How much time do you spend...

How much time do you spend preparing for clinicals each night?

TIA

[All_Smiles_RN]

Way too much time, lol. Can you tell I'm still preparing right now? It takes me about 3-4 hours, but that's not continuous time. I might answer the phone, get a drink, check Allnurses, etc. And that is only with 2 patients. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when our patient load increases. I'm hoping by then I won't have to look up all my information, that I'll just know it. How long do you spend, on average, preparing?

...Jennifer...

[mariedoreen]

Way too much time, lol. Can you tell I'm still preparing right now? It takes me about 3-4 hours, but that's not continuous time. I might answer the phone, get a drink, check Allnurses, etc. And that is only with 2 patients. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when our patient load increases. I'm hoping by then I won't have to look up all my information, that I'll just know it. How long do you spend, on average, preparing?

...Jennifer...

3-4 with two patients?! I'm 6-7 with one...

either my school is requiring way more, or I'm still way too slow at this...

[court519]

I just had my first clinical last Friday and I spent about 5 hours on Thursday preparing. I think as I get better at it, it'll take less time though. But I think 3-4 hours on two patients is good.

[kahumai, RN]

When you say "preparing," do you mean doing the paperwork or things like getting my bag/uniform/food ready?

[WSU_Ally_RN, BSN, RN]

I spent about 2 hours at the hospital and about 3-4hrs at home doing paperwork and preparing for clinical. My school has required forms we have to fill out before clinical, and we have to know our meds in and out before we can give them, so it takes a while to get ready for the next day.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

I spend 1 hour at the hospital gathering info (but i've been at it long enough i know how to go right for what i want, and i just slop it on a piece of paper, so i can really work at home).

at home, when i do a long careplan, i will spend several hours on it. 4 hours minimum.

[wonderbee, BSN, RN]

With two patients, countless hours that begin the night I get home from my last clinical of the week. The care plans themselves are no big deal. I can put them together in a couple of hours. It's the assessment flow sheets x 2 each patient, the nurse's notes, the pathophysiology, the labs and the med sheets that take up hours.

We have a cool system where the night before clinical, one of us goes into the hospital and gets all of our assignments. That way, we take turns. That person serves as patient care manager for the week. She will not have patients of her own and will just have to write a short paper on the experience.

[manna, BSN, RN]

We don't get our patient assignments until the morning of the clinical day, so the amount of paperwork we can do before is pretty limited. Leaves a LOT of things to be done in the evenings after clinical - when we're all already exhausted!

[mariedoreen]

The care plans themselves are no big deal. I can put them together in a couple of hours. It's the assessment flow sheets x 2 each patient, the nurse's notes, the pathophysiology, the labs and the med sheets that take up hours.

Ah now see, maybe we should be clarifying what we mean by prep work here.. For me care plan paperwork encompasses the lab and med sheets and pathophys paper... all due the next day. The only thing we don't have done is our assessment sheet (obviously) and the evaluations on our planned interventions.

[kahumai, RN]

We don't get our assignments until the morning of either, but we still have mound of paperwork due on that patient the following week. I would estimate that it takes roughly 15 hours (no joke, either!) Usually about 20 drug cards to write up, patho flow diagram, labs, head-to-toe assessment, concept analysis, and, among many other things, a care plan, which at this point in the game is the least of my worries. The drug cards seem to be the worst because they serve no purpose for me whatsoever; just a waste of my precious time. Plus my teacher gives us practive ABG's and drug calc problems to do, and every week someoe presents one of their patients to the group, requiring an additional few hours because we need handouts, etc.

Whew!

[kellyo, LPN]

We don't get our patient assignments until the morning of the clinical day, so the amount of paperwork we can do before is pretty limited. Leaves a LOT of things to be done in the evenings after clinical - when we're all already exhausted!

Our clinicals are the same. I can spend 8-10 hours the night after our Monday clinicals just preparing and doing the careplan for the next day...