ashm24

Hello everyone! I'm new to this site, but I came here to get some advice from all of you soon to be nurses! I am a first year nursing student and I feel a bit discouraged. I'm so unsure of what to do in clinicals, and how exactly to ask questions during an assessment. I have to write an assessment paper and we have to have the patient answer a bunch of questions, and I'm just not sure if I am communicating the right way with the patient. Should I be asking straight forward questions, or should I ask him questions that kind of go along with what we are talking about? For example, we have to draw a family tree of our patient and find out if their parents, brothers and sisters, and spouses are still living. Should I just say something like "today I'm going to be asking you a few questions. Let's start out with your family. Are you married?"....etc, etc. Sometimes I just feel like I don't really know if I'm communicating well with the patient. I'm really shy and I get so nervous when I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. We kind of got thrown into things so I'm trying to learn on my own, but I was just wondering how you all get to know your patients while still getting information for your assessment. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance! :)