Med surg rotation

[Kimmie70]

Hi all. I am in my 2nd semester of nursing school. This rotation is med surg and I am very nervous. We start Jan 16 2018. I just finished long term and did not have a lot of hands on with the skills we learned. It was mainly helping with bathroom needs and small things. I am afraid in med surg I will have forgotten some things. So my question is......what should I expect with this rotation and any advice to be prepared would be awesome.

Thanks.

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

Nursing school clinicals should be progressive. Each semester, the expectation from the instructor increases until the final semester when you should be on the level of a new grad nurse.

[Stjulienkimberly]

That's the same question I have, but class starts Monday....I can update you if Ya want.

[emmjayy, BSN, RN]

Med surg clinical in my second semester pretty much involved the same tasks as first semester with just a couple of more things added in. So.... we still went in, grabbed vitals as frequently as was ordered, did the head to toe assessment, toileted, cleaned, ambulated, changed the bed, helped patients eat if they needed it, turned and positioned as needed, and took blood sugars. We reported any status changes to the nurse, but towards the end of the rotation we were expected to take a minute (if the change wasn't super urgent) and think through what we should do/make a little action plan to present to the nurse when we reported the change. We also passed oral meds, gave insulin, hung main fluids, and gave IVPB medications after we learned that skill in lab.

[Stjulienkimberly]

Thanks for the insight because the things I hear about medsurge had me nervous, but I will keep a positive mindframe thank you so much!

[Satori77, ADN]

I was terrified for my med surg clinicals. But I ended up loving them. It was so very different than LTC (which I hated). We are paired with a nurse, who normally has 4-5 patients. We would come in the night before and pick a patient to research (after a couple weeks, it would be 2 patients). The first week is scary, but after that you get to know what is expected of you. You set up a game plan with your nurse and sometimes instructor. I started out doing a lot of vitals and basic care until we learned and passed skills in the lab. Then it was on to med pass. We were also able to place urinary catheters, NG tubes, and trach suctioning, but not all of us got the chance to do those skills. I did trach suctioning once second semester and passed meds in a g-tube with my instructor. I just finished my 2nd med surg clinicals and only assisted with NG placement and placed one urinary catheter.

But don't focus too much on the skills. Many students don't get to do a lot of skills. Your job will work with you on that after you graduate. Its more about getting a feel for the hospital setting, time management skills, and critical thinking. My nurses were always asking me questions (what you would be looking for, what would you do for this, what is this med for, side-effects, etc). Its a really good experience. Come prepared and make the most of it.