Am I Really Ready?

Kim over at Emergiblog posted an inquiry about clinical hours in various programs and the readiness of graduates upon exiting the programs. Since I just finished I figured I'd go ahead and post something about this. I know I haven't started my job yet and my view on this may completely change the day I step foot into a patient's room at "THE NURSE", but we'll see where this post takes me. Thanks for the challenge, Kim. I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's views!!

When I first started nursing school I don't know exactly what I thought would happen regarding my clinical time. I knew I would have some clinical time and some class time, I just didn't know how it would all pan it. It turned out that my first semester worked out to having six hours of lecture on Monday; approximately six to eight hours of clinicals on Tuesday and Wednesday; and skills lab on Thursday. Of course, all these courses required additional study time and clinicals required A TON of paperwork. I spent many a late night up trying to figure out exactly what a care plan was and what lab work correlated to the diagnosis and why. My second semester was very similar to my first except that we rounded through psych and surgery. It was a little more chaotic and I felt more comfortable with the paperwork. I spent two days in surgery and three weeks in psych. Third semester we dropped the skills lab and only had class and clinicals. This semester we had half of the semester as an OB rotation and half of the semester as a Children's rotation. The paperwork changed again, so it was back to the drawing board. Of course, the labs hadn't fundamentally changed, so I didn't have to learn them over, but ranges had changed and why they were different had changed. I felt like I was learning a new language again. My final semester (which I just finished!) was probably the most unique. We started out the same on a med-surg telemetry floor and rotated through ICU but towards the end of October/beginning of November we had to do our "transition to nursing". This involved 5-12 hour shifts with a nurse chosen for us. We basically did everything he/she did for the entire shift. I was very blessed in this case. I had a wonderful preceptor who felt very comfortable with me. I was able to take her full patient load most of my days. I got to admit and discharge patients and really see how it's going to be.

Overall, I feel like we had adequate time in the hospital. If I could go back and change the way our program was done I would like to see the program go to 12 hour shifts once a week. I think it would help from the beginning to understand the entire patient process.