Pretending to be a Real Nurse

Once again, another semester has begun which means a fresh new set of practice rotations to attend at the hospital. As fourth semester students, we have finally learned how to do IV stuff which has opened up a whole new world of things we can practice while at clinicals. During my first clinical alone, I pushed IV morphine, flushed an IV, flushed JP drains, gave an IM pneumonia vaccine, and gave a Lovenox injection which is almost more than all of the previous semesters combined. It's so awesome to (finally) be able to act like a real nurse. First semester we were glorified CNAs: we could do everything CNAs could with the addition of assessments. We couldn't touch meds at all. Second semester we could finally give PO and injected meds but the occurrence of injected meds was rare. Third semester was weird and I'm not even sure what we were allowed to do so I mostly didn't. I'm not even sure if we were allowed to do assessments--we were pretty much just at the hospital observing. I feel like almost all of my clinical experiences up until this point were a waste of time. I don't learn very well by just observing, especially when it comes to IV stuff. Especially when you don't know anything about them. Anyway, I'm excited for everything that I get to practice now--and boy do I need it! It's kind of discouraging when you think about all the practice I've missed out on during the previous semesters. :(