What is your typical day like?

[jaylynn67]

I will be starting nursing school in the Fall. I want to be a nurse to do something more important in life, to help people and to make a better living. But to be honest, im not really sure what the day to day duties of a nurse is. Can anyone describe what a typical day is like where you work? What exactly do you do? Thanks.

[CrystalClear75, BSN, RN]

Hi,

I see that nobody replied to your post but I can tell you that I've done some clinicals and I see and do what nurses do..in other words im a 3rd semester student. Firstly, in the first semester you will be learning the nursing process amoung other things like head to toe assesments, vital signs, and some pathophysiologies like diseases and how to treat them as a nurse using the nursing process. Here's how the nursing process works:

Assessment: Begins when you first meet your patient. Your already noting such aspects as skin colors or speech patterns and body position. As you move on to complete it, you'll collect data like their history and review of laboratory and medical information.

Nursing diagnosis: After clustering the data obtained during your assessment, your next step is to perform a nursing diagnosis based on their response to the problem, related factors that contribute to the problem, and signs and symptoms. For example, you may come up with

Constipation related to use of opioid analgesics as evidenced by passage of hard, formed stoles.

Planning: This is the time when your plan to deliver quality patient care based on the nursing diagnosis, expected outcomes and nursing interventions. So you prioritize your nursing diagnosis, selecting approproate nursing interventions to achieve expected outcomes, and documentation of expected outcomes, nursing interventions, and evaluations.

Implementing, now your ready to implement nursing interventions like administer ordered analgesics 30 minutes before dressing change. Or administering a stool softener for constipation.

Evaluation is an ongoing process that takes place each time you see your patient. Like documenting the extent of the outcome achiecement(whether the outcome was met and revising the care plan.

example; Able to describe the signs and symptoms of hyperglycemia

Able to ambulate to chair with a steady gate approximately 10 inches unassisted.

Patient state leg pain decreased from a scale of 9 to 6(on a scale of 0 to 10. 3o minutes after pain medication within one hour of adminstration.

And that's basically the basics of it. In the morning we do a report on the patient to be able to identify the necessary interventions for the patient and things to watch out for. LIke, some people are on strict Intake(food) and output(how much they eliminated), and nurses need to keep track of how much they take in and take out and document it. Charting is another big one, like documenting everything that you do. Giving meds, making sure they are afebrile(no fever), in as much comfort as possible.:) Hope this helps. :)

[McGyverRN]

The above is a good explanation of the nursing process. I am a RN on a busy medical unit in a hospital. Here is how my day goes:

Every patient has a plan of care that tells us everything we need to do for the patient that the doc has ordered. Meds, wound care, diet, activity, procedures, etc. I get to work 20 minutes early to review each of my patients' care plan.

The shift starts at 7A, I get report which takes between 30-45 minutes. Report tells me what kind of night my patients had, their vital signs, the nurse's assessment, etc. After report, I look at my patients' am lab values to see if anything needs to be notified to the doctor immediately.

I then set out to meet and assess my patients ( I start this while I wait for the docs to call back) and deliver any 8 am meds that are due. Assessment includes a complete head to toe physical assessment (heart lungs, abdomen, pulses, etc), pain, mental status, appetite, bowel, bladder, vital signs, etc. After that assessment, I may need to inititate some interventions and carry out any new orders given as the docs are rounding. I then begin assisting my patients with their baths as needed ( we have 1-2 aids for about 23 patients, so each RN usually has about 3-4 baths to do daily). At 9 am, I begin collecting my 10 am meds to deliver (meds can be scheduled at any time, but this is when the bulk of our meds are due)and complete any wound care the patient may need. As I deliver my meds, I am reassessing my patients for any interventions that I may have initiated earlier (ie. given them a pain pill, increased their oxygen, given them prune juice because they're constipated, etc). At 11 am the aids check our diabetics' blood sugars. Based on those results, I medicate my patients as needed with insulin. As I am doing that I get them set up for lunch, and feed those that need fed. I make lunch rounds to see how everyone is eating, again reassessing interventions. If I am having a good day, I take a 45 minute lunch break (happens once in a great while). After that I make another set of rounds to check on my patients ( and you guessed it...reassess). By then it's almost 1pm, so I collect my 2pm meds (another busy med time). While I pass those meds, I also collect and record my patients' intakes and outputs (for later documentation) and reassess my patients from head to toe. I review the vitals signs collected by the aids and take actions if needed. At 3pm I give report to the next shift.

This is a very basic timeline. While I am going through my day, I am also answering call bells, taking phone calls, answering family questions, doing patient teaching, answering doctors' questions, getting admissions, having discharges, making out the next shift's assignment, helping my coworkers, responding to emergencies, and do mounds of written and computer charting.

Of course, there are many things that can interrupt one's timeline..the patient leaves the floor of testing, therapy, invasive procedures, surgery, or to smoke, etc.

I hope this helps.

[thumperRN]

:smiley_ab :smackingf :barf01:

Yup, that pretty much summed up my day!!