It's a tearful little milestone at Chez Somnambulant today.
I handed in my first extended care plan this morning!! At my school, we do something called comprehensive care plans that include extensive med logs, assessment data and some other stuff. I don't know if any other students out there have these. I think the final product was ~ 20 pages or so. From what I hear from the other university and CC in my area (we sorta chat at clinical sites), their plans are much more abbreviated. I think some of my profs feel like we have extra to prove since some hospitals think less of the BSN SN's because they think we're all theory. Not true, at least in my program.
So, to make this awesomness happen, I ended up editing and consequentially redoing part of my care plan yesterday afternoon after school. Nevermind the gorgeous cool weather and clear sky; I will GET careplanning, damnit! I'd been about 90% done and just wanted to put some final touches on, but then I started picking at it and made the mistake of working from 1400-0100 with brief breaks to eat, pee and other essentials. By the time I was done, my eyes were blurred and I was on a very short fuse. Right before bed, I told my husband to shut up and I loved him, so nursing school is bringing out this really charming part of me. I was a little too hardcore for myself yesterday.
Tomorrow, I start clinicals at a new site. I'll be at an ALF until the end of the semester. The last six weeks I was in a community hospital and though it was rife with problems, it was still a hospital. I know I shouldn't be picky so early on, but I know what we'll see and I'm just not feeling jazzed about it at all. I know someone knows what I mean.
Good news: I made the highest grade in my class on my last test! Bad news: It was an 83! Still, I know I'm doing well. I think my overall average is somewhere around 87 and considering that about 1/2 my cohort just received midterm warnings to shape up or ship out, I do find some solace in this.
Overall, I just need an attitude adjustment. I am cranky (crankier?), impatient with others and just painfully tired. My fuse is pretty short lately. This is my first day in two weeks not working on a care plan or studying for a test/quiz of some kind and since I have no lecture tomorrow, I'm going to 1. take a sweet nap and 2. read some of the third book in the Twilight series. Ahhhh. That makes it a little better.
3 comments:
Ah careplans, the thing I miss the LEAST from nursing school! I did the BSN thing too, but mine wasn't excellerated. We would have at least one of those "books" due 36 hours after every clinical. Labs, meds(side effects, action, purpose, etc), all the history information, 15-20 nursing diagnoses, a page on the medical diagnosis and what our textbook said about it vs. what we saw in the hospital, at least 3 different plans of care, then a 2-3 page concept map pulling it all together, and EVERYTHING had better be on the map or points went bye-bye! Sheesh! Good luck with them! I think I saved some of my most impressive ones from my 4-years and put them in a binder, but I'm a nerd :)
Care plans.... :-). Coming from a fellow nursing student, I know your joy and your pain. Keep it up, you can get through it!
Where I work we place a nursing care plan in the patient's chart after we've done an admission assessment. It's basically a little 6-page checklist, some of which is for other disciplines.
I never spend more than a minute or two on it.
Eyes on the prize, SSN, eyes on the prize! Keep up the good work.
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