Poll about pre-planning.

[Jen2]

Hello Everyone,

I just have a quick question to ask all of you nursing students about pre-planning the night before clinical:

My clinical day is on Tuesday from 7:00a.m. until 3:00p.m.. We are required to go to our clinical site the night before between 4:00p.m. and 9:00p.m. to get our client assignment, review the chart, and begin our careplan.

On Tuesday morning we have to turn our care plan in to our instructor at 7:00a.m. sharp. If the drugs, pathophysiology, devopemental stages are not done in completely, we get sent home and recieve a "U" for that day and have to make it up.

Then during our caring for the client, we are constantly collecting our assessment data. At 2:00p.m. we have post conference to talk about our experience and then go home. We then have to have the completed care plan turned in on Wednesday before 2:00p.m..

Not complaining or anything, just wondering if this is the norm in other programs. The hard part is some of us live an hour or more away from our clinical site, and have to drive there the night before and early the next a.m.. So how is pre-planning handled in your program? Do you just show up in the a.m. and get your assignments then? I am very interested in hearing the responses.

[Jennerizer, ASN, RN]

That's sort of how it is at my school. We are required to go in the day before to research & know everything we possibly can about our patient. Our instructors say it should only take an hour or two to come up with the careplan/interventions/meds/labs etc, but most of my classmates & I find it takes many hours. We have to be prepared in clinical with it, but the final version doesn't have to be turned into until the following week. I heard starting next semester---the new students will follow your format of turning it in before the end of their clinical day.

[rpbear]

That is how it works in my program. It does suck, but by the last semester it will come very easy and only take you an hour or so to complete. Here is a hint, save all of your care plans, most of the diagnosis will be used again on another pt. and you can just recopy the interventions to meet that pts needs. If your instructor doesn't give them back photocpoy them before you turn them in.

Good Luck,

Molly

[PJMommy]

Yep...this is almost exactly what we do also. Just wanted to add another hint I've learned....

If you can, type out your diagnoses, care maps, interventions, etc. Cut and paste from these as you go along through the semester with new patients. I had a list of about 15 nursing dx from my first patient of the semester -- I just cut and paste and edited for new patients.

[colleen10]

1st Semester student here and our clinical is run the same way except that our "Care Plan" is due the following week, not at the end of clinical or the very next day.

I do what PJ Mommy does. I type everything out, including the care plan. I have found that the floor we are on as well as the demographic of patients for my area, many patients come in with the same types of probelms. Exacerbation of COPD, HTN and asthma and/or emphysema seems to be a big one with all of my patients and classmates patients so far.

It still takes me an oober long time to go through the patients chart and put everything together (meds - actions, dosages; labs, etc.) together.

If I get a pretty involved patient I can spend a good hour to hour and a half just going through the chart, let alone if they have a ton of meds. My instructor assures me though that as we progress we will learn what is and isn't important and it will become much easier/quicker.

In the mean time if anyone has any ideas on how to make it all go faster, please fill me in! :kiss

Col

[Jen2]

Great tips about typing everything out thanks everyone. I hear ya about the time thing. I will get at the clinical site toni ght at about 4:00p.m., and not get home until aroung 6:30 or so, and then work on my careplan until at least 11:30p.m.. Then get up at 5:00a.m. to be there at 7:00a.m. tues. morning and come home after the clinical day to complete my careplan and have it turned in Wednesday before 2:00p.m.. It takes me hours to do a careplan.

[lmd32]

We had evening clinicals this semester. Because there was such a high pt. turnover rate on the floor we were on, it wasn't feasible to gather info the day before. With Thursday/Friday clinicals, we were lucky to have the same patient both days. So, our system was to gather data during the first day, go home at 11, sometime between midnight and 2 pm the next day write up patho, a care plan, drug cards, etc. and turn it in the next day. I agree with the type and cut and paste crowd, that helped alot. Plus we had to have APA style references for all our patho and care plan stuff so it helps to have a master reference list. I find myself using the same books and websites over and over.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, this system seems to be normal. I learned a lot and wish we could have had a patient to go with each major disorder in patho. It helped me a lot to actually see a real person with the symptoms.

--Lynn

[Nurse-o-Matic]

Another tip: I bought a Care Plan CD on eBay that allows me to select from a main menu (Med-Surg, Psych, OB, etc) and then narrow the selections until I get down to the specific disease. Then an entire care plan is displayed including goals, interventions, collaborative care, etc. All of the Nursing Diagnoses are prioritized, too. My prof says I have the best care plans shes ever seen. The best part is, I just individualize it to meet my client's needs and cut and paste into Word. Look into getting a care plan book or CD. I spend half the time I used to on careplans with better grades!

:)