New nursing student

Hailie54 · Feb 13, 2017

Hang in there Staci!

You seem like you really have your hands full but you can get through it. My advice is to take it week by week, otherwise it can get very overwhelming. As far as BP goes, is there any specific problem your encountering? If you are worried about accuracy in general, it is always good to check the patient's chart to find out what their baseline is. Most of us enter the first clinical with only having practiced on other students/ family members with relatively normal values. In the clinical setting, you will see abnormal values often. You can always take it a second time on the opposite arm to test the accuracy (barring any issues that would make one side contraindicated for BP.) You can also try the two step BP, where you palpate the radial pulse when inflating the cuff and marking the number at which you stopped feeling the pulse. That number reflects the systolic (top) number and then you would deflate the cuff and add 30 to the systolic number when reinflating the cuff to auscultate BP like you normally would. This way, you have an idea of how much you need to inflate the cuff (30 mm hg above your palpated systolic number,) which then gives you time to listen to that first beat.

In all honesty, you will be using an electronic cuff most of the time. With that being said, you don't want to stop practicing until you feel confident. If a patient takes a bad turn, getting the most accurate vitals becomes much more important and your instructor will expect you to be able to turn out accurate results. Don't ever be afraid to ask your instructor/nurses/fellow students for help and good luck!