to do. Sort of punishment.

I personally always chose patients that need the most amount of care and have a lot wrong with them so I can stay busy and learn a lot. She had me take on a 2nd patient one day only because the nursing staff was completely overwhelmed and they needed the help and she trusted me and felt I could handle taking on a 2nd high needs patient.

Other times she's had some of the girls take on a 2nd patient as a way of making up for missed clinical days and such.

So there could be a number of reasons. It often doesn't mean that they are better than anyone else.

You get to PICK patients? In our clinical we show up Tuesday noon, are told by the instructor who our patient is. We go over the chart and examine the patient. Then we go home and write the care plan and then take care of the patient on Wednesday and Thursday. (This is the beginning of Med-Surg clinicals.) I have no idea how the instructor decides who to assign to us, but I'm assuming she has a reason for her decisions.

Two weeks ago I could have used a second patient as mine was very easy. Last week I had my hands full with one and probably didn't do all that good a job with him:o .

I volunteered/requested to have two patients on several days last semester during clinicals, because I felt I was spending a lot of time sitting and doing nothing with only one. I was given two less-critical patients on the days I took two (we do not pick our own patients, they are assigned to us) and that made a difference. I felt that in a way having two was easier than having one - it was much easier for me to get into a rhythm and decide how to plan my day with two patients, simply because I could fill my "down time" with the first patient by taking care of the second. Then again, if one of the patients had been extremely ill, that would have made it much more difficult and I don't know that I could have handled it as a level 1 student if I hadn't had "easy" patients.

If you think you can handle two patients then step up and tell your CI that you want two patients because you feel that you are ready to handle them not because so and so has more and you think they aren't any better than you.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.

well it's one of two things. either the students recieving multiple patients are more prepared or more "ready" than you, or it's just a case of your instructor not being ready to give every student multiple patients. your instructor is responsible for you and your patients, so maybe some of you will get multiple patients some days and the rest of you will get multiple patients on other days. but if you really want to know for sure, ask your instructor. ;)

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