It is hard to believe that in only 1 month I will be in a REAL hospital practicing all the skills and techniques I have learned in these short 3 months on REAL patients. The concept of transferring a patient from the bed to their wheelchair seems so simple when practicing on friends in the lab but now I will be transferring patients that actually have a broken ankle or right sided paralysis. The same goes with feeding a patient, providing oral hygiene to a patient, making a patient’s bed and bathing a patient. All these skills seem so simple but I know once I brush my patient’s teeth for the first time I will be so nervous I’m bound to mess such a simple activity up!
However, I do know that once I begin to feel comfortable within the hospital setting the tasks at which a first year nursing student must perform will become easier and easier every day. After a while I know I will be able to focus less on the actual activity and more on the care of my patient. Showing the patient that you are there for them and connecting to the patient on that spirit to spirit level (a theory from Jean Watson) allows the patient to feel as though they are truly being cared for and are more than just a disease or illness.
At last I leave with a quote from Robert Collier,
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
2 comments:
I agree, I think that when i first get to care for a real person i will almost freak out! It will be a little scary at first since I'm not used to working with people besides my classmates. When it comes to working with real patients mistakes really will matter and that is a little scary!I also agree with the fact that I will feel better about working with patients once I get into it and have done it a couple times. Well hope all goes well with you next semester!
I agree completely with both of you when it comes to the obvious nervousness that we will be experiencing next semester. The skills that we learned in practicum this past semester seem quite unimportant at this time but I think we will realise how extremely crucial they are once we actually get the chance to execute these skills on real patients. The thought of going into a hospital as a student nurse instead of a patient makes me incredibly nervous but I think that once we start practicing the skills will come just as easily as they did when we were practicing them on our classmates in class. Good luck with everything next semester Amber, it seems that you are very enthusiastic about your upcoming clinical experience!
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