Question about Clinicals

allnurses Guide · Oct 22, 2009

Assignments cannot be made very far in advance, because the patient population changes rapidly, as well as their conditions. You have a narrow window usually, as the instructor makes the assignments late in the afternoon,and then you go get the information you need to prepare. Some programs only have you get the assignment that morning, same as nurses do, but I don't think that's very common.

Rednights · Oct 22, 2009

You usually get it the day before. In your case, I'm not too sure how Sunday works. But really better Sunday despite how you get it (email, actually coming to the building to pick it up, or whatever) will work out much better. I couldn't imagine anyone being happy receiving patient summaries on Friday, a good majority of the time your patient wont' be there on Monday and you'd waste all the work you did on your weekend, and worse yet you'd have to do it all over again.

ScrappinSpidey · Oct 22, 2009

It varied depending on our rotation. Mostly we had to go in on sunday, usually around 9am so that the staff had time to do report and get going with their day. We would spend a few hours getting all the information and then come home and put it all together. Long days yes, but I will say I learned a lot! Some rotations we didn't have a complete careplan to do, but instead had some paperwork. One rotation I had, I had to do a 5 page paper on the social environment regarding my facility and the surrounding area (I was at a local jail for a psych rotation). Some rotations we couldn't pick our patients till we got to the facility on Monday but were given till Thursday of the week to get it turned in. If given the choice I prefer the sunday option so that I get it done and don't procrastinate. Some roations included an ER or OR experience and we didn't do care plans for those.

So it can be a little of everything. THe majority of the time we picked on Sunday and turned in on Monday prior to the start of clinical so that we could prove we had done the work and understood the reasons behind the care given to the patient. Sundays were recommended because patients may not be there and sometimes even though you went in on Sunday, your patient might have been discharged later. It happened to a few people and they had to do the whole thing over again.

Lynn/BW

Guerilla04 · Oct 22, 2009

I'm currently in a M/T clinical acute setting. The instructor e-Mails us our assignment Sunday mourning. I'm assuming your in an acute setting, because a long care facility, it'd be better to get your assignment on a Friday. Starting this week we start in our long care, and I've had my assignment since Tuesday. It's much easier, and Sunday will be nice and relaxing for once.

BellasMommyOBRN · Oct 22, 2009

all of you are very lucky....we don't get our assignments until the day of clinical.

ScrappinSpidey · Oct 22, 2009

I forgot to add that with our school, the facility was the one who said when we could come in and pick out patients. I don't know how it is for you but that might factor in. I would check with your instructor before going in to see what they say.

Lynn/BW

sneakymom2011 · Oct 22, 2009

Clinical Tues and Wed. (and we just started this week).

Mondays we get our patient. Then we go in sometime Monday and gather information.

Then we go home and do the paperwork we need for Tues and Wed (in a perfect world we get the same pt both days)

Of course the world isn't perfect, and we've been warned that yes, we could walk in Tuesday morning and find that our pt is no longer there. We do get another one, but we don't have to re-do all of the work we've done on the previous pt.

I'm thankful that most of the "meat" of the semester has already been given to us. Because it took me a couple of hours between yesterday and today (we went to the hospital- no pt care though on Tuesday this week) to get everything finished to hand in today. And we didn't even do a concept map this week- first one is due next Thursday.

Cheryl

Do-over, ASN, RN · Oct 22, 2009

I've had clinical M/T or R/F and get my patient assignment the morning of. I've never gotten them the day before...

Music in My Heart · Oct 22, 2009

i start nursing school in the spring, and our clinicals are scheduled on mondays. i've heard that generally, the day prior to clinicals you are supposed to go pick up information pertaining to your clinicals. this is just speculative of course, but would this be friday or sunday for monday clinicals (i obviously know no one knows really and will need to ask the clinical instructors, but i am just curious as to everyone's experience with this)? also, do they typically give you a narrow "window" of time, or can you pick it up in the evenings after work or something? is the pre-clinical info an actual information session, or just paperwork that'll take a few minutes to grab?
i will be getting my answers to these questions at orientation next week, but i just wanted to get some feedback from others.

we were fortunate in that we never had to go in ahead of time... we were just assigned a nurse to work with and then chose our patients from among their assignment.

shrimpchips, LPN · Oct 22, 2009

It depends on the instructor. Some will give you an assignment and tell you to come within a certain time frame while others make you go but give you the freedom to choose your own patient and you can go whenever you want. There is always the risk of doing all of the clinical prep work and coming to clinical the next day and having your patient discharged.

hiddencatRN, BSN, RN · Oct 22, 2009

i start nursing school in the spring, and our clinicals are scheduled on mondays. i've heard that generally, the day prior to clinicals you are supposed to go pick up information pertaining to your clinicals. this is just speculative of course, but would this be friday or sunday for monday clinicals (i obviously know no one knows really and will need to ask the clinical instructors, but i am just curious as to everyone's experience with this)? also, do they typically give you a narrow "window" of time, or can you pick it up in the evenings after work or something? is the pre-clinical info an actual information session, or just paperwork that'll take a few minutes to grab?
i will be getting my answers to these questions at orientation next week, but i just wanted to get some feedback from others.

i'd just hang tight til orientation. there's going to be a lot of variation based on school- at my school we just show up early, have pre-conference, and then are not to touch any paperwork until after we do morning care, vitals, etc. we discuss the patients at post conference and after that can get any details from the charts we missed and hand in our care plans at the next clinical.