Clinicals 5 & 6

So I was feeling better about taking care of my own patients. On tuesday I took care of 2 patients and did everything possible to make them feel comfortable. I've found it's a little frustrating when patients are crying because of pain and I can't get into the Accudose by myself without my preceptor present, because she was with another patient. It was difficult to tell my patient she had to wait... I did my best to soothe her pain though and get her mind off of it.
Thursday, however was a different story. Again, I took 2 patients (the only 2 assigned to us), did what I could without my preceptor's help, and thought I did a pretty good job. We actually discharged the 2 patients and took over another nurse's 5 patients. I decided to try and take 3 patients all by myself...bad idea. I definitely need some practice in time management. I was running behind with vitals, charting, and medications. It came to a point to ask my preceptor for some help while I caught up on charting. It also turned out that I forgot to chart some pretty important vitals on my last patients as well as my current. I mischarted some things on different patients, like DCing an IV on one pt when it was actually on another. I did that a few times. I felt pretty incompetent by the end of the day. I mean, it was my 6th clinical... I should be doing this stuff with ease by now, right?
Oh well... learning experience I guess...

Clinical #3&4

It was a good week in clinicals this week. I took total care of two patients this last clinical and it was pretty fun. I took advantage and applied what was taught during class on Monday, which was caring for the patient as a whole. I conversed and looked for commonalities in my patients. One patient, I was unable to have a very good relationship with, not that it was a bad relationship... He just wanted to get out of the hospital ASAP. Actually, when I was helping discharge the patient was when we both opened up the most, probably because he was happy to be going home.
My other patient, however, was an awesome experience. We hit it off right as I entered the room. We joked around, talked about common stuff, and just had a good time. (He even invited me to his house on Superbowl Sunday to spend with him and his family.) I think I really made that one day a good experience for him. We had a good relationship and I believe I did my best at caring for him.
Other than that, I was able to chart more independently, give meds more independently, and I did some discharge teaching, though my preceptor helped out a little. My preceptorship is becoming a great experience for me... even if it means getting up at 5:00 am to work a 12-hour day with no pay :)