NSG 1- what to expect in clinical/lab

[smarsett]

I start nursing school in 3 weeks and am very nervous. I come from a family of nurses who are all so excited for me I don't want to let them down. I'm currently a patient care tech on a med/surg floor, so I am already competent in vital signs, manual BP, blood sugar, bathing/turning patients and other "common sense" things you learn from working in a hospital. I guess I'm just wondering what the first round of clinical responsibilities will entail. I switched from an ER registration job to a PCT so i could hopefully gain some experience before school started.

[Simplistic]

You should excel in clinical. The first semester I took a lot of vitals and did an occasional bed bath. I also did 1 med pass.

[nalie2, ADN, BSN, MSN, RN, NP]

I think it really depends on your program's curriculum. In first semester during the sixth week of school we were doing vitals, bed baths, intake/output recording, head to toe assessments, patient turning, medication administration (by mouth and topical only), and then toward the middle of the semester we were hanging continuous IV fluids, changing IV tubing and flushing peripheral IV lines.

Since you already do patient care, your first class is probably gonna be a breeze for you.

[emmjayy, BSN, RN]

Clinical is going to be so easy for you! The only place you might get tripped up is getting used to doing things "by the book" as an instructor breathes down your neck. The other challenging thing about clinical once you've been a PCT is that you get so bored with just one patient and end up with tons of down time in the first few weeks where you're just doing stuff like brushing teeth and taking vitals. I made use of the time by hanging out with the patient and making sure they had as good a day as possible, shadowing every doctor/nurse/etc. who went into the room and listening to discharge planning stuff, going to tests with them, etc., or by reading their chart in detail and trying to figure out why they had certain meds or how one condition fed into other conditions or why they had the diet orders they had or whatever. Being a student is really the only time you'll get to follow a patient to tests and see how everything in the hospital works together to achieve good care, so take advantage of that fact!

Theory might be a little boring for awhile too because you'll just be learning about how to give a bed bath or what normal vital signs are or whatever. It'll pick up soon enough though! Don't be nervous, it sounds like you've been doing a lot to prepare :)