What didnt you do in school?

[aachavez]

I'm getting close to graduation, and theres SO many things I've never done on a live patient! Stuff like, foley, IV's, injections, (all I really have done is some minor wound care and hygiene stuff) It makes me nervous, but hopefully I'll be blessed with a great orientation....SO.... What types of things had you never done on a live person til after you were licensed and working?

Have you precepted a new grad and been surprised at the skills they hadn't had much practice with?

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

Gosh, I haven't been in school in over 15 years but there were lot's of skills I never got to do during clinicals. Blood draws and IV starts because none of the clinical sites I was at allowed students to do it and mine was one of the first classes that didn't allow students to practice on each other. Trach care since I never had a pt with a trach during school. Inserting an NG tube, which I still have never done because it's not a skill we use in my practice. Transfusing blood [again a skill I have never performed]. So many more, but that's just the few I can think of off the top of my head. Any skills you need to master you will learn on the job, and you will find as your career progresses that there a lot of nursing skills you will never perform as skills vary with area of practice.

[aachavez]

So this begs the question, what do you actually do at clinicals?

Lots of "CNA" work. For fundamentals it was fine, to practice those basic skills, but we need to learn other stuff too.

Update.... I am in my pediatric rotation now, I've gotten to do some trach care which was new.

[aachavez]

We also do have skills check off's, you must be checked off in lab before performing on a patient. I have been able to do a lot of practice in lab on the manequins; but you know it's just not the same.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I've said it before (maybe even in this thread) and Ill say it again: Don't stress over the lab-check-off theory of nursing education. It's not possible to do everything as a student that you will be asked to do as an RN. There isn't enough time in the year.

You will have plenty o' time to do those tasks in your first year of work. Nobody with the sense God gave geese will think you ought to have done it all already. The opinion of anyone who gives you a roll-eye over anything you haven't had the opportunity to know yet isn't worth worrying about for five minutes.

In 14 months putting in Foleys and sinking Salem sumps isn't going to seem so hugely exciting, believe me. These are not nursing skills, they are nursing TASKS. Nursing skill is a bit more on the intangible side, even though most students don't believe it. They will have to be in the RN role a while before they really understand that nursing isn't tasks, it's a way of thinking and acting. No offense, up there, but I don't give "shots," put pills in applesauce, wedge Swan-Ganz catheters, or cannulate shunts anymore, and I still work as a nurse every dam' day.

I am a real nurse, too. Cogito, ergo sum.

And hey! I've been out of school for mumblemumble years and I still learn something new every week or two. Nobody thinks I'm an idiot because I don't know it all already.