Knowing what I was doing surprised me. How could a few labs and clinical placements on an orthopedic floor, a labor and delivery floor, a detox unit, and a general psych floor help me be prepared for the acuity of patients on an ICU? I couldn’t believe it. Every single clinical experience, every single lab, and every single clinical simulation helped. The smallest skills I learned in clinical and lab, those skills that seemed so easy that I wondered if the professors were questioning my mental capacity, became the skills I used on a regular basis, the ones that made the biggest difference in my practice. You think making a bed is so easy? Try doing it with a six foot, five inch man who weighs 250lbs and getting the sheets straight because he’s sedated and you don’t want to risk skin breakdown. You think oral care is a joke to be learning about in lab? Tell that to the patient with oral candidiasis who wants nothing more than a swab to keep his mouth comfortable. These little things make an enormous difference to even the most complex patients. Again, the attitude in learning these skills should be a positive one. You want to provide your patients with the best care possible, in order to this you must start by practicing the best possible skills in clinical, lab, and preceptorships. Every day in clinical presents a new challenge, you will come upon things you didn’t even know you were afraid to do, but with the help and guidance of a preceptor or clinical instructor, you will get through the experience and be better for it. You should seek out these challenges, and do what scares you. If it scares you now imagine what the feeling would be when you have that “RN” or “LPN” at the end of your name, those little letters making you responsible for your patient’s care. As students we need to advocate for ourselves, gaining as many experiences as possible before we graduate and are on our own. Expose yourself to as much as possible. If a nurse down the hall has a patient getting a procedure done, ask to watch. If another nurse’s patient needs a dressing change, ask to do it! Be determined, remember to wake up thinking “I get to practice for my career today,” don’t go in with the “ugh, I’m tired, why do I have to be here” attitude. Remember that your education is your choice. Nobody will force you to attend clinical, sure there are consequences for not going, but ultimately the decision to be in school and to attend clinical is the student’s.

            We all get tired, we all have challenges outside of school, but with a positive attitude about learning and a little determination to succeed we can all get through any clinical experience, learn a great deal from it, and enjoy the learning. I can’t say it enough; any clinical experience will be what you make of it. Two students in the same clinical group can have incredibly different experiences if one goes in positively and the other negatively. Nurses will notice who the students are that want to learn, they will seek you out to teach you if they think you want to be taught. There will always be the one intimidating, scary, or “grumpy” nurse on the floor. From my experiences I have learned that they usually can be won over if you show them that you are a serious student, there to learn from them, not to judge the way they practice. If nurses notice that you are just stuck on autopilot, doing only what is absolutely required of you in clinical, they won’t have an interest in teaching you, and why should they?

            They say life is what you make of it, well, it is my opinion that the same is true for clinical and preceptorship experiences.  The more you as a student advocate for yourself, the more experiences you gain exposure to, the better nurse you will be. You will be more prepared for your eventual practice and feel more comfortable joining the professional world. Remember that you are more prepared for clinical than you think. You will make mistakes, we all do, nurses with years of experience still make mistakes. The important thing to do is look at your mistakes, learn from them, and move forward. Keep a positive attitude and realize that you are learning. Never be afraid to try a skill again just because you made a mistake, you should in fact force yourself into this experience again, so that you know you can do it. It would be hard to find a nurse who didn’t miss trying to insert a catheter, but with practice we all become comfortable with it. You didn’t stop trying to walk after your first fall, did you? Skills will come with time and practice. You will be scared; there will be days you want to quit. There will be days you will question if nursing is for you. Over time these days will become few and far between, and you will feel the rewards of nursing. A patient’s thanks and appreciation will make all the hard work worth it. In regards to mistakes, my preceptor had this to say for all students, “It’s the learning curve, none of us (nurses) are expecting you to be perfect, we’re just expecting that you try your hardest and show us you want this.” So remember, we’re students, not super heroes, we won’t be perfect, but with a positive attitude, we can make any experience a great and rewarding one. 

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