bryony

I'm currently in my second semester and one big piece of advice I would give anyone would be to avoid the drama at all costs. It will distract you from your goals and cause you to fail. I saw it happen to three girls last semester, and now they have to go through reapplying and with everything that happened prior to their departure I have to wonder if the instructors will even consider allowing them back in. Another thing that is helping me tremendously is using an NCLEX study guide. I try my best to answer at ten questions out of it each day, and it really comes in handy with breaking down the important information that will likely be on your exams.

I hadn't quite thought of how "we're getting licensed to be able to recognize when NOT to do something." Thinking of it that way makes me feel a lot better about not being able to place that IV the other day lol. Thank you very much.

I do consider myself lucky to be able to do them. I'm not so much concerned with the lack of "cool cases" that we are exposed to because it was made very clear to us that we are there to learn patient care in limited forms and that includes assisting with ADL's, vital signs, and anything else the PCAs may need help with. The opportunities to perform the skills that we checked off on do come few and far between, but there is plenty of time to get better at them later. I just wanted advice on how to improve my clinical experience from anyone who has had dealings with students. Thank you for your comment.

I couldn't imagine being so disrespectful. As students, the clinical instructors are doing us a huge favor by teaching us. I know it would be extremely difficult to for me to trust students to operate under my license once I get it of course lol

I totally agree with you on this, and so do our instructors. It's actually against school policy for us to sit in the nursing station lol

Thanks everyone! I do my best to stay busy by stocking the desks, answering the call lights etc... We have our clinicals on Saturdays and Sundays so unfortunately there is a shortage of skills being done that we're allowed to participate in, but we like to think we're learning how to be there and talk to our patients. I'm still terrified because I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing half the time, and still haven't managed to get the hang of placing an IV without being able to visualize the vein but hopefully that will come in time. I do appreciate everyone's responses very much.

Thank you so much for your reply! :)

Hi, Although I've been an avid reader of AN for quite some time now, this is my first post. I'm in my second semester of nursing school and we're currently going through Med-Surg I clinicals. I was just wanting to get some advice from PCA's, RN's, LPN's and CNA's about what makes a great student nurse in their opinion. I'm just wanting to step up my game and do my very best this semester. Any advice will be much appreciated.