Doing Nursing Things

New students on a med-surge floor have a fairly small scope scope of practice.  Let's be honest you don't really know much and are afraid if you look at your patient wrong they might die on you (that is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the sentiment. 

As a nursing student, you own a handful of things:

• AM care - bed baths, changing sheets/towels, etc
• I/Os - you track everything that goes and everything that goes out
• Vital signs
• Getting cups of water and ice (I am a rock star here)

Week two on the floor means you start passing meds (that is tomorrow) and doing "nursing things" you have practiced on dummies in SIM.  Today I was paired with a great nurse who give me some tricks of the trade with priming IV tubing, flushing lines and hooking up lines to patients (I got to do all three).