Help!Priorities and Organizing on Med-Surg Floor

[keludtke]

Help!

I graduate in December after a year absence of being deployed overseas for the Army. So I went back to finish school and now am in my last clinical. I am working on a med-surg floor at a very busy hospital. I have strugged all semester.

I got my mid-term eval a week ago and she said I need to work on organizing and prioritizing. This is really hard for me, because she hasn't helped me with this. I swear she thrives on chaos.

Does anyone have any tips for this? She says I need to improve on my nursing judgement and making decisions on my own.

I am feeling really down about this experience. How are you suppose to feel after your last clinical before you graduate? I still feel uncoordinated. My head is always swarming and I am always trying to do everything I am suppose to do and do it right. I ask for her guidance and I feel like I am bugging her with all my questions. It is very frustrating and it makes me cry a lot. Sorry, I need to vent.

Any suggestions for how to organize myself? And how to prioritize?

Thank you!

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

i am listing the links to a couple of previous threads that addressed this issue. learning to get organized and prioritize is always a work in progress. it changes constantly as you learn new things and learn from situations that occur. within these links are websites i often post on prioritizing and how to make todo lists. despite what you might think, you only have knowledge of how to be a nurse when you finish nursing school, but not enough of the practical application of that knowledge. your real learning comes when you get your first job. i understand how you feel about your instructor's evaluation, but unfortunately, this is one skill that people can only give you their advice about. it really is something where you have to learn what works best for you. i suspect that the reason your instructor might have been a little hard on you is because you are asking her for too much guidance. you are going to have to figure out this organizing and prioritizing on your own when you start working. how do you do that? trial and error--the old fashion way. i can tell you what i do (and i did in a post yesterday, you can read it in the link below), but it may not work for you. over the years i found that it was easier for me to create my own "brains" (report sheets) because i had total control over how it was set up. if you want to see the one i use, you can view it here. feel free to copy and use it if you like. it works for me. i can't guarantee it will work for you. it may, however, give you ideas of where to start.

[attach]5032[/attach] my report sheet

https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/2-patients-clinicals-185720.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f8/orginazational-skills-187379.html

https://allnurses.com/forums/f224/i-just-cant-catch-177426.html