Last Instructor-Led Clinical - First Day!

Saturday I showed up at the hospital for clinical orientation. Unfortunately, we had to wear our "whites". I hate wearing those things cause everyone looks at you LOL

Anyways, I met my last clinical instructor. She seems to be very nice! Kinda quiet, but I love her calm demeanor. She's very knowledgeable and I feel confident having her there by my side when I need her. This is a great way to end out the last instructor-led clinical. In 6 weeks we go on with our preceptor. I still don't have my preceptor assignment. I don't know which hospital or specialty I'm doing. I requested OB or OR, but I'd be real happy with ER or Peds. I just love nursing LOL

So anyways, I'm also very happy with the group of students I'm in with. They are all very cool. There's a few I haven't really met yet cause they just joined us from the other campuses but they seem very nice. Sometimes you get people with a chip on their shoulder and they hate life itself and everyone in it and that makes it hard to work and learn. But we don't seem to have that this time around.

I like this hospital so much more than the other hospital I did telemetry at. The only thing I like better about the other hospital is we had our own user names and passwords to access the computer charts. This hospital doesn't do that for students, so when we need to look at the chart (nearly CONSTANTLY! LOL) we have to hunt down a busy nurse and pull her away from her job.

My goal for this clinical is better time management. I've always been able to get done everything that I need to during my shift. Now I've got 12 hours. I want to STAY busy for 12 hours.

Good news: No more stupid care plans
Bad news: Those stupid care plans gave us something to do when we had down time

I guess we're starting out with 1 patient for now. But we're adding more and more patients as we go. So having more than one patient means that I HAVE to stay on top of meds and tests and what needs to be done. We had a lecturer on Friday who gave us a great notecard idea. On the front it had all the pt info you need to know at a glance and on the back it broke down the hours and you marked what meds needed to be given/were given. I might try that. A notecard would be simple to grab out of my pocket and then glance at as needed.

Oh, I also found out we're not working 7a-7p. That's a bummer. We're doing 6a-6p. That extra hour of sleep means alot to me! LOL I'll manage though. The idea of a 12 hour shift doesn't bother me too much. I'm just afraid of being bored. I HATE being bored. But then again, if we're too busy we MIGHT not get any lunch break. I'm going to have to tell my instructor (Ugh) that I'm diabetic and "this is why I'm sneaking a snack". I can't eat at 5 am before clinical and then eat when I get home after 7 pm. That's not good for anyone. Especially when you need a clear mind to work with your patients. Oh well.

But I've had days when I worked 8 hours where 8 hours wasn't enough. Especially the TB patients. You couldn't just walk in and do what you needed. You had to gown up, mask, gloves, etc.