What are your clinicals like?

checkers · Apr 1, 2005

5 hour days, 2 times a week, with 7 or 8 students to 1 instructor. Nurses generally rush on by, and I feel like I'm in the way. A few have taken the time to explain things, let me watch skills that I haven't been able to do, etc. It is rare.

I really hate clinical, mainly becuase it leaves me completely exhausted (I do tend to stress about it though) and then I'm too tired to do my actual studying when i get home. Clinical was extended by 2 extra hours/week this semester!!

The one's that I find MOST helpful in clinical are my classmates!

KrisRNwannabe · Apr 1, 2005

Right now we are doing 2 10 hour days per week. there 10 students in each clinical group with 1 instructor. we are split up between 2 floors. right now we are taking care of 4-5 patients each day. we do the assessments, med passes, and any procedures that need to be done. Since the 2 week of the first semester we have been able to give injections and pass oral meds without our instrutor. she still checks off on the med sheet before we give them but she doesn't watch us give them. So far I have been checked off on: IV removal, PICC line removal, wound dressing changes, cath insertion and removal. this means that I can do these procedures without an instructor and I can help others who haven't been checked off. I am an LPN student so I am not allowed to touch anything IV such as no meds pushed IV. Next semester we will be doing 2 12 hour days per week. We will be the LPN in the RN-LPN-NA team. These will be long days and we will really be seperated on 3-4 different floors but it will help. THe first semester we really learned to lean on one another in clinical. this semester (our 3rd) we will learn to be more independent. I really like clinical and have learned alot. Clinical is really what you make of it. the first semester I got to do the most because when my stuff was done i hung around my instructor. good luck

Kris

xanthippe · Apr 1, 2005

5 hour days, 2 times a week, with 7 or 8 students to 1 instructor. Nurses generally rush on by, and I feel like I'm in the way. A few have taken the time to explain things, let me watch skills that I haven't been able to do, etc. It is rare.
I really hate clinical, mainly becuase it leaves me completely exhausted (I do tend to stress about it though) and then I'm too tired to do my actual studying when i get home. Clinical was extended by 2 extra hours/week this semester!!
The one's that I find MOST helpful in clinical are my classmates!

Checkers,

Your clinicals sound alot like mine (except we only get 1 day a week). Most of the time I do feel lost, confused, and in the way. Just wondering if this was normal or not.

BonnieSc · Apr 2, 2005

I'm having a great experience in my first clinical semester. We have nine students to one instructor, and no more than two students on any one floor, so obviously we work without the instructor most of the time. We do some shifts where we follow one nurse and help her with her patients (we do anything we've been checked off on, and many things we haven't learned but that she can walk us through), and other shifts where we do full care for one or two patients (excepting procedures we haven't been trained on). A staff nurse is still assigned to those patients and will help when we need it.

I was afraid that I wouldn't know what to do and would feel like I was in the way, but it hasn't been that way at all. The nurses and doctors all go out of their way to help us, answer questions, and give advice. If the nurse is in a hurry for some reason, she always says really nicely that she has to do the procedure this time, but I should watch what she does. The instructor is available if we do run into problems where a nurse isn't letting us do anything, or if we need more supervision with a procedure. The only thing we had to do with our instructor the first time was give meds.

Our first semester clinicals are just 5 hours, one day a week, with one 12-hour shift late in the semester and one full day of home health.

annlee1318 · Apr 3, 2005

Don't worry I constantly feel like I'm in the way, and that I don't know what to do. There are 10 students to one clinical instructor, and most of the time we are left to do things on our own. The first day of rotation, we are assigned a nurse to shadow. After that, you're pretty much on your own. Everything we've done in skills lab, we are allowed to do on our own. If the procedure is invasive, then our clinical instructor MUST be there the first time we do the skill. Most of the nurses on the med-surg floor we work on aren't very nice We work in an inner city hospital, so we look to develop a pretty thick skin fast. Our hourse are two 9 hour days a week. As far as being unsafe, I find that practicing everything I say and do helps a great deal. Also, CD's that show you how to do skills over and over help. Know that you're not alone!