My Personal Experience Of My Experience In My Clinical Experience

As a whole, my clinical experience last year was formative in my learning more about nursing, patient interaction, and myself. Working with such a variety of patients, nurses, and other medical professionals at Newton Wellesley Hospital, I feel as though I gained a strong appreciation of the many facets of hospital care. Further, experiencing a new patient each week allowed me not only to gain a better understanding of the manifestations and necessary care for specific conditions, but also helped me learn how to work with patients of different background and personalities. Lastly, being my first clinical and having to push myself out of my comfort zone, I learned a lot about myself and definitely grew as a person and aspiring nurse.

Throughout

I know I will be much more confident when entering a patient room than last year and I feel okay about my clinical and assessment skills. Though I believe that I made a lot of progress last year, I definitely have some concerns for this clinical, especially since I was abroad last semester. One of my major fears for the semester is that I am going to be very rusty in my assessment skills. Though I haven't forgotten the basics of assessment, I haven't practiced the skills since last May, which is a considerable amount of time. Similarly, I am concerned that I am going to be behind and lack the abilities of my fellow student nurses since I wasn't in clinical in the fall. I know that it will be an adjustment for me to get back into the swing of clinical, yet I do take some comfort in knowing other students in the group were abroad too. I am hoping that doing my maternity clinical in addition to Adult Health II will help me feel more adjusted in the hospital setting faster. In addition, I am worried about being on a cardiovascular floor. Last year in Newton Wellesley Hospital, I was on a geriatric floor which was definitely slower paced. Feeding into my anxieties about being abroad last semester, I worry that I am not up to speed on my cardiac knowledge. I definitely do not know how to read an EKG and I did not interact with a patient with a cardiac condition last year. Like I said above, I recognize that I will likely experience a learning curve, especially at the beginning of the semester and I am looking forward to feeling more confident as the semester goes