My first clinical course and I hate it

[EP10]

I'm in my first semester of the actual RN program after finishing all pre-reqs and I'm doing the very first 6 credit course with the clinical. It's a fundamentals course so we did comfort measures, vitals, assessing respiratory sounds and all of that basic stuff.

I have clinicals every Wednesday and I absolutely DREAD it every week. On Tuesday afternoons our clinical instructor e-mails us with our patient for the next day. We each have one patient to care for during our 6 hours on the floor of the hospital. I just feel so awkward there, I don't feel "legitimate" if that makes any sense. I also am very scared of doing something I'm not allowed to do or not authorized to do. I feel like I can't establish my role and I feel super awkward when talking to the patients because I feel like a nobody.

Also, my instructor is like a hovering helicopter, she is everywhere I turn around and putting me on the spot with questions and tasks to do for the patients. She is a nice woman but I can't tolerate her, especially during clinical.

I feel like hiding in the closet for the entire duration of the clinical day. Does anybody else experience this kind of dread with their clinical?

I feel like I really don't like bedside nursing. I enjoy soothing the patient and talking with them but I don't enjoy all the other things that accompanies bedside nursing such as bed baths, emptying their bed pans, etc. Does that make me a bad person or a bad nursing student? I think I would much rather enjoy working in a more "hands-off" medical environment. I just feel so confused and in a state of despair.

Also, what makes everything much worse is that our group has a "pre-conference" in the morning before we go out onto the floor and a "post-conference" for after we are finished. You are expected to go around the room and explain what your patient is suffering from, what priorities of care to give, what you will do, etc, for the pre conference and for post conference you need to explain to the group what you did with the patient and how it went blah blah blah. It really doesn't help that I HATE speaking in front of a group and am extremely quick to turn completely red when the attention is on me for too long. Also, my instructor has a habit of asking questions that I might be able to work through otherwise, but I cannot come up with an answer if she asks me in front of the group and I'm put on the spot, further causing me to turn red and embarrassed. I absolutely loath this and I want to cry every Tuesday night knowing Wednesday is fast approaching. It doesn't help that clinicals start very early and I have to be up at 5am and am usually dying to sleep just a little longer.

Sorry if this sounded whiney I just feel scared and isolated, I feel like a fake because I feel like I don't know anything.

Does anybody have any words of encouragement or understand how I'm feeling? I could really use that right now

[AOx1]

My very last semester of nursing, school, in one of our last few weeks of clinical, I had a pt, a woman in her 40's or 50's who had CA and was trached as a result of it. She could only speak in whispers. The first thing I noticed, was her terribly depressed demeanor. She wasn't receptive to me At ALL. During AM care, she asked if she could have her hair washed. I found out, all they had on the floor were these dry wash shower caps. She didn't want that. I begged my clinical instructor to run to L&D and get a bottle of baby shampoo. She came back w/it, and I asked my pt nurse if another student and I could wash the pt hair. She was extremely hesitant of letting us use water b/c of the trach. I pleaded w/her, and promised we would be extremely careful, and she relented.

We were, or course, very careful while washing her hair, and the whole time she was nothing but smiles. We found out that she hadn't had her hair washed w/soap and water in over 2 weeks. When we were done, I had a whole different pt on my hands!! She was so happy...it felt so good to her to finally have clean hair. She was literally like a different person. She told the other student and I that we made her day by taking the time to do something so simple.

My point is, you may feel like you don't matter, but as a student, with one pt for 6 hours, you have the time that the nurses and aides on the floor don't have, to make a difference to someone who really needs it. It doesn't have to be something big, it really can be a very simple thing! So instead of trying to avoid your instructor, take the time to really get to know your pt, see what you can do to make their stay a little more comfortable. Remember, as much as you don't want to be there, they don't want to be there more!

This whole post is fantastic and reminds me of my favorite things about being a nurse. After all these years as a nurse, it is the small stuff that stands out. Possibly the funniest thing in my career involved trying to make a patient happy with her hair. I will never forget it. It had been a crazy day where it seemed like everything went wrong. I floated to a floor and had a ton of patients being admitted, discharged, transferring units, etc. All morning I ran. I had a lady who had CHF and more than anything wanted to "get out of here and go to the beauty parlor," but she was so ill. Her hair was limp and she was used to going to the beauty parlor every week, as she had done since the 40s. She asked me to try to put her hair in curlers. I was still too busy, but promised to try later. I never had time during my shift, but after my shift, I went to her room and made an attempt. She had fairly short hair and a whole lot of spiky rollers and pins. It has been many, many years since I've used any of these things. I fumbled my way through. It took me an hour (!) and I still couldn't quite get it evenly on the rollers. She put on a little cap over her curls and was thrilled. The next day, she was my patient again. I helped her take down the rollers. It was AWFUL! Her hair was HUGE. I was shocked at how tall it was. I tried to sort of smooth it down. I dreaded the moment when she asked for her "compact" from her purse. She looked in the mirror....

...and went on and on about how it was the "best" curler set she'd ever had, how her hair had volume, etc. It certainly did have volume at nearly three inches tall! She proceeded to whip out a huge can of aquanet and spray it until it appeared varnished. She was so excited that she put on full makeup and asked her husband to take a picture. I was thrilled she was excited, but her hair was gigantic. The whole day, you could tell she felt pretty. She batted her eyes at the young attending. I just loved that woman, she had such a great personality. She went home two days later. About six months after that, I received a card inviting me to her services with a handwritten note from her husband saying that during her long illnesses and hospitalizations her last year of life, that having her hair fixed in the hospital brought back her personality and cheerfulness. Such a small act, and not even skillfully done. When I went to her funeral, the photo on the brochure was the one from the hospital.

Morganlafey, I imagine that you made exactly the same impact on the woman whose hair you washed. You weren't washing hair, your were recognizing someone else's need and meeting it. You gave her dignity. OP, look for these opportunities in nursing school. Learning to safely care for a patient is the critical first step, and this is satisfying, but the real joy and reward are in those small, quiet moments with the patient. As an instructor, I never truly witness some of the amazing things my students do because I can't be everywhere at once. Last year, I walked in on one of my students as he held the hand of a dying man who was afraid to be alone. The safe care this student provides shows he will be a good technical nurse, but his compassion shows he will also be wonderful at the ART of nursing. Keep going OP, sometimes you just have to bear with the yuck parts to get to the good.