3rd semester- Feeling overwhelmed at clinical

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Hi everyone, I'm just reaching out for support. I am in my 3rd semester and feel lightyears away from being a real nurse. I do well on exams but feel like a total moron on the floor. This is my 2nd career and have had no prior pt care experience except for previous clinicals. I am currently feeling overwhelmed with the many nursing responsibilities, critical thinking skills which are lacking on my part at this point, understanding all aspects of the chart and taking care of the basic needs of the pt. I do my best to fake it so I have been getting by OK. I even have difficulty ascultating/differentiating heart and lung sounds! My classmates all seem to have a good grasp in clinical and seem ready for the challenges ahead.

Is this normal in the third semester? I feel like a complete poser and my confidence is shot. I really want to become a nurse but am scared witless the pieces are not going to fall into place as I thought they should by now. If anyone has been where I am and moved past these feelings, I could definitely use your help . :crying2::sniff:

Thanks for the time out you took for this post. It normalizes what I am going through. I will forge ahead, study hard and fake confidence as best as I can.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
Thanks for the time out you took for this post. It normalizes what I am going through. I will forge ahead, study hard and fake confidence as best as I can.

There you go! Welcome to the sisterhood! It gets better as time goes by, I promise. When you get to my age, you'll be telling students the same thing I'm telling you.

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I think when I'm your age, I may be only getting the grasp of things. At 43, I'm a late comer to nursing. However, as far as faking it, I think my age works to my advantage. Many patients have told me that "your students are doing a very good job!" thinking I am the clinical instructor. lol.

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Specializes in Staff nurse.

mimi13, you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders! As for ascultation, practice on your husband, your kids, your cat! When I was a student at age 48, I would have my son's friends in their early 20s line up so I could listen to their lungs, anterior & posterior, and feel pulses, look at eyes and veins. They got a kick out of it and in fact one will be graduating from a PA school this June!! And I don't have any scratches from the felines.

There are also tapes to listen to to differenciate the lungs sounds and heart sounds. I have one if you want to borrow it, PM me.

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.
mimi13, you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders! As for ascultation, practice on your husband, your kids, your cat! When I was a student at age 48, I would have my son's friends in their early 20s line up so I could listen to their lungs, anterior & posterior, and feel pulses, look at eyes and veins. They got a kick out of it and in fact one will be graduating from a PA school this June!! And I don't have any scratches from the felines.

Excellent advice. Practice, practice, practice on any willing soul. Listening to heart and lung sounds on cats, by the way (as long as they are not scratching or purring) is an excellent way to practice for peds assessment. :yeah:

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Specializes in LTC, Nursing Management, WCC.
I do my best to fake it so I have been getting by OK.

We were taught to do your best and to fake it if need be. For example if you are doing your first IV...don't go into the patient's room and say, "gee I have never done one of these before." Just go in there and apply the skill you learned.

You will have many, many "firsts" even after graduation. Nursing is very broad and the human body is very dynamic. It would be impossible to learn everything before you are done with school. Just know when "faking it" might cause harm and then run it by another nurse.

If it helps I graduated in December and I did a bad job at faking it last night. This patient had a med I wasn't familiar with and I was thinking out load. I was in the room and I said..."good God what is the med...I never heard of it." :eek: The patient said, "great, I'm screwed" and then we both laughed at it. Oops. :)

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Dear psychnurse, what a great story, one I can certainly relate to! As for faking it, I am pretty good with patients, and as I mentioned earlier, I think my age gives people laying in bed a false sense of security that works to my advantage.

However, I hate when I am not up to what the nurses on the floor think I should be up to. I applied a dressing to a wound the other day and i dont think I did anything terrible. However, I tend to ask alot of questions and perhaps wear my insecurities with nursing on my sleeve. Anyway, the RN who was very very nice all day asked what semester I was in and when I am graduating. When I told her this December she proceeded to give me this look ( teeth exposed, mouth pulled to side as in "yikes") "Oh wow", she said "I thought you were first semester." Talk about a confidence shaker. That was the straw that finally drove me to this website for peer support, and I thank you all for your stories! I hate having to fake it with an RN because they are who I am supposed to be learning from. However, after that experience I think I have to withhold many of my questions that they obviously think should be mastered by this time.

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Specializes in LTC, Nursing Management, WCC.
Dear psychnurse, what a great story, one I can certainly relate to! As for faking it, I am pretty good with patients, and as I mentioned earlier, I think my age gives people laying in bed a false sense of security that works to my advantage.

However, I hate when I am not up to what the nurses on the floor think I should be up to. I applied a dressing to a wound the other day and i dont think I did anything terrible. However, I tend to ask alot of questions and perhaps wear my insecurities with nursing on my sleeve. Anyway, the RN who was very very nice all day asked what semester I was in and when I am graduating. When I told her this December she proceeded to give me this look ( teeth exposed, mouth pulled to side as in "yikes") "Oh wow", she said "I thought you were first semester." Talk about a confidence shaker. That was the straw that finally drove me to this website for peer support, and I thank you all for your stories! I hate having to fake it with an RN because they are who I am supposed to be learning from. However, after that experience I think I have to withhold many of my questions that they obviously think should be mastered by this time.

I work with some great nurses who are very understanding. I think the main problem with med-surg type concepts is at my school med-surg was in my junior year. My senior years were OB, public health, research and mental health. So by the time I graduated I felt like I forgot many med-surg concepts.

It will come back to you as you practice. For example last night I was giving a med that I didn't know about (a different one than in my last post :nuke: hee hee) It was an IM injection. Now let me give you a bit of advice. It is OK to look things up in a book. I have a pocket-size assessment book and I bring my drug book. So I looked up this med and it wasn't listed...THEN I went to another RN. Just don't go running right away to the RN if you didn't at least put forth the effort to learn about it on your own. The internet is a wonderful thing ;) So when I went to this RN, I was able to say, I looked it up in the drug book...but it wasn't listed. By doing your part... you can buffer yourself a little more and demonstrates respect for the other nurse you will be asking... remember they have their own patients too!

I had a dressing change with Aqua Cel (I think that is what is was). I have never used it...so I asked the RN who was reporting off to me. She was very nice about it. Explained it and away I went. Another thing I never used for dressing changes was Mepilex. But I was able to figure out that one on my own. :nuke:

As much as my clinicals prepared me, sometimes we had very low census and since we didn't have a lot of patients, it was hard to get the experience I would have liked.

I promise it will get better as you practice. Being a nurse contains 2 main concepts, IMO... the art of nursing (which I hope new grads have) and the science of nursing (which can take some time to learn).

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