Nervous about practicum

I know exactly how you feel. I have my first skills test today on vitals, and I'm scared to death about it. I'm sure you'll remember how to do everything and I'm sure your teachers will cut some slack since you are a new student (at least that's what I'm hoping!) Good luck!!

Of course we were. I know I was extremely nervous my first lab check off, we did the same things you are doing. Don't worry about it, go through the steps in your head and you will do fine. Plus you should have a lab redo if you forget something. Good luck!

We had those last year and I was also a nervous wreck. You won't forget anything though, and like BamaGirl said, if by chance you do , there's probably a make up lab. BTW, if your class goes in partners volunteer to go first, once it's over the weight is lifted. Good luck and try to relax!

Thanks guys!

We do have a redo day if we bomb. I know my stuff, ( i think) I just hate being stared at. (like anyone likes that) I think they made references to being lienent. I guess its just scary since I've never had a pratical test before...

Thanks for letting me vent a little

UGH...you had to remind me of my skills check off tomorrow. I absolutely detest the way they do the skills check off in my nursing program. We have the labs on Mondays and Tuesdays and then don't get to practice again and have to wait until Friday to check off. Tomorrow, I have to administer an enema, change a stoma, clean a Foley catheter, and apply a condom catheter. On a side note: we were watching a film on stomas and the nurse on the film wasn't wearing gloves for any of it. She was even palpating and rubbing the thing...WITHOUT gloves!!!!! UH, hello...Universal Precautions anyone? It even started oozing blood and still, no gloves. ROFL. We were cracking up!!!!

EWWWHH I don't know when those movies were made, but most of the ones I have seen no one was wearing a glove (except the isolatation precaution one) I guess things were different when they were made. Ew

So you get lab checkoffs at the end of the week? Do you have a final at the end of the term or is it just done every week? We were observed while doing our labs, but have to pass the exam on tuesday for the whole term. Is every school different in that regard? We get to draw 2 skills from a hat, one long skill (up to 15 min) one short(5 min) that way the assignment isn't given subjectively.

We have labs on Monday and Tuesday for Foundations and then on Friday, we draw from a bag a scenario that usually consist of an easy skill and a more difficult one. Like last week was administering a tube feeding via NG tube and the other skill was feeding a helpless patient. This week was changing ostomy bag/appliance, administering an enema, and cleaning a Foley. We start real clinicals in 2 weeks....after 7 weeks of that, I should be fairly comfortable with a lot of stuff. I just hate having to do all this stuff on dummies. It's very hard to "pretend". It was the same way in my EMT class...I HATED having to pretend that I had a trauma patient in front of me when it was really a classmate. Once I actually ran a call, it was a lot different. Everything came very naturally and I'm hoping nursing will be very similar. I think we start injections next week, but we don't get to practice on each other. In the EMT class, they did. They practiced starting IV's on one another. We have a final at the end of the semester in Assessment, but I'm not sure about Foundations. I HATE my Assessment class. We don't get NEAR enough lab time for this class.