How do you not feel terrible after making mistakes during clinicals?

[MaryFutureRN]

Hello, I'm on my 5th semester of my BSN program and we're currently assigned on OB and Delivery Room in clinicals. Of course we were severely reprimanded and criticized during our first-time moments blah blah, but I've improved so far.

It's just that I feel sometimes I make too many mistakes and it's really making me feel stupid. I mean literally dumb, stupid, and incompetent.

I have decent grades in both acads and clinicals, but I always snap whenever I make mistakes. It's not that I've given the wrong drug or catered to the wrong patient or forgot to regulate the IV. Thankfully, I've been careful when doing those stuff.

Like today, my clinical instructor was really upset and called me 'high' because I plotted the VS values on the patient's VS sheet wrongly. I drew a wrong line and it ruined the sheet. She was really angry at me that she asked me to leave her sight.

I just felt really terrible about that.

Ehh, I may be overreacting or being oversensitive or Idk. But how do I deal with low moments like this?

[Mr. Murse]

Where are you in school at (I mean what country/state)? your school sounds kind of ridiculously childish and harsh.

[LittleCandles]

Wow your instructor is childish I never heard of any instructor doing that. I've made those silly kind of mistakes as a nurse (as a matter of fact, I got back a fall report today *for the second time 😒* and had to redo a few things because it wasn't perfect) and I never was beaten up verbally like that.

[Nienna Celebrindal]

Your instructor is very unprofessional, please make someone in your program aware. Instructors like this ruin schools reputations and clinical sites (which can be hard for schools to get). We all make stupid minor mistakes. Just try to learn from them and move on. Good luck!

[spartan_nurse]

First, I agree with all the responses above. We are students we are going to make mistakes and when we graduate and get our license we will be nurses, we are going to make mistakes. There is no such things as a perfect nurse. However, I think I know what you're getting at. One day I forgot to all of my charting so in the last 20 minutes of clinical I was typing like a madman trying to get everything charted. I felt so dumb. The only thing you can do when you make a mistake is learn from it, try to avoid making the same mistake in the future, and move on. Accept that you've made a mistake and ask yourself, "Why did that thing happen/not happen?" Being introspective can help you to identify weak areas and become a better nurse.