Help I need advice (Nursing Students/Current Nurses)

[ks42551]

I am currently a sophomore nursing student studying to recieve my BSN. I have recently started my first clinical course. Within this course we have been learning things such as giving bed baths, creating a sterile field, sterile dressing changes, catheterization, etc. With this I have formed many doubts about my future in nursing. I wanted to go into nursing because I wanted to help people in the medical field and I loved the patient-nurse bond that a doctor would not be able to create. However, I feel as though all of the knowledge and work I have put into my degree thus far is irrelevant when all i'm learning about is how to bathe people and clean up after them. I am interested in the technical and scientific aspect of nursing more than what I am learning now, but can I expect to encounter that without an advanced degree (ex. NP) ? Is it normal to feel this way? Should I consider changing my major?

[ladybug89]

You should stay in nursing. I am a senior nursing student in my last semester. It does seem that in clinical, all you do is give baths. But nurses have to be able to do what a CNA and LPN can do. CNA is considered basic. You will build upon those basics. With that being said, you can specialized in numerous things within nursing. And advanced degree is always an option. I would like to be a CRNA, this is a masters program. There are Forensic nurses, although the job demand is not that high. This is also a masters program. Nurses also can work in the laboratory, for research trials and in pharmaceuticals. So the best get is an advanced degree. You can do alot with a bachelors though so you should check into what type of nursing you want to go into.

[knittygrittyRN, MSN, RN]

Whether or not you realize it there is a lot of nursing care in bathing a client and cleaning them up. It might not be the technical aspect you crave but you have to figure your teacher has you under their license, plus all of your classmates. Your mistakes are liable on them and could get them fired. Once you get a job they'll orient you and you'll have a much wider scope then a student and be able to perform such tasks. Also after you graduate many nurses simply delegate the basic tasks to the PCA/ CNAs etc but bathing a client is the best way to do a full skin assessment, check any wounds they have etc.

The PCAs/CNAs on the floor I'm on have double the amount of patients the nurses have, and I feel get under rated for the amount of work and the type they do. It's easy to consider cleaning a client beneath your knowledge but it's fundamental in understanding that anything that means caring for your client falls on you, it will be your license if something is done incorrectly or not done at all. No matter what degree you pursue in nursing you will end up cleaning a client for whatever mess they have.

[AOx1]

Nursing is a field much like any other field in one aspect. It is what you make of it. There are nurses who only follow orders, never questioning or really learning the rationale of their actions, just as there are workers in every field who show up, punch a clock, and go home. My first nursing mentor was the polar opposite. He read extensively to learn more, participated in research, excelled at skills, and was a true model of a nurse that makes the most of each day. I don't know of anyone who didn't respect his knowledge.

As the previous post noted, there is a rationale for even the most basic skills. You need to know the basics first. For example, I would hope that you would not feel comfortable working with an accountant who didn't know the difference between a credit and debit and how to use a ledger or spreadsheet. This would be a basic accounting skill. As you master the basic skills of nursing, always ask yourself why you are doing a task. If you still want more information, start looking into best practices for each area of interest. It might surprise you to know that there is often a discrepancy in what we do on a regular basis vs best practice. To give you one example, the World Health Organization has specific criteria for when a newborn should be bathed. This sounds quite simple and mundane, yet the standards are often not followed. Why is that? What other sources of information exist? What factors and outside pressures could lead a nurse to bathe a baby earlier than recommended? What are the risks of doing this? How could you change practice whenever you encounter something that doesn't align with research? If you want to exceed the basics, you can begin to incorporate research findings into your practice as you learn.

Whether the time you spend is wasted is up to you. How far do you want to go past just the basics? Get a good foundation of skills and knowledge, then proceed from there. If you gloss over the basics, this is a problem that will only compound itself later as you try to build on a foundation that isn't there.