How many patients do you have during clinicals?

Nursing Students General Students

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Specializes in None.

We haven't started our clinicals and won't until later towards the end of this month, our instructor told us yesterday that we'll only have 1 patient at each of out clinical that we will be responsible for taking care of. Is that the norm for beginning nursing students? I was incredibly relieved to hear that I would only have 1 pt this semester, but was wondering if we will care for multiple patients as we go along through school.

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Our first semester we had 1 pt during each rotation. The last week we had 2.

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For most of the semesters we had only 1 but during Synthesis (our last semester) we had 3 patients and we each had a day where we were chargte nurse.

Good Luck

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For our first few semesters we had 1 pt. Then they worked us up to 2 then 3. The good news is that if you have a good clinical instructor they won't make you take on 2 or 3 pts until they feel you are ready.

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For nursing 1 and 2, we had 1 pt. During 1st semester I wish we had 2....it was boring a lot of the time and I think I definitely had time to have more then 1. I'm in nursing 3 now and we start out with 1 and if the instructor feels we can handle another, she'll give us 2.

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It was 1 up until this week. Now it's 2.

And it wasn't bad this week. But I really didn't have any total care patients. Now if I had 2 of them like the lady I had last week I don't know.

She was total care. Bedbound- couldn't move in bed. Couldn't feed herself- so guess what I did. Then she started having diarrea (like 3 stools within 2 hours) and a stage 2 ulcer on her bottom. And the poo was ALL over her bottom. I was cleaning up poo for what seemed my entire shift. And then I had to keep running to find someone to help me b/c she was 250 pounds of dead weight. Keeping up with charting was a pain.

Cheryl

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Specializes in Operating Room.

We had a short 5-week clinical at the nursing home to start out, and I had only 1 pt. Second semester we were in the hospital, starting with 2 pts. At the end I decided to take 3 pts because I was managing my time well and 2 pts wasn't very challenging. This semester we started out with 2 pts again but I will probably take 3 pts soon and try my hand at 4.

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During my clinicals, we have 1 assigned patient, that we do our significant findings and all that other fun stuff on. But throughout the day, we just run around and help whoever needs help. I know I've helped 4 or 5 diff patients in a clinical day.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTC, Rehab, Complex Care.

First and second semester was one patient. Third was two patients. And during my pre-grad I worked up to a full patient load (4-5)

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Specializes in Private Practice- wellness center.

I won't start clinicals for a while yet, but my program is like Sabrina's. One pt. for the first couple rotations, you work up to being able to take on a full load for the preceptorship. :D

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First year we had one, second year we went to two, and during third year we will do our preceptorship and take between 3 - 5.

Trust me, you'll be plenty busy doing total patient care for one patient when you first start :)

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Most programs start out with 1-2 pts. during clinicals. It seemed like mine were always being discharged before am med pass so i would help my classmates with theirs.

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