New student in ICU

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Hi everyone! I'm just starting my second week as a student nurse in the ICU/CCU and I'm really nervous! The first week of clinical which was last week I Did okay I guess. Its just so crazy in there and I dont know what to do. I have never given many IV meds before and I get soo confused when I'm doing them. My patient had ARDS and was on a ventilator and we haven't even learned about ventilators yet! I have no idea what its for or what it does. We'll be getting that material in a month or so. But then....The alarm went off 3 times and pts respirations dropped to 0 and I about had a heart attack! Then I went out and told my nurse and she said its okay since the patient is on a ventilator its breathing for her. I'm afraid something is going to go wrong with the patient and I won't know what to do. I basically feel like I'm an idiot and I shouldn't be in my 3rd semester of nursing school, rather I should be starting my first semester.

The nurses on the unit are nice and understanding but I just don't want to go and bother them every 2 seconds to ask them simple questions and have them look at me like I'm an idiot, or look at me and wonder how I made it this far in the nursing program.

I thought I did alright at clinical last week but then today I found out that I got 2 objectives not met! I just hope this isn't the beginning of a downward spiral of me failing nursing school!:o

Can anyone give me advice or help me out?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, ED, ortho, urology.

I am yet to start my clinical, but I figure, if you need to ask, go and ask. Don't worry what the other nurses think. You are the one doing the degree and a question not asked now could be all the difference later on.

I just started a new job (not nursing related) and felt really stupid for the first few weeks, and I realised that that is how it will probably be for nursing until I get the hang of it.

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Calm down first of all! They know that you're a nursing student with little knowledge of what goes on in critical care. I think sometimes it can be hard for experienced critical care nurses to go back and remember what it was like not to know all of this stuff, but they still understand that YOU don't know.

I don't understand how the patients respirs could be 0 if the vent was on and functioning correctly though...however I'm just a student as well.

As far as questions go - I think sometimes when they have critically ill patients that need a lot of care, some nurses would get a bit annoyed with questions. However, you're there to learn so ask what you feel neccessary. A lot of nurses are very willing to teach you all about it! Of course there's some that don't care for that kind of thing and I can't say I blame them lol.

Don't freak out though. There are tons of experienced people around who know what to do when something goes wrong. I'm so jealous of you! I'm in my last quarter of nursing school and we don't get to do ICU clinicals! We have observation days which are interesting, but we don't actually get to do much with the patient since it's so critical. I was in SICU today and I'll be there again tomorrow. I never once thought I'd be interested in ICU, but wow...I loved it! I hope you can get a lot out of this because you are so lucky to be able to have clinical there!

Good luck!

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Lol... I'd gladly trade you anyday! I really hate going to clinical on ICU. I absolutely dread clinical days. I'd rather go to the dentist or something and get my teeth drilled!

I think a big part of me dreading it is because of my instructor... shes such a witch and I feel like shes watching every little thing I Do through a magnifying glass and picking apart every little tiny thing I do wrong and then giving me OBJECTIVE NOT MET. Its such a nightmare!

I wont be suprised if I end up failing this semester... not failing theory... but failing clinical! I just dont know what to do anymore. I've been in the ICU 2 days and I've got like probably 8 or 9 days left. :(

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Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

How could you possibly meet all of the objectives in just two days? Try to relax a bit. ;)

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