Had a horrible day in clinicals :(

sharpeimom · Dec 5, 2013

You will get faster and you'll not be bothered by most icky smells eventually. Something you can try is tucking a cotton ball saturated with oil of peppermint or wintergreen into your pocket or bra. Spearmint works too. Teabags work too but not quite as well. You can put a bit of Vicks on your upper lip too.

You will pick up speed as you gain more experience. Something that helped me when I was a student nurse was to get all my patients set up before I bathed or showered the first one. If your partner pulls her disappearing act again, track down your instructor and tell her not only about that day but the last one too. If she behaves like a responsible adult, I wouldn't mention the last time.

Remind yourself when a little old man is assigned to you that he's undoubtedly more uncomfortable than you are! Just be matter-of-fact and friendly and you'll both be fine. If you don't have any idea what to say while you assist your patient, just ask her about her family, grandchildren, pets, etc. Ask a man about his job before he retired, his kids, hobbies, pets...

You'll be great!

FashionablyL8, CNA, LPN · Dec 5, 2013

I think it's normal to feel overwhelmed when you're new. I know I did! Even experienced CNAs don't know where everything is in a new facility- things are different everywhere, plus there are usually a couple ppl who like to give the new aides cr@p... coworkers, I mean, not so much residents, although some will test you!

Hang in there, remind yourself that everyone is new sometime, even your instructor was once :). And learn from constructive critisism and good advice, but disregard anything that is said to you in a mean spirited or petty way. You will pick up speed once you learn where everything is and get the hang of it, but meanwhile, try to stay calm.and don't rush too frantically. That can be unsafe and leadto accidents or forhetting important things such as locking wheelchairs, putting up bedrails, etc.

I am.puzzled about you having to fish the wipes out of the commode though... was there a reason for that? Putting up with unsavory odors is part of the job, but generally instructors want us to do things in the most sanitary way possible, so I'm curious about that one!

Good luck- keep your head up and don't let anything make you doubt yourself!

mvm2 · Dec 5, 2013

I am so sorry that you had a bad day. Big Hugs and praying tomarrow will be a better and brighter day. I wouldn't beat yourself up too much because if you don't know where everything is you are going to be slow. I think giving you 3 residents to take care of at one time is wrong for you only being a student. I guess everyones clinical experince is different because it seems that they made you jump in the deep end right away and had to litterally be these peoples CNA and do everything for them.

Our class had 6 people and we only had one person we would work with at a time and our instructor was there as well. We never had to do everything for these people. We had a few showers we would do and everyone was in the shower room. Two people would do the bathing while one would be in charge of nail care. Then we would maybe have another person help get the person dressed, and have a different person do denture care fo that person. We just seemed to do things random for certain residents but the majority was still done by the working CNAs.

AtomicxKitten · Dec 5, 2013

Thank you all for the wonderful advice. It's nice to know that i'm not the only one who was nervous their first time as most of my classmates have already had lots of experience with CNA work so they pretty much know what they're doing and how to do it, it kinda makes me feel like the odd one out.

I am very lucky my instructor is a very nice woman, she just tends to be pushy at times which is sometimes needed. We've become really close these past five weeks. She did say today she was being more hard on me because she knows I want to eventually work in the hospital and I've heard things are pretty fast paced there and that she just wants to make sure that I'm successful but I do feel rushed to finish doing certain tasks because where we have our clinicals, patients have to be up and ready at a certain time.

The only reason I had three patients today was because the last two days I was with a different partner from our class and we had only one patient who was a ceiling lift. The first day was pretty rough but the second day I knew her routine by heart and it wasn't that bad. So, our instructor had the idea to have us switch partners (All the girls have different patients and have a certain number they have to take care of it ranges from 1-3) so that the girls who haven't used the ceiling lifts yet could learn. That and if there are any other patients who need tending to, and the Aides who are on call ask one of us "Would you mind getting this patient up for me?" because when our patients are at breakfast we really are running up and down the hallway seeing if anyone else needs help lol :).

So I figured getting this one lady up that gets up a little later than the other residents wouldn't be so hard. Little did I know she has Alzheimers and she can get combative and tends to want to sit down when we're trying to get her depends off or when we are doing peri-care so this is where the disposable wipes come in. We had one of the Aides on call come in and help us hold her while we cleaned her bottom up and this poor Aide was stuck holding the patient up by herself while I cleaned her and we were in a rush so my instructor told me to just throw the wipes in the commode (They told us NOT to flush the disposables) and fish them out after we were done. So I got stuck digging through a potty chair lol.

MandieeRN · Dec 5, 2013

Had a really stressful day today... Picking up the pace when you have to get several patients up, bathed/showered, dressed, toileted, and ready at a certain time and doing that all within 10-20 minutes is really difficult. While being told that you are being too slow but what are you supposed to do when you don't know where any of their personal belongings are, you're told that so and so needs a shower at the last minute so you're rushing around trying to get everything ready for their shower while worrying about the 3rd patient you need to get up and ready so they can have their breakfast.
Felt like I was going to break down and cry today just because I had 3 patients to get up and get ready and I had trouble with picking up speed since these patients were new to me and I had no idea where any of their personal items were or anything.
Then I was told by my instructor that I need to cheer up and stop being negative (I didn't realize I was... I always come into the patients rooms with a smile on my face and try to be as friendly as possible) so that made me feel great... Don't get me wrong I love my teacher to death, just the way she gives constructive criticism isn't the greatest.
I gagged five times today trying to clean out a commode (I had to reach in a urine filled potty chair because my instructor insisted on throwing the disposable wipes into it then told me to fish them out after we were done cleaning up our patient and the stench was VERY overwhelming, luckily I hadn't eaten yet).
Your instructor was in the wrong here! They make garbage bags for a reason that's where wipes need to go. Then the bag goes out of the patients room.Throwing them into commode is bad practice.Plus wastes even more time because now you have to fish them out. I was a CNA for 5 years before I became a nurse. Time management takes a longtime to master. don't feel bad you will get there:) please don't take feedback from you instructor to heart just try to learn. You will get a job and learn where everything is and find a routine. Good luck!!

penny186, ADN, BSN, CNA, RN · Dec 5, 2013

I felt the same way at first. Trust me, it does get better with time. I remember the first time I was pulled to a hectic floor from my usual total care floor. I didnt know any residents or routines. They were very demanding, call lights went off constantly, nobody cared to help, and the nurses had no compassion for me. I didn't take breaks or lunch and I was so behind, getting yelled at by nurses. I had a breakdown and went home crying. To this day, I still hate getting pulled to that floor, but with experience I am now very fast and efficient and can adapt to any floor and handle things when we are short staffed, thanks to the help of other aides who taught me on the job. When you get your own floor, you will eventually know the residents and routines inside and out. This happened when I was a fairly new aide. Dont give up! Practice makes perfect. Dont be scared to ask for help. It may seem bad now, but one day you will be doing things you never even thought possible. Even the best and fastest aides and nurses started out from the bottom.

slilly · Dec 5, 2013

Listen, I remember being in your shoes at one time, and I know that one of my friends from my class got a minor injury because the people at our clinical did not help us out at all, they thought it was okay to go out and take long breaks cause we were doing their job. At my work, teamwork is key, and I know that since its usually me and another CNA, plus the 2 nurses we have, we all pull together when we can. If our nurse manager is at work usually if she comes down to our area she asks if there is anything we need help getting done, which is nice because she doesn't have to do that at all, but she does. I have been abandoned at work with 10 patients all to myself cause a girl called out that morning and we couldn't find coverage til half of the shift was almost over, so it was me 7a-1p, and let me tell you taking care of mainly bedbound patients is not so easy turning and repositioning by yourself, along with having multiple feeders too. Being honest I feel like the last thing you should worry about is the smell because believe it or not if a patient is dying and their mouth is open a lot then that can be worse than bowel movements or urine, but thats just me and I do multiple rounds of mouth care when possible. Keep your head up and don't let this one bad experience bring you down just yet, there are going to be days where your patients will want to give you hugs and a kiss on the cheek for everything you did!

superwholock · Dec 5, 2013

My first experience as being a caregiver was when I was volunteering at a camp for kids with special needs as a counselor. The director of the camp told us the story of her first day. She was in charge of a room of about 10 MH/MR kids, and they had one of those huge fans that are like four feet wide (you see where this is going.) One of the kids got their finger amputated. Her advice was that if your first day goes better than that, you're ahead of the game.

You are a CNA on clinicals. Nobody has their first few clinicals without being slow and nervous and forgetting ridiculously easy things. I forgot how to use a freaking tympanic thermometer and kept turning on the memory without it taking a new temp, and wondering why everybody was 97.4. You are going to be slow. You don't have a lot of practice, you don't know the facility, you probably don't know where ANYTHING is, and patients are more compliant with caregivers they know. You are gonna be slow, the nurses know you're gonna be slow, and are just trying to keep up with all of their duties too.

Wear gloves. Don't drop anybody. That's about all you can hope for your first day of clinicals. It is more important to take care of your patients properly then it is to rush and make mistakes trying to get everyone to breakfast on time. You're only there for a short time, they can be a little behind schedule if it means you do things RIGHT. If you learn to cut corners and get used to half-assing it, you won't ever learn to do it efficiently.

HANG IN THERE! You will get faster. My first patient on my own, I think I took two hours showering her and getting her ready. It happens. And yeah, people get mad at you about it, because it messes up their day and their schedule, but that's life. Try not to focus on it too much, especially if it's not constructive criticism, and they're just bagging on you for being slow.

The smells will get better too. I had a leg up there--after babies and kids and dogs and horses and cats, there is basically no amount of bodily fluids that will gross me out. Still get knocked flat by the really bad skin yeast infections, but that will get better, too. I would be careful about perfumes or essential oils, since a lot of people have sensitivities, but the Vicks thing works really well. And you can keep a little "sniffy" bottle to get out and try and get the smell out of your nose. Inhaling coffee works really well too (and hey, coffee!)

Good luck!

AtomicxKitten · Dec 5, 2013

Thanks guys. I'm glad that I have a website to go to in times like this where I can get some good advice. :) I really want to get my associates in Nursing but was a bit nervous when my instructor told me that they really want you to be fast paced in the hospital especially if you're a nurse. I don't want to go into being a nurse and not be able to focus taking care of my patients correctly because I'm too nervous worrying about how fast I'm being. As well as when I am a CNA. I REALLY want to work in the hospital more than anything so I am going to try my hardest right now to get through class then figure out what I'm going to do with my license after that. And I plan on going to college while I am doing CNA work.

Smells don't normally bother me, if they are REALLY bad I have Vicks. The only time they really bother me is like if my face is right in it... :/ (I have a mother who has Crohns disease and I have taken care of her when she has been incontinent. And if any of you know what Crohns diarrhea smells like... you know it when I say it really knocks you back.)

AtomicxKitten · Dec 5, 2013

That's a really good idea. They have essential oils at this shop I know of for about $7 they could fit the front pocket of my scrubs. I might try that because Vicks just isn't doing the trick for me unless I literally shove it up my nose and I really don't want to do that lol.

Glycerine82, LPN · Dec 6, 2013

Its about time management, which you will learn. They are trying to prepare you for a job. I used to have ALL of my patients to get up. Every single one. From 9-12 patients on day shift. I would just have to hit the floor running, and I learned my little tricks that helped me stay organized. I would do my total cares last, and my independent (ish) patients first. You need to go to the bathroom? Great! Lets get washed and dressed while we're at it! You learn to multitask big time and kill as many birds with one stone as you possibly can. Don't waste valuable time getting the patient on the commode, off the commode, into the chair, up again to remove pants, down again to put them on, up again to pull them up when you can do it a fraction of the time. (On the commode, off with the pants, let em do their business, wash the lower legs, slide undies and pants on, stand up wash bottom, pants up and done!) Things like that will save you so much time.

Getting someones lower half washed and dressed before you get them out of bed if they are a total care or a max is soooo much easier than getting them in the chair first. Its also much easier to get their upper half done while they are in the chair than in the bed. Its a little backwards, yes, but it works.

Don't get discouraged it will all come with time. Don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be afraid to ask for help. At the same time, learn what tasks you truly need help with and which ones you can actually do alone. Oh, and never ask for help until you are at the point where the help is needed. One thing that took me a long time to grasp was the other CNA's did not have time to help me dress someone in order to transfer them. I needed to have the pt dressed and then ask for help with the transfer. PM me if you have any questions.