Medical-Surgical Clinical Rotation

I always dreaded learning about the cardiac system in anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, medical-surgical, and every other nursing class you can think of. Not until I landed on a cardiac telemetry/med-surg unit...

Medical-Surgical, AKA, Med-Surg. If you are in nursing school, you may have heard dreaded things about med-surg. If you are not in nursing school yet, you still probably heard dreaded things about it. Whatever horrible things you have heard about med-surg up to now, debunk them. Do not take other people's experience and make it your own. I am here to attest that med-surg was my one of my favorite clinicals by far, and I am going to share my experiences why:

1. Med-surg strengthened my nurse tech skills. Throughout my clinical rotation, I always had a chance to do bed baths, assist patients to the bathroom, do blood glucose checks, place SCDs, help ambulate patients, and more. Although these skills are mainly things that nurse techs/CNAs do, nurses are not exempt from doing them. Although measuring pee and cleaning poop is not my favorite thing to do, it is important to make sure that patients are clean and comfortable.

2. I can prioritize multiple patients now. My instructor assigned everyone in my clinical group two patients each. We took their vital signs, assisted in morning care, passed meds, and even went with them if they had an MRI, cardiac stress test, or dialysis. Apart from our two patients, we were still not exempt from taking care of other patients also. This helped me to prioritize patients the way nurses do. The nurse to patient ratio that I have seen (for telemetry/med-surg unit) was 1:7. This could be a lot, especially with high acuity patients. Now, I know how to prioritize my care for multiple patients.

3. I got to experience other specialties. My instructor allowed us to float to other floors. I got to go to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit), which was an eye-opening experience. In the ICU, most nurses have no more than two patients. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. These patients need higher levels of care. Your assessment skills have to be on point to determine changes in these patients, even the smallest of changes. The medications administered in the ICU are different and more advanced. You have to be careful with these meds since they are high-acuity meds. Personally, I don't think the ICU is for me, but I did enjoy it. Without floating to other floors, I would not know which potential field I want to go in.

OVERALL, I absolutely enjoyed my med-surg clinical. My assessment skills improved, and I have a broader knowledge of multiple disease processes. Through my med-surg clinical, I realized that I liked working with the adult population, and I might even pursue a specialty in it. Maybe I might even start off on a med-surg unit when I graduate!

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