We had clinical orientation today

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

I really hope I can make it through this semester. All first semester students at my school start at a Long Term Care facility, some of the LTC places have rehabilitation centers in them but ours has a Medicare section, Long Term, Hospice, Secure Unit which is dementia and Alzheimer patients stuff high wander risk patients and stuff. So our first semester we shadow a CNA and get the basic nursing skills down pat and also do things like Catheters, NSG tubes, Suctioning and so on. I am sure it's much the same in a lot of programs.

I was all excited for today because it was Orientation at our facility, according to all the CNA's in our class my group really lucked out because we are at one of the nicer facilities. So today we are going on tour of the building and it took everything I had not to cry. It was nothing but sadness and helplessness, especially the hospice area.

Seeing these elderly people hunched over in a wheel chair staring at a tv that is off, or looking into at nothing or just laying in bed immobile looking so sad and broken. It was terrible. I can't even describe it. The other girls in my group handled it much better and said I won't feel so bad when they are yelling at me and stuff but I think I will still feel sad for them. I have clinicals here 1 day a week for the next 8 weeks. Next semester we will be on the Med/Surge units of the hospitals 3 days a week.

I guess some people really like LTC but I don't think it's for me at all. I just hope I can make it through these next 8 weeks. It seriously was one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen up close and personal and that was just on my tour.

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I just started an ADN program and we start rotations in the hospital, not LTC. I am very happy as LTC is not my cup of tea. Just hang in there and endure it for eight weeks. We are currently learning NGs, foleys, wet to dry, trach care, enemas, IM and subq injections.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I just started an ADN program and we start rotations in the hospital, not LTC. I am very happy as LTC is not my cup of tea. Just hang in there and endure it for eight weeks. We are currently learning NGs, foleys, wet to dry, trach care, enemas, IM and subq injections.

We start all that in the next few weeks, we have returns next week for sterile gloves and vital signs and then we start the foley's and stuff.

I am going to try and hang in there, I mean I know I will be able to hang in there, I didn't wait 3.5 years to get in to withdraw because it's to sad, but I will be very glad when this rotation is over. I close friends husband died of cancer within a year, that was from diagnosis to death, all the pictures she would put of him he still had so much life in him, on the outside was a different story, but in his eyes he seemed alive and was always surrounded by loved ones. Even in the end when he had lost 70 lbs and was nothing left he was smiling holding his 1 year old daughter. These people had no one, they looked so broken and empty. Ugh I keep seeing their faces in my head, I really hope it gets better as the weeks go on.

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I'm so very sorry for your loss, and for the death of your friend's husband.

And I have no idea if you'll come to see your patients with different eyes over the next 8 weeks or not, but you might. You might come to see that this time of emptying out, of brokenness, even, is as much a part of a fully human life as all the rest of our joys and sorrows.

Or not! I don't intend to foist my own point of view on you, and I'm guessing we're all drawn to different kinds of nursing. But if you can get hold of a collection of writings called "A Call to Nursing," published by Kaplan, edited by Sergi & Gorman, you'll find a deeply moving essay about LTC work called "Why I Like Dead People" written by a nurse named Sallie Teasdale. (I know we live in the same town; Poudre library just ordered this book this week and it's filled with good stories.)

From that essay: "A labor of love, love for fading people who dwell in shadows...

"Death is anticipated, waited on in suspense. It is like waiting in a very long line that snakes around a corner so you can't see the end. When the last breath is drawn, it is startling; here is a breath, and another, and another. Death is the breath after the last one. Always fresh, always solemn, and not unlike a childbirth: the living let their own breaths go, and smile, and in the solemnity is an affirmation...

"This is far from the best nursing home. It isn't the worst. I rant, jump to complain, go home frustrated. It should be better. But the sheets are changed, people are fed, for the most part each one is treated with kindness--a clumsy, patronizing kindness at times, but many of them don't discriminate on these fine points. Kindness is enough."

And I hope you treat *yourself* with abundant kindness in these next eight weeks, too. I hope that for both you and your patients it will be "enough."

Dina

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Is a LTC facility a fancy word for nursing home? I may be a little out of the loop, but I always wondered why so many people on here spoke against working there. I am in a BSN program, we don;t have any clinicals @ any LTC facilities they are all @ major hospitals. I would have your same feelings, that is a very emotional place to have clinicals. But just think you may be able to make more of a difference in someone's life working there. Good Luck!

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Is a LTC facility a fancy word for nursing home? I may be a little out of the loop, but I always wondered why so many people on here spoke against working there. I am in a BSN program, we don;t have any clinicals @ any LTC facilities they are all @ major hospitals. I would have your same feelings, that is a very emotional place to have clinicals. But just think you may be able to make more of a difference in someone's life working there. Good Luck!

I am not sure if they are the same. I am in a ADN or ASN I can't remember, and we do 1 semester at LTC and 3 at the hospitals I believe. I'm not sure why a lot of people don't want to work there, I have met quiet a few that really enjoy it, for me it doesn't conjur up the same feelings as them. To me it's very depressing.

I will try and make the best of it and do what I can for my "clients" I don't like saying clients but we are being told in school that they are supposed to start saying Clients and Primary Care Providers instead of Patients and Dr's. Anyway, I will for sure be kind and do what I can for my patients I just need to adjust to all this I guess. I was prepared for a lot of things with school,(seeing blood and wounds and poop and vomit etc. etc.) but I was not prepared for what I saw today. I came home and did well until my husband came home and then I started crying when he asked me about my day.

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"Is a LTC facility a fancy word for nursing home?"

LTC is short for long term care. Can mean any type of assisted living, but most often means nursing home.

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Omg! You are so lucky! I love doing clinicals at LTC facilities and

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

i think there are some things that we all see as nurses that personally affect us in some way or another and this has to do with our own personal backgrounds. nursing school is designed to give us a well-rounded exposure to as much as possible so you are going to see all kinds of patients and facilities. some will affect you and make you sad and others will be joyous for you. this is how you will decide where you will want to work after graduation. remember, knowledge is power. i happen to like ltc. it is important to know what goes on in these facilities because many of the patients you will be caring for in the hospital may be going to them after their hospital stay and want to know what it is like there and be asking you about them. i thought locked psych facilities were awful and had a hard time being in them. i don't like confinement. i also had a lot of difficulty working with patients who were victims of violent crimes. never had a problem working with people who were dying, however.

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i m in 2nd sem -med surg these days...but yes i know what u r talking about.. i completely agree with u.. i felt sad too.. but u will realise later that it is very satisfying.. u wud feel happy after a few days of helping them out. :saint:

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

Thanks y'all for the words of encouragement and advice, my first official clinical day is Monday so I will see how it goes.

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Specializes in Community Health.

I'm in an LPN program so the majority of our clinicals are in LTC settings...I felt a lot like you the first day, I was shocked and sad and wondered if I was really cut out for it. It was a reality check for sure...The human suffering hits you like a ton of bricks. The students that said "you won't feel bad once they start yelling at you" are either making a really bad joke or need to find a new career path :down:

We live in a society that tries to hide the reality of aging and death. It is a sad, ugly process and it can be scary, especially the first time you really see it. At the same time, as depressing as it looks from the outside, once you start working in the facility you might find it's not as bad as you thought. It's not all doom and gloom in LTC, there are activities for the residents, they form friendships, hopefully they have visits from family...and you can make a huge difference in their lives just by taking the time to care for them, to listen to them...A lot of LTC residents do not get the kind of care they deserve, because of understaffing or because some people (staff and family) just don't give a crud about them. For me, that always motivates me to go above and beyond for them. I make it my duty to look at every resident as an individual and treat them like I would treat my own family member. And believe me, they notice, they appreciate your care, probably more than any other patient will.

My goal is to be an ER nurse so I'm not planning on working in LTC but I really do value the experience because it is the essence of what nursing is all about...caring for those that society has left behind, giving them comfort in their time of need. Take advantage of the experience while you can because you will not always have the opportunity for actual "bedside nursing" in the real world.

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