Nursing Student Coach

Seizing Every Opportunity: How to Thrive During Clinicals with Lauren Chapnick

Lauren Chapnick Season 2 Episode 3

Ever found yourself eyeing the clock during clinical rotations, counting down the minutes until freedom? That's a mindset I'm here to challenge, because as I report back to you as a working nurse post nursing school, I know firsthand the power of embracing every learning opportunity that comes your way. In this episode of Nursing Student Coach, I'm peeling back the curtain on how to revolutionize your clinical experiences from obligatory hours to a treasure trove of hands-on learning. We'll explore strategies for diving into medication administration and why volunteering for every task can accelerate your journey from student to standout nurse. 

Get ready to shift gears as we navigate the clinical landscape together. I'll be sharing the indispensable lessons I learned transitioning from another career into nursing, giving you a head start on recognizing both generic and brand names of medications – crucial for real-world nursing. Plus, I unpack why seizing every chance to practice your skills in a controlled environment is not just preparing you for exams, but for the high-stakes world of healthcare. By the end of our time together, you'll view your hours in clinicals not as a countdown to the end of the day, but as an investment in your future as a confident, proactive healthcare professional.

Speaker 1:

Hello everybody and welcome to season two of Nursing Student Coach. My name is Lauren Chapnick. I'm your host. I'm a registered nurse. Nursing is a second career for me and I found ways to thrive in nursing school and now as a new nurse in an emergency department. I want to take this season to share my stories, experiences and lessons with you so that you can become the best nursing student and the best nurse, and really just the best version of yourself that you could possibly be. All episodes are 10 minutes or less, so you can grab it and go. And a couple more things before we get into today's show. If you could kindly take a couple seconds to pull out your phone, give us a quick five star rating and review. It helps so much more than you even know to put the show in front of more future nurses, because it is my personal mission to help put more great nurses into the world and I need your help to do that. So thank you so much. And lastly, the views and opinions expressed on Nursing Student Coach are those of Lauren Chapnick and hers alone. They are not intended as medical advice and should not replace your institution's policies or procedures. So guys on to today's podcast. It's the Nursing Student Coach giving you the strategies you need the most.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, today I want to talk about clinical. Now I did talk about clinical a few times in the first season. You spend about half your time of nursing school in clinical. So what I said in the first season and it still is true is that you have to be there anyway. So take full advantage of the time that you are there. I've given this so much thought because I think, collectively, nursing students really see clinical as something they have to do and they dread it a lot of the time. They'd rather be studying for the exams, because the immediacy and the stakes are much higher for those exams. Right, you're not going to fail clinical unless you seriously harm a patient or you don't go, but you're going to pass clinical basically by just being there, and you also know that you are not going to be a nurse tomorrow, so the stakes don't feel that high when you're at clinical. I know because you kind of just think well, a lot of this I'm going to learn on the job anyway. So I got to do this, I got to be here, so I'm just going to get by, but really I'm just watching the clock ready to go home. I understand that. I was there not too long ago, I get it. But I'm here to tell you from the other side, as a working nurse, you really need to take full advantage of every moment that you can absorb everything, do everything that you possibly can, skills wise, because once you are on your own, the minute that you pass that NCLEX and you have that license, you are legally able to do all of these things, and if you've never done them before, it's going to be a lot harder for you. So first season I did an episode. I have a list of my top 10 ways to succeed in clinical and in the first season I did an episode where I went over two of them. They were arrive early and don't take unnecessary absences. Now, during season two, I will eventually get through all of that top 10 list. But today we're going to hit another two on that list. The first is medications and the second is to volunteer for everything. So let me go through each of those.

Speaker 1:

Okay, medications there is no better time to see and to learn your medications than in clinical. If you have an opportunity to either go with your instructor or shadow a nurse who is giving medications, scanning them it's called the med pass doing your either morning meds or afternoon, whatever it is. If you're on a med search floor, go with them. Write down the name of the med, the brand and the generic. In nursing school you're only learning the generic name, but doctors, providers, they all interchange the name, the brand and the generic, as do patients. So if you ask a patient what medications are you on and they say well, but you only know it as be appropriate, then you're going to be a little bit behind, whereas I challenge you to learn both. File it somewhere in your brain so that you can recognize. You can start to recognize either or because in real life there's nursing school and NCLEX land right, and then there's real life. When you get to real life, the generic and the brand are interchangeable. So you kind of have to learn both, and I suggest doing it now.

Speaker 1:

Write down the names of all of the medications that you see each day at clinical, and the best way to do this is to team up with all of your classmates who are with you and collectively make a list. What did everybody else see? You know this is something you can do on a break. Bring flashcards. Write down the names of all the meds that you saw that day. What are they for, what do they do and what's their mechanism of action. What are the side effects? Really flush out anything that you can about those drugs, because you will see them again and when you see them.

Speaker 1:

Working as a nurse like working in the emergency department I see a lot of these the same meds over and over again. But I will see all kinds of different medications because people come in for anything and everything and if your preceptor says, hey, why are we giving this? Of course you can ask and you can look it up when you're there. But if you have a bigger base level of knowledge going in, you're going to be so much better off, you're going to be so much more comfortable and you will feel far less overwhelmed by the medications. If you've taken the time in clinical to learn them as many as you can, you're there anyway. Guys, right, let's take advantage of that time. Let's become the best future nurses that we can be and learn those meds when you're in the moment, because it will help you so much. Not only will it help you in nursing school as a nursing student, it will help you more than you even realize.

Speaker 1:

When you get out there as a working nurse, the second thing that I would advise you to do is to volunteer for everything. If your instructor says or a nurse says, hey, does anybody want to come put in this Foley for me? Would anybody like to come do an NG tube? You might be scared out of your pants. I know I was the first time I ever did a Foley catheter. I was so scared. But here's the thing you are supervised. You are there with your instructor and or another licensed nurse and you're under their license. They are not going to let you hurt anybody. They're not going to let you mess it up. They're going to talk you through each and every step and I guarantee you you're going to feel so empowered and so amazing that you worked through that fear and you said I am scared as heck to do this, but I'm going to put my hand up and I'm going to do it anyway.

Speaker 1:

And here's why the more skills that you have learned, that you have at least done once. You may not remember every step and you may not recall exactly what to do, but at least if you're not working as a new nurse and you've never done a Foley before. I don't know why I'm using that as an example. But there's lots of different things NG tubes, maybe an enema, I don't know. Some of you may be able to start IVs in clinical. That's something you absolutely will learn on the job. But if you have the opportunity to try to start an IV, do it, because the best way to learn any of those skills is just by practicing them, by doing them.

Speaker 1:

My point is, guys, you have to be a clinical anyway. I know I've been there before. I know you just want it to be over. You just want to get home so you can study and do the things that are more pressing, that are more immediate.

Speaker 1:

But speaking from experience now as a working nurse, and I feel like I did take full advantage of clinical while I was in school, but there's always room for improvement. I could have always done more. I'm sure there were times where I just wanted to get home, where I had an opportunity and I didn't take it. Take every opportunity, volunteer for everything, learn those medications. I hope you have a great clinical experience. I hope you love your instructor. I hope you love whatever institution you're at. I hope the nurses there are wanting to teach you and that you learn and get to talk to patients as much as you possibly can, and this is the time. This is the time to get in there, get your hands dirty and practice. Until next time, guys. I hope you have an amazing day. I love you all and I will see you the next time. Bye-bye.

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