how to pick a pt. for clinicals?

[sonja77]

We started clinicals last week and our instructor picked our patient for the first week. Starting tomorrow we have to pick our own patient. We go to the hospital on monday and pick a patient for the clinical days (tuesday and thurdsay). I'm on a med-surg unit right now. What type of pt. is "easy" to work with? What age group? Male/female? How many days post-op? Any other things I should take into consideration? Thanks! :)

[Ayvah, RN]

I'll ask the nurse who isn't going home in the next 24 hours, and then i'll pick a random patient from that group. I figure that when I'm a nurse, I won't get to pick my patients. Plus, sometimes there are people that I would think may be boring but they turn out to be a lot more complex than I had first thought. The very first patient I picked had a new diagnosis of lung cancer. It was very interesting to see the spiritual aspect of the whole thing. My patient was even baptized that day! Turned out to be a great clinical experience.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Off topic:

Moving right along girl! I can't remember, do you graduate in the spring also?

We still haven't moved beyond 1 patient; but I think we are going to move up to 2 soon (like in the next few weeks)... I'm kinda lazy at the idea (this is a rough semester for me)... but it's definitely time!

Do you still do patient worksheets/care plans? On ALL the patients or do you just pick one?

P.S. I passed the IBCLC exam. :)

Yep, seven more months and counting! We no longer have to do any careplanning (third semester you're exempted from careplanning after you do the "perfect careplan"), but we still have to do meds/labs on one of our patients. How sad is it that I choose the patient with the fewest number of meds to look up?? I'm just so weary, and I've decided that I just need to budget my time and try to minimize my workload wherever I can.

Congrats on passing!! I won't be taking mine until '07. That's so awesome!