I really enjoyed my clinical experience this semester. I have learned a lot that has helped me grow not only as a nursing student but as a person. One area I have really improved in is my self-confidence. I am normally a shy and nervous person when I first meet people. Clinical has really forced me to get out of my shell and talk and get to know patients as well as the hospital staff. In the beginning of clinical I was really nervous and scared when entering a patient’s room. I was worried about what to talk to them about and if I was capable of helping them in the way they needed. After a couple weeks, my self-confidence greatly improved, and I was no longer nervous when walking into patients’ rooms. I enjoyed talking to my patients and getting to know them. I am now confident that I am equipped to help patients with their needs. I was also intimidated to ask the hospital staff questions. I quickly got over that fear because I learned it’s better to ask questions and risk being wrong than put your patient in danger. By doing this, I think my communication skills with the nurses and PCAs improved. I am now comfortable having a professional conversation with the hospital staff.
In my future practice, I would like to grow in my skills. Obviously, we need to be taught skills outside of clinical in order to perform them correctly in the hospital. However, there were many skills that I have checked off in during lab that I have not got to perform in clinical yet. For example, I would like to insert a catheter and perform trach tube suctioning in my next clinical. I would also like more experience with administering injectable medications. Due to COVID-19 cutting in person clinical time short I did not get a lot of experience passing meds. Another area I would like to improve upon is patient education because it is such an important role in nursing. I did not get much opportunity to provide patient education in this clinical rotation. In the future, I would like to perform more patient education in order to get the experience to provide the best learning experience for patients. Overall, I believe I performed well for this being my first clinical rotation and I am excited to transfer the skills I have learned into the next one.