1st clinical day!

9livesRN, BSN, RN · Oct 15, 2009

great deal!!! you are lucky that you pass meds on your first semester! i went 1 semester wiping but, making beds, washing people, and all that other stuff!!!

only got to pass meds on medsurge 1.

well anyways... this is crazy that you guys are getting assignments 2 days prior to.

i mean, unless you guys are on a LTC floor where pts will be there for weeks, like a SNU floor or so... otherwise that may be common to get there and have your pt discharged!

plus 2 days working in a care plan is just too much!

on my floor that I am now, we even stopped going the night before, since we were having our pts moving to ICU or OR or stepdown, so we now get our assignments on the same day...

and it doesnt take more then 2 hours to throw in a care plan

BellasMommyOBRN · Oct 16, 2009

i was also surprised to read that you were passing meds/changing ivs on the first day. this isn't fundamentals is it? like the previous poster, i have only done am/hygiene care. the only real "nurse-y" thing we have done is assessments!

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

great deal!!! you are lucky that you pass meds on your first semester! i went 1 semester wiping but, making beds, washing people, and all that other stuff!!!
only got to pass meds on medsurge 1.
well anyways... this is crazy that you guys are getting assignments 2 days prior to.
i mean, unless you guys are on a LTC floor where pts will be there for weeks, like a SNU floor or so... otherwise that may be common to get there and have your pt discharged!
plus 2 days working in a care plan is just too much!
on my floor that I am now, we even stopped going the night before, since we were having our pts moving to ICU or OR or stepdown, so we now get our assignments on the same day...
and it doesnt take more then 2 hours to throw in a care plan

I think it is kinda stupid that we get the assignment 2 days prior because of my experience. But the prof I guess tries to match us up with pts that are going to still be there by the time we get there. There are 5 students and 2 pts were discharged....and I'm sure it'll happen again. I didn't spend 2 days on the careplan. The 1st night I spent looking up the meds and surgery and the 2nd day I did 2 careplans....took me a total of 3 hours probably.

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

i was also surprised to read that you were passing meds/changing ivs on the first day. this isn't fundamentals is it? like the previous poster, i have only done am/hygiene care. the only real "nurse-y" thing we have done is assessments!

yes, i'm in fundamentals. i'm always surprised reading here that other students don't pass meds until later semesters, lol. i knew that we were going to be doing that, so i think it's weird that schools are so different. i assumed we'd be doing more cna type stuff, plus passing meds but we didn't do that at all. it's weird for me being a previous cna i was so tempted to pass breakfast and lunch trays, lol.

Boog'sCRRN246, RN · Oct 16, 2009

Are you taking Pharm with your program or did you take it prior to starting your program? I think the reason most programs wait until later semesters to have students passing meds is so the students will have had Pharm and have some knowledge about the meds they are giving, as well as understanding dosage calculations. I'm in a LPN-RN transition program so we've been passing meds since day 1, but I know the students in the generic program at my school have to wait a little bit.

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

Are you taking Pharm with your program or did you take it prior to starting your program? I think the reason most programs wait until later semesters to have students passing meds is so the students will have had Pharm and have some knowledge about the meds they are giving as well as understanding dosage calculations. I'm in a LPN-RN transition program so we've been passing meds since day 1, but I know the students in the generic program at my school have to wait a little bit.[/quote']
Ah...could be! Nursing Pharm 1 was a half semester...ending last week. Then part 2 is next semester. You have to pass the final obviously to move on. So maybe that's why? What are other programs like? Are you guys taking pharm?

Boog'sCRRN246, RN · Oct 16, 2009

For me, I took Pharm in LPN school. It was two parts. Obviously, I had to take Pharm again for the LPN-RN transition b/c LPN pharm doesn't teach IV pushes and that sort of thing (I'm in Florida). At my school, we had the option to take it with the program or right before we started. I took it before as I didn't want to have any extra classes going on once I started the program.

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Oct 16, 2009

At my school pharm 1 has to be taken with nursing 1 and pharm 2 has to be taken with nursing 2. Was yours a half a semester like mine?

Kringe38 · Oct 16, 2009

Ah...could be! Nursing Pharm 1 was a half semester...ending last week. Then part 2 is next semester. You have to pass the final obviously to move on. So maybe that's why? What are other programs like? Are you guys taking pharm?

I'm in first semester of an ADN program. No prior experience. We had pharm for the first 8 weeks and just did the final exam for that this week. Have to pass that to move on to clinicals, plus have to pass the big giant scary math test. We're getting ready to start clinicals week after next and it's my understanding we will be passing meds (in addition to the bathing, linen changes, etc) but with an instructor present, of course, not by ourselves. I need a "sweating" smilie to insert right here!

My program is probably going to change the way pharm is done and make it a semester-long prereq course in future, but for our class it was just an 8-week course done within the program itself and then learn whatever else we need to learn about meds as we go along.

ETA: We have practiced only IM and subcu injections right now. Nothing about IV's yet.

CharlieT · Oct 16, 2009

I am taking pharm and 101. Passed a ton of meds via ng and hung IV piggy back the first day of clinical.

sneakymom2011 · Oct 16, 2009

101 here, 1st semester of a diploma RN program.

Clinical starts next week. I'm on an oncology/hemotology floor (unless it's changed- again). Because we were on a general med-surg floor up until last week when it was changed to oncology.

We can't give chemo. We can change IV bags if they're just saline. And (this is my understanding) if there's any kind of medicine attached to them (ie piggyback) we can't touch them.

We do have to pass meds. Right before we do them, we go in with our instructor. We then have to tell them each meds name, a side effect, what it's used for, if it's a safe dose (and I think that's all). That's the scariest part b/c we were told "I don't know" isn't an answer. When we go in the day before, we look up all the meds and then research them at home.

Excited- yes. A little apprehensive since I don't really know just what we're going to get into. First day of clinical is Tuesday, but after looking at the schedule I don't think we actually do any patient care that day, it's just orientation.

Pharmacology is taught right along in the curriculum. At first I was kind of nervous (I had issues with Pharm the first time around). But I actually really like it. The drugs we learn about each week are tied into what we're learning. For example, we learned about pain, so we learned all about analgesics that week. Diuretics were done when we were taught elimination. The last set of drugs we learn are going to be anticoagulants, and those will be learned when we do our phlebotomy lecture.

Cheryl