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Is nursing clinicals hard?

I am a nursing student

nursing nurse medicine healthcare registered-nurses
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Sarah’s Answer

I never found them particularly difficult!
As long as you come prepared (doing any homework/skills that was assigned prior and any patient research etc.), it is just a place to learn. Because you are a student, you aren’t expected to be able to know everything or do anything perfectly. You will have a preceptor who is responsible for being a resource if you need anything at all. Hope you will have good preceptors!
If anything, the time commitment is the biggest thing. Sometimes you will have clinical for 12 hours at 6am on a Friday when you might rather sleep in. But that is what you signed up for! Good luck, it can be fun too!
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Brandy’s Answer

Yes, nursing clinicals are challenging but you are a student and not expected to know everything. The point of clinicals is to learn as much as you can and experience as much as you can. If you have the chance to take care of a patient with a diagnosis that you don’t have experience with or it takes you out of your comfort zone, do it! While you are a student is the time to experience as much as possible. What better time to try something then when you are a student. For example, I was very nervous about Labor & Delivery because I had zero experience with it. I never had any friends or family have babies since I was an adult. So, I had no past experience to pull from. So, instead of avoiding the unknown, I jumped in and let my fear go and learned as much as possible from my OB patients. Another example is I was afraid to put in a Foley catheter the first time but if I didn’t have that experience while in clinicals, it would have been much harder to do it when I was out on my own in the real world. Don’t look at clinicals as being hard, look at it as the best learning experience possible and it’s fun and exciting seeing all the new things you will see and helping people.
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Char’s Answer

Hi Nathan,
Yes nursing clinicals can be very challenging. Every few weeks (or months), you are at a new facility learning something new. The most challenging part for me was making sure I was prepared well. Usually you have to get there pretty early. Instructors are big on punctuality so you should get enough sleep the night before. You also typically have to complete assignments each week in preparation for the clinical (careplans). You have to be very courageous. Many times I was too scared to volunteer for bedside skills so I would let my peers have the opportunities unless my instructor forced me to. Sometimes I would even hide out in the restroom for a while. It was tough for me. The good thing is, your instructors are always there to help and the nurses at the facility are typically nice enough to show you things (some aren't though, and that's another challenge). Turns out that this shy nursing student actually became a clinical instructor. Funny how life works. Congrats on becoming a nursing student!
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Marie’s Answer

Nursing school in general can be very stressful. Clinicals are a subjective experience, and it's not very common to fail clinicals because there is a lot of support and interaction with the instructors. If you put in the effort — you're on time, you complete your care plans, you ask questions, and you're engaged — you will not fail clinicals. I worked as clinical instructor. My goal was to make clinical a fun and learning experience while getting the information you need. Prep work for clinicals is what is challenging. Nursing school requires a lot of busy work these days. Care plans or decision trees a long with med cards can be very time consuming . Clinical its self is fun and rewarding, learning new skills and patient populations.
Best of luck
ME
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Ebony’s Answer

Yes, nursing clinicals are hard BUT fun. You get the opportunity to see things you have never seen before, and also it is a good place to piece together what you learn from clinical. Your instructor can make or break your clinical experience, once you meet your instructor ask or figure out what it is they want from you, do they want lots of detail in your clinical paperwork, do they want you to spend time reviewing the chart and understanding the patient, etc. If you can pick your patient try and find a patient that has the same medical problems that you are reviewing in lecture, it will help you to better understand what you're learning in lecture as well. Hope this helps.
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