What are nursing clinicals like? (BSN)

[nursingstudent2458]

I will approaching nursing school soon, and I am very worried about clinicals. What all do you do in clinicals? Do you work with real patients or fake ones in the hospitals? How are clinicals graded? My biggest fear is messing them up and ending up hurting somebody unintentionally (if real patients are used). Any info is greatly appreciated.

[diver117]

I cant speak for the US but in Canada the patients are very real. My last few rotations (Im a BScN syudent, 3rd year) I was assigned a minimum of two patients and a max of 4. I requested more patients.

Will you make mistakes? Oh yes, its part of the learning process and your prof is going to be there to guide you.

I have seen a few students dismissed, only one for a mistake, the student did not have a clue about the patient, otherwise it was either laziness or a very bad attitude that got them booted.

Your prof will be there to guide you and well correct you, been their and im better for it.

Good luck in your studies

[Starfish, RN]

For my BSN program we had simulation at school, and took care of real patients in the hospital. We have a simulation 'hospital' on campus, and would be filmed and critiqued based off of our performance. It was never graded for right/wrong, more so effort. We had different scenarios like a patient suffering a MI (heart attack), stroke, hemorrhage, etc that you couldn't really practice in the real world.

In the hospital we almost always had 1 patient, and we provided complete care to them. This is different than once you are working as the actual RN, because there are nursing assistants and so forth who help. We would do everything from feed patients, change linens, toilet care, give medications by mouth, give medications IV, insert foley catheters, insert NG tubes, change wound dressings, and other nursing tasks.