Hate clinicals?

Published

  1. Dislike clinicals?

    • 25
      Yes
    • 20
      No

45 members have participated

Do most nursing students hate clinicals as much as I do?? 90% of the time I'm not actually learning anything, I always feel like I'm in the way, and most of the time I feel inadequate or that I have no idea what I'm supposed to really be doing. Does every nursing student feel this way (outside of a teaching hospital environment)? Many of my fellow students also do not look forward to clinicals. For reference, I am in my final semester (Thank you Lord) of a 2yr ADN program. We started on site clinicals within 3 wks of our program, and we have traditional 15 wk (give or take) semesters. I am a 2nd career student (32yr old) who already holds a previous Associates and Bachelors degree in two other fields. Just looking for others input!

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I was always anxious before my first day of clinical if the week, but never disliked them. I was fortunate to have supportive instructors who challenged me to push myself and my knowledge further, develop my critical thinking and do further research. However, for the most part I was left alone to do my own thing because they trusted I would approach them or my RN if I had concerns/ questions about my patients condition

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Our instructors mainly just let us go do our own thing as well, and if I need assistance with something I could go to them, but it's mostly like "go pick a patient, let me know who you pick, meet me back here at this time for dinner break". Then, we pick our patient, hear report, introduce ourselves, do a head to toe, safety check, etc etc, go back and review patient chart and get our gazillion patient forms filled out, go check on our patients again, check with nurse to see if they need help or if they are doing something we can assist with etc, can pass meds with the nurse who is assigned our patient or the instructor (there is normally 8 students per group) but that's basically the gist of it. I don't know I feel like the only thing I get is anxiety and doubt on clinical days. I mean, I'm great with the people aspect (years of CS in the past) and in terms of skills when we do them in our lab scenarios I excel, but on site I just feel so blah about the experience. Last semester my instructor was the ANC for the cardiac floor, so we went to shared governance meetings and staff meetings and once we attended a code, so those other experiences broke up the monotony of the shift and were interesting to me. Maybe "hate" is too strong of a word, but I definitely do not enjoy them most of the time. Thanks for your input!

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I didn't hate clinicals in my program, and nobody I knew did. We were busy all day in clinical providing nursing care (under the supervision of our instructor, not dumped on the staff nurses) to our assigned clients -- which we did not pick out ourselves, but were selected by our instructor in order to provide us with a wide range of clinical experience and learning. By the last term of my program, we were taking four clients per clinical day, learning to juggle their needs and care and develop our time management skills, and doing everything the RNs did (instead of the staff RNs who, in our program, likedhaving students because we provided all the nursing care and it was an easy day for them).

I'm often saddened by the descriptions I read from students here of what their school experience is like. It seems (from what I read) that nursing education has really gone downhill since us old-timers were in school.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Trauma.

The first few weeks of clinical were... not the most exciting. At first we would me our patient, but would mostly go through the charts to put together our patho packets. Then we started getting a little more hands on, vitals, assessments, etc... It took a while for it to be "new and exciting", especially for those of us with past CNA experience. I love clinicals, though.

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Clinical aren't my favorite thing to do, but I don't hate them. I've disliked certain rotations, and felt as though some days were wasted (looking at you Mother/Baby 1.) Generally I learn a good bit during the rotations though. My background is in hospitality so I need all of the clinical time I can get.

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I hated my clinicals at first for 1st semster, but now I'm taking medsurge and there's a lot more to learn. Though I still don't particularly love my clinicals either, it's more of a "I don't hate them, and I dont love them".

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I had no previous medical background prior to nursing school, so our first rotation (LTC facility, 3 weeks into program) was absolutely terrifying. After 4 weeks in LTC I did 7 weeks in the hospital on a pulmonary unit, 7 weeks Peds, 7 weeks L&D (my favorite although I agree mother baby was a bit "dry"), 15 weeks MedSurg, 7 weeks Psych (in patient short term hospital so that was pretty useless), and now I am on a PCU for the next 14 weeks (1 week down, yay). I suppose I was a little harsh in using hate, but I certainly do not enjoy them majority of the time! The CNAs (we use the term PCT-patient care tech, in our hospital system) have been the most helpful! They really are great and are always willing to show you and help you with anything and everything. Even though we stay within the same hospital system for rotations, we move locations so the equipment varies and store rooms and linen rooms etc change, and the PCTs are always willing to show me the ropes. I suppose I'm just always so nervous and apprehensive on clinical days that I began to dread them, and that spurred my "hate" rant! Thanks again for all the input!!

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

As a clinical instructor myself, it is distressing to hear you say you "hate clinicals" and that 90% of the time you're "not actually doing anything." If you were my student, I would talk with you individually about what we could do to make your clinical experience more meaningful for you. Clinicals is where you get to bring your academic training together with real-world circumstances. If nothing else, it can be fascinating to observe how textbook teachings and reality are rarely a perfect match.

Do you have post-clinical conferences with your instructors, where you discuss your clinical experiences? I hope so. And I also hope you and your classmates are being forthcoming in letting your instructors at the school know what your clinical experience is like. They can't help you have a better clinical experience if they don't know what is going on.

Since most of your fellow students are less than excited about clinicals, too, it makes me wonder if there has been some sort of communication breakdown between your school and your clinical site? Clarifying the expectations and roles for preceptors and nursing students-in writing-is part of the contractual arrangement between your school and the clinical site.

Furthermore, the board of nursing in your state and the credentialing bodies that oversee your school, will specify certain clinical requirements that need to be met in order for you to graduate, get your license, and be safe to practice. So, it's always in the best interests of both the school and the clinical site for you to have a good, substantive, clinical experience.

If your school is not already doing so, maybe they could offer the clinical preceptors at your clinical site some sort of in-service training or at least a "handbook" on how to be a good preceptor (translation: let the student DO some things, and here are the things it's OK to let them do.) The document or training could even suggest, describe, or demonstrate specific ways to involve students, hands-on, in the shift's activities. Take a copy of the "preceptor handbook" with you to clinicals in case your preceptor hasn't had time to read it.

Also, do you have a skills checklist of clinical skills you are supposed to be able to perform before graduation? Print out a hard copy of your skills checklist and show it to your preceptor at your clinical site. Then ask specifically for your preceptor's help in getting a chance to participate when those things happen on the floor. This may help your preceptor focus on specific ways to get you involved.

If the items on your list are not happening on the floor where you are assigned, you might try asking your preceptor if he or she can show you how they like to do certain things such as bandaging or setting up a Hoyer lift, or starting an IV, or whatever, in the break room or before or after the shift. Sometimes they can even send you to another floor if there is something you've asked to be part of (end-of-life procedures, for example). Speaking up about what you need as a student is a good skill to have, because you'll need to be able to speak up for yourself on the job as well.

In your program, do you have a chance to go to different clinical sites, or is it always the same location with the same people? It's always good to see different locations in action, so if you always have the same site throughout your program, you may want to reach out to other places nearby in your community and request a "shadow day" to simply go and observe how things work differently elsewhere. You can also use these "shadow day" requests as informational interviews during the job search process.

These suggestions are aimed at helping you be proactive in getting the most out of your clinical experience. I hope they helped a little, or at least got your wheels turning about some different things you could do to make your situation a little better. Again, I'm sorry to hear your clinical experience is less than ideal.

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Thank you for response Lane as well as suggestions. We do have pre and post conference, some more in depth than others. We also have certain expectations per speciality (formally written) and we do meet them all. We also have skills checklists as part of our requirements (foley insertions, wound care, ostomy care, trach care, suctioning, priming tubing, etc etc) and we do "skills days" in our schools sim lab where we are shown the skills, perform them for our instructions and then get signed off on those (if we perform them adequately). If any of said skills come up in clinical we are able to perform them (some under supervision of instructor or staff RN, some on our own). I think part of it is we are assignment one patient (usually) and spend over 6hrs on the floor. When taking care of only one patient, there can be a lot of down time in between. We do have a ton of paperwork we have to submit so that down time isn't always a bad thing. We are proactive in asking the other students or nurses if they need anything, and every once in a while you'll get a great nurse who will let you shadow her for all her patients and perform as many tasks as you can with her. However, these nurses are few and far between, unfortunately. Some times you'll get a nurse who will literally ignore you and wants NOTHING to do with a student. When confronted with that situation, in my experience, I tent to get extremely self conscious and shut down. We are there to learn, even if only by observation in some instances, but some nurses don't even want us in the same room as them. It's a shame. Our rotations are held within the same hospital network, but the sites themselves vary. The particular hospital we are affiliated with has 3 main campuses within a 20 mile radius of our college campus so we are able to rotate throughout the system. Each specialty is either 7 weeks or 15 weeks so the floor/unit and staff are ever changing. Our instructors are normally pretty helpful, however they do have 8 students per group and can't always be with every student for extended periods of time. Our particular program is also going through a major overhaul which has been a very unorganized and major thorn in our sides so this may have something to do with my dissatisfaction. As noted, the clinical experiences are what you, the student, make of it so I just need to be more vigilant in pushing for further teachings and opportunities for learning. Thank you again!

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You gotta get checked off on all those skills. Those are the things that really make me look back at clinical days and think I accomplished something. I just got checked off on IV Push and it was a really good feeling knowing that I am able to do a RN level skill. Before that it was Accuchecks, or IVPB, etc. Just take something from every rotation. Not every day will be awesome, but not every day working will be either.

Also, my mother baby bad experience comes from being a male student (230 lbs at that) I think. I didn't get a lot of opportunities to observe or go hands on with the OB aspect. I did learn a lot in my Nursery rotation though.

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I'm in my final semester as well, congratulations! :)

I love my patients, and being there, but our hospital is rural and I really don't get a lot of experience doing different stuff. It's been slow, this semester, and I'm looking forward to being done.

I also feel so unprepared for what's to come, but thankful to have a job lined up that has a 12 week training plan built in so I can learn directly from my trainer!

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