I always feel some type of nerves walking into a day of clinicals. It may be the first or last day, but there is always that anxiety that is hard to explain. But, here I am, going to try and explain. So to those in no way connected to the nursing field or nursing degree, this may or may not make any sense. Yet to those that are nurses, are soon to be nurses, or just is close to one of the two, you should understand where I'm coming from.
Clinicals are a loved and feared portion of nursing school. You honestly have no idea what you are doing half the time, and that is okay! But the nerves that come every time you show up in the morning, they scare the life out of most of us.
You have no clue the things you will see that day, let alone do. You don't know if you'll mess up, say the wrong thing, grab the wrong thing, ask a stupid question, and just scared to make an honest mistake.
But real talk: that is the point of nursing school. And labs. And clinicals.
As a student, you are expected to make these mistakes, asks the dumb questions, and have no idea what you're doing, as long as you learn. The only difference between lectures and clinicals are the processes by which you are learning. You are learning through your hands and actions. By seeing, hearing, and physically making those leassons learned in lecture, things stick better. You associate a specific experience in clinical with a disease process, or a medication, or even simply how you say something.
To nursing students, clinicals not only mean waking up before the sun to stand in a patient's room and be allowed to only do so much. Clinicals do not mean going and having a perfect day helping perfect people. Clinicals are not easy. And neither is nursing.
The purpose of clinicals are to expose you to the hard aspects of nursing without completely setting you loose on a patient. Clinicals mean so much more than helping a widowed elderly woman to her bathroom to brush the last few gray hairs on her head. Clinicals mean more than feeding the young paralyzed man his pills in applesauce because he can't swallow them alone. Clinicals mean much more than sitting and listening to an addicts story who is suicidal sitting in a mental health facility. Clinicals are even more than congratulating the new parents of twins that have been trying to have a child for two years. It shockingly means so much more than that.
Clinicals are just days. But these sprinkled days throughout a nursing program mean signing up for a lifetime of caring, compassion, and love.
Clincals mean living and breathing for a career that keeps people living and breathing. Clinicals mean offering to do things that most would cringe at the thought of. Clinicals mean selflessly devoting your time for those on their worst and best days.
While clinicals feel like the longest days of your life as a nursing student, they can also be the best. Clinicals are more than just being at the bedside for learning. They're about learning to be at that bedside for those that need you there most.
