Thickening skin

Me and my clinical group... sike! we don't wear nurse hats.

I'm not sure how many other people feel like this, but I really dislike that feeling I get the first day I start something new. Like the first day of a new job, or the first day at a new school, or really any first day where I'm in a new environment and I don't know anyone. It's scary- and nerve racking and I'm kind of excited, but I more want to just throw up. That's how I feel at clinical every week.

This quarter, I'm at the hospital for 2 8-hour days, plus 1 evening before to collect patient information for my nursing care plan that's due at the end of the week. I basically just go into the hospital, log on to the computer, close my eyes, point to a name on the patient list and hope that they're still going to be there the following two days. No one is really there to tell you which patient is likely to be there and which patient is likely to be discharged, or which patient is going to be really nice to you or which is going to hate that they got a student. You just blindly chose and go home to start your 15 page care plan. The next day, you sit in the meeting room where the nurses coming on-shift meet to figure out who has which patients. The nurses ignore you, do their thing and leave the room, which signals you that it's time to chase down the RN that has the patient you chose last night, and tell her (or him) the great news that she (or he) has a student nurse that will be following them around for 8 hours! This is the part that I literally dream about the night before, the part that determines how you are going to feel for the next 2 days- when your nurse looks at you, smiles and says "Hi, nice to meet you!" or looks you up and down and says "ok, get a chair".

There are a couple inefficiencies in this system

1. Should your patient get discharged by the next day, you wasted a bunch of time working on that care plan because you are starting over, baby! Honestly, I feel like it is a waste of time to come the day before to chose a patient. Today 3 out of 6 of our patients that we chose yesterday were discharged, meaning half of us had to chose new patients. When we're real nurses, we're not showing up the day before work to check out our patients- we're gonna show up to work and have 30 minutes to figure out 5 patients.
2. RNs don't know they're getting a student until the start of their shift and some of them see students purely as dead weight that will slow them down. I really hate that feeling of being in someone's way. It makes me feel super incompetent and useless. Some RNs don't even talk to their student... Others are superstar RN/teachers and love students!!! RNs should volunteer to have students- this would decrease anxiety on both sides. Students would know they're assigned to a nurse who wants to have a student and nurses who don't want students don't have to have them.
3. Students, especially students in their first acute care rotation, are scared as hell! I don't need to be babied, but it would be nice!!! Just kidding. I don't need to be babied, but a general outline of what was expected of me would have been nice. I had no idea how to read the electronic documenting system, and how to read the medication schedule, and how often I had to document vitals and interventions. I figured out that I had to when an aid or a nurse or my teacher finally asked, "Why didn't you do this?". Because I didn't know I was supposed to, that's why.

I remember at the nursing program orientation back in September, I asked one of the instructors how receptive clinical sites were to students (yes, I really hate the feeling of being out of place THAT much), and the professor said, "Yes! Clinical sites love students from here because they demonstrate a deeper level of critical thinking, blah blah blah". Of course they'd have to say that!!! Whatever. Bleh, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be complaining. I know everyone else is dealing with this too. I know it's not personal and I'm working on getting that thick skin. I'm pretty sure everyone in my cohort has already had a mental breakdown (crying included) this quarter so I know I'm not the only one who could use a callus. It's okay, at least I'll always have Ryan. Good night.