This past Saturday and Sunday I had my first set of clinicals in a nursing home. To start with everyone was uneasy and nervous. With 14 pages of clinical paperwork we seemed like lost little lioness cubs looking for their mother in the savannah right before dusk. The 10 of us stood around doe-eyed in a semi-circle around our instructor, my eyes imploring any evidence of realty. It seemed so unreal to be in a small farming town for the weekend 105 miles from my house instead of with my family. Was I really doing the right thing? Is nursing school for me?
Our instructor is an amazing woman, patient, gracious, pleasant, kind, rational and understanding. Despite our unending questions (which would sound like pure ignorance to a by-stander) she convinced us that we could indeed proceed with our clinicals under the guidance of our own confidence and what little nursing knowledge we had after 3 weeks of fundamentals class.
My patient had Alzheimers and questioned "Where am I?" every 15 seconds like clockwork. Although I would answer her, her pleas of where she was would continue. In response to most of my subjective questions to her are, "Where am I?" and "How are you?".
The few days with my patient were uneventful, got to play CNA with her and assist with ADL's like feeding, dressing and toileting. Much to my chagrin there were not many medical interventions for me to experience with her other than a physical assessment and VS. She didn't have a catheter or IV. Her kind smile she would give me while I fed her helped remind me why I am sacrificing so much to be in nursing school.
Slowly throughout our time in the nursing home our overwhelming feelings of bewilderment melted into confidence and accomplishment. Our instructor notably commented on how well our nursing notes we charted and our clinical paperwork looked, especially for clinical virgins like us.
By the second day we had all gotten into our own grooves and helped one another with patient care. It had evolved into a group effort, we were paired up with someone else to critique each other on our physical assessments. My partner and I did very well, it helped that she is a good friend of mine and we carpool together, there was already a bond of trust between us.
I'm ready to do this again in 2 weeks despite being away from my family for the weekend again; I am looking forward to learning and getting baby steps closer to becoming an RN.
I saw you're a new follower on my twitter. I too am a nursing student. I loved this post because I can relate on so many levels! Clinicals in the nursing homes are always interesting as far as the patients go, but hardly ever do I do more than 'CNA' duties, which come easy to me because I was a CNA for 5 years prior to going to nursing school. Are you a LVN/LPN student or RN?
ReplyDeleteI worked as a CNA 11 years ago for a while. I loved it. I am studying to be an RN. In my first semester.
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