Is your clinical experience like mine?

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I'm just wondering if all schools do this or if we are just special. I knew about care plans and that they took an incredible amount of time to complete so that didn't surprise me.

What has is the other clinical work we have to do. So I'm going to describe our clinical week and you tell me if yours is like this.

We go to the hospital on Tuesday afternoon to get our patient. We look through their chart and fill in a "clinical prep form". This includes all meds, labs, dx tests, diet, etc. We give a background on the patient and set up a schedule for the next day. We bring it to clinical and our instructor looks it over, makes some notes and feedback and gives it back. We complete our day and go home to make corrections/add to our clinical prep, it's due by midnight that night. THEN we have until the following Mon/Tue to complete the careplan. This careplan also includes all assessment data to support the nsg dx.

We didn't start clinicals until the last 3 weeks, which we are all also preparing for finals while doing our last careplan. It's been quite a stressful weekend.

So what are clinicals like at your school?

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I am in the part time RN program at our school and we have clinical on Tuesday nights. We go in at 4 get our patient and go do everything we need to do with that patient until 9 pm. At 9 we have post conference and tell about our patient. Then we have until the next week to turn in our paperwork. Which is mostly just assessment info, nursing diagnoses, goals, medications, and we have a bunch of things to write down like their psychosocial things. It's like a packet with 14 pages in it. Then we have to write anecdotes for certain things that we did that night in a book they give us at the beginning of the semester. All the 60 + anecdotes have to be completed by the end of the semester to have a "met". It's crazy but I love it!!!

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That sounds similar to my M/S II clinical, except we also had to do a detailed med sheet on every med we were going to pass (or could possibly pass) to the pt. When pts. have 15+ PRNs, that can take FOREVER... :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Yep, that sounds typical.

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Specializes in LDRP.

im so glad my school is different than most schools i hear about on here.

1. we dont go in the night before to get our patients. we are assigned 2-3 patients the day we get there (at 6:30). --- and im glad because i live 45 mins away from the hospital/school, so i dont want to make an extra trip if i dont have to.

2. we do have packets that include careplans but i feel like its different than care plans other people talk about... ive heard about people typing up 5 page papers and stuff? our packets are 9 pages i think, first page is pt room #, allergies, chief complaint, med hx, surgical hx, vitals, labs and what they mean for the patient.

second page is all psycho social info

third page is our head to toe assessment.

fourth/fifth pages are for writing all your med info down (we only look up the meds we are giving)

sixth page is a teaching plan (were supposed to pick one thing for each person to teach them... i often do incentive spirometry)

seventh page is a concept map with all the nursing problems weve come up for with the patient

eighth page we pick the priority nursing diagnosis for the patient, come up with goals and interventions, and evaluate.

we do a packet on each patient, and it is usually due one week from the clinical day. during clinical i focus mostly on my patient and work on my paperwork when i have down time. i just try to get the things i need to get while im there like my assessment and teaching outline.. i do all the nursing problems and stuff at home. ive never had a problem getting my stuff in on time and i dont really spend that much time on it.

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Specializes in Oncology.

Our care plans were due within 48 hours after the end of clinical. When I had Thursday clinicals that got out at 7 pm, this meant my care plans were due by Saturday at 7 pm. This was pretty standard for most of my courses. In Med-Surg, the packet was 11 pages long left blank - it included pathophysiology, medication information on all scheduled and PRN meds (sometimes we cried if we got the patient with 30+), last two results for all lab tests with analysis, physical assessment, psychosocial assessment, and then top three nursing diagnoses with at least 10 interventions with rationale per diagnosis, and then goals, outcome criteria and evaluation for each diagnosis. All in all, most of my care plans were 20+ pages typed, and the longest one I ever did was 30 pages.

It sounds like you have to do everything that I had to do, except that you have way more time to do it. :yeah: Analyzing every little thing was annoying at the time, but it ultimately made me a better nursing student. Take your time on your care plans and really utilize your texts. I was in my lab results book constantly at first, and then over time I was able to make the connections by myself. This is the light at the end of the tunnel - they do get easier over time!

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We haven't gone the day before clinicals except for our first semester of clinicals and that was because it was a LTC facility and we knew what patients we would have. Even then we only were there to write down the drugs, history, etc. We have never had to show our instructor's our paperwork before it was due. Any other clinicals we show up on time and get our assignments from our preceptor. I then go through the charts and medications and orders. We also have one week to turn our care plans in. They really are not for grade. Our instructors just provide us feedback.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

We get 24 to 48 hours to turn in our care map. We have the packet but by senior level all the information in the packet has to be put on the care map and then shown how everything interrelates to one another. Along with this is, of course, three nursing diagnoses, each with three interventions, evaluation and summary etc. We have to turn in detailed drug cards on every drug the client has been ordered, including those we don't actually give, as if they were given the day before or whatever it could still affect what is going on with the patient today.

In senior semester however, all care maps must be turned in prior to leaving clinicals for the day. There is a huge focus on time management.

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Thanks for the responses, it puts things into perspective.

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I really appreciate this thread as I will be starting my first clinical in four weeks! I hope others reply as well!

sandan rnstudent

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I'm in an RN program as well. Our clinicals are on Thursdays and Fridays in the morning. We go to our clinic site Wednesday afternoons/evenings to pick up our assignment and get the rest of the evening to work on it. We have to complete a whole client care worksheet which includes: a detailed pathophys. review of their main diagnosis, a detailed review of all the medications they are on, labs that were drawn within the past few days, special procedures they have had done, at least three nursing Dx with etiology(nanda approved), specific teaching and specific interventions with rationals that we would implement. During the time we are actually on the floor we do have to chart in the hospitals computer system AS WELL AS paper chart (which is booooooring). It's a pretty hectic, time consuming process but I absolutely love it!

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Specializes in Telemetry, OB, NICU.

In my school, everything was the same except for we weren't allowed that much time to turn in care plans. It was due the same day as the rest of the paperwork.

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