Scared I'm Going to Fail Practicum

[NurseAlex]

So, I am two shifts into my Senior practicum for nursing school. I have always been good at clinicals and gotten excellent feedback from my instructors, but my second day of practicum I had an off day and am now afraid I am going to fail. I was struggling to draw up iron and when I pulled the needle back, the medicine sprayed on me. I also had another vial leak some medicine from the rubber stopper, and my nurse assured me it's okay and to give the medication to the patient. So those two incidents were already in my mind, but the last thing that happened almost sent me over the edge. I was helping the tech's take a patient to the bathroom who was needing to go very often and was a needy patient. I put her into bed and she took a nap, about an hour and a half later me and tech were walking by and she was walking around her room with water on the floor. We rushed in and sat her down, she wasn't harmed and hadn't fallen, but it was me who forgot to turn the bed alarm on. My nurse and tech assured me it's fine, there was no harm. I asked my nurse if I'm doing as bad as I think I am and she said no, these are small mistakes and she'd be concerned if they were bigger mistakes. Regardless, I am so scared I am going to fail practicum if this gets back to the school.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

You're learning and you will not fail because of these.  Pick yourself up and learn.

We've all done those things and things like forgetting to clamp a foley after emptying, getting g-tube contents splashed back, forgetting to unclamp an IV piggyback, on and on because we're not perfect.

Just don't lose your focus.  

[NurseAlex]

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear. It gave me a boost of confidence to know that I'm not expected to be perfect, I just need to stay focused on what I'm doing to prevent any larger mistakes. 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

NurseAlex said:

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to hear. It gave me a boost of confidence to know that I'm not expected to be perfect, I just need to stay focused on what I'm doing to prevent any larger mistakes. 

Yes.  In nursing we can never let our guard down.  Good luck!

[JKL33]

Maybe it is a skill that comes naturally to some personalities and not as much to others (not sure), but it is definitely worth learning how to constructively deal with the mistakes we make and spend little time catastrophizing.

In addition to being upset over what could have happened due to the mistake we made, we also tend to spend a fair amount of time just feeling humiliated or ashamed to some degree and worrying about what others will think of us. It's hard to stop that train of thought, but worth it. Success/improvement involves moving forward in a positive manner. Remaining fixated on the negative aspects of a mistake make it difficult to do that.

 Just learn from these instances (we have all been there) and show up next shift with a good attitude ready to learn more. As a word of both caution and encouragement: Sometimes, when people can't move forward and do too much talking about their dumb/stupid mistake and how awful it was and what a terrible nurse they are, others....start to treat them that way. On the other hand, responding positively to our mistake leaves a lot less room for others' criticisms. It's hard to be a hot topic of gossip when we just own it and have the attitude that we learned that lesson/won't do that again.

Everything's okay with you, OP. Good luck! 👍🏽

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

But did you trip on a patient's foley catheter tubing (twice)?

[NurseAlex]

JKL33 said:

Maybe it is a skill that comes naturally to some personalities and not as much to others (not sure), but it is definitely worth learning how to constructively deal with the mistakes we make and spend little time catastrophizing.

In addition to being upset over what could have happened due to the mistake we made, we also tend to spend a fair amount of time just feeling humiliated or ashamed to some degree and worrying about what others will think of us. It's hard to stop that train of thought, but worth it. Success/improvement involves moving forward in a positive manner. Remaining fixated on the negative aspects of a mistake make it difficult to do that.

 Just learn from these instances (we have all been there) and show up next shift with a good attitude ready to learn more. As a word of both caution and encouragement: Sometimes, when people can't move forward and do too much talking about their dumb/stupid mistake and how awful it was and what a terrible nurse they are, others....start to treat them that way. On the other hand, responding positively to our mistake leaves a lot less room for others' criticisms. It's hard to be a hot topic of gossip when we just own it and have the attitude that we learned that lesson/won't do that again.

Everything's okay with you, OP. Good luck! 👍🏽

Thank you so much ! That is SUCH good advice, I've had time to reflect and yes the catastrophizing has significantly gone down. No matter what, even if the nurses think I'm an absolute idiot, I'm going to show up next time with a smile, a ready-to-learn attitude, and most importantly go SLOW and make sure I keep my focus. I am learning at the end of the day, so I need to be nice to myself because in healthcare you can't always count on others to be nice to you. Thanks again for your advice !

[Lynker, LPN]

Can I be honest? I've been an LPN for 5.5 years, and I'm about to graduate with my ADN and I STILL make stupid mistakes like this. We are all human...we have our own problems, conditions (like me for me, ADD which makes me INCREDIBLY forgetful), and we're all very nervous during school, especially clinicals. Give yourself more grace, you are still learning and you will KEEP learning. You will make the same errors over and over again, it's just reality. How you learn from them is what matters! :)