Also, don't talk about your patients. It is so tempting when you are with your clinical group to start talking about your patient and all the things you did for him. But what if the woman taking the elevator with you, even if she is hospital staff, just happens to be his sister? Of course you weren't gossiping about him, but that information really is confidential. Even if you aren't saying his name, how would you feel if you got onto an elevator full of giddy students hearing about how you did this and that and then when you get to your brother's room you find that he was the subject of discussion in the elevator?
Another tip-do NOT write down your patient's last name down, and if you are going to print something out, make ABSOLUTELY sure you are cutting his name off. There was a story about a nursing student at my school who lost a full report sheet--name, dx, and everything--on campus from a patient she had. A good samaritan, figuring it was property of a nursing student, found it and turned it into the nursing office. Yeah, I would be lying if I said that I knew what the ending to this story is, but I could just see this happening to me--bottom line, cut the names off and use initials if necessary.
Lastly, maybe others will agree with me on this one, but you will find that most of the "cooool" things that you learn in skills labs or whatever (e.g. injections, blood draws, IVs, NG insertions, Foleys, fingersticks, etc.) are really NOT that big of a deal once you get to the meat of your program. I remember being so excited to give a SQ shot or an accucheck at first. Ha. Fine tune your assessment skills. Keep your old assessments for fun (SANS patient identifiers, of course) and look back every year at how much you have grown.
