What can a nursing student do in clinicals???

nlion87 · Apr 8, 2008

anything you have learned skill wise in labs including med administration all under supervision of your clinical instructor

Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Apr 8, 2008

Ur clinical instructor should go over on what you can/can't do. We could do anything that we had practiced in lab. Some things like AM care we could do on our own, vitals. Of course she was around to check on us. When it came to passing meds, our prof always wanted to be there, as she stated we were working on her license.

One can be as busy as they want to be. We started off with 1 patient. Once we were complete with him/her and had some down time, we would assist other students ( as some had more difficult patients) or asked nurse/techs if they required any help (stuff they could do) And if ya helped them out, they tended to help you out, by getting a hold of you so you could see a new procedure. Always stuff to do. Nothing else to do, look over the chart to find stuff your not sure on.

TraumaRN11 · Apr 8, 2008

The most important thing in clinical is to get the exposure to as many patients' conditions or experiences as possible. Yes, this means even cleaning patient's who pooped and doing things such as inserting foleys! You'll be doing them as a nurse so you might was well start doing them now. (No, it's not just a nursing assistant's job) Also, ask your instructor to provide you with a variety of patients and disease processes. Another thing, ask other nurses on the floor to find you if they do anything interesting so you can observe. Even if you haven't learned the skill in school you can still watch and learn. By observing different things you'll find your niche and what speciality you'll want to enter into graduation.

casi, ASN, RN · Apr 9, 2008

For clinicals you can do what you've been trained to do and validated on in lab. I'm nearing the end of my first semester and I can do ADLs, meds, injections, insert/remove foleys, give IV meds, and soon I'll be able to do NG tubes.

loboscon08 · Apr 9, 2008

In my experience (I have 19 days left of NS!), the nurses on the units where I have done clinical at all know that students are there and most of them have been really great at grabbing the students and offering to let them start IV's, foley's, etc. They will even take them to watch some interesting procedure, skill, or look at some random/rare thing that their patient may have. My advice to you, always take advantage of those instances regardless if you have already seen something or started 6 foleys and feel like you are comfortable with them or not. The more practice and exposure you can get, the better off you will be. Also, watch as many procedures as you can in NS, because once you are a nurse in the real world, you won't get to go to the OR with your patient or watch someone insert a central line at the bedside. Good luck to you in nursing school!

:yeah:

Alternator81 · Apr 9, 2008

In my program we do everything that a nurse does with a few exceptions, like giving blood products to a patient, we can't take telephone orders or verbal orders from a doctor, and the nurse has to access narcotics for us. I don't think that we can touch arterial lines. We can not participate in codes. I am sure there are a few things I am forgetting.

Other than that, we give all the meds, including IV push drugs-- in fact, we have access to the pyxis. We place all the caths.. ect.. Everthing the nurse does.

I don't know why they said we chat in the break room. By your last semester, you have 6 patients to take care of alone. And nurses are SUPER territorial about the break room!