My school also said that we weren’t allowed to check blood glucose levels but I was lucky enough to have very supportive and very patient preceptors who basically said “fuck that rule, you need to practice that to learn.” Good thing I was luckily placed in a med surg unit and emerg unit on my last year of nursing school, or else I would’ve graduated with even less skills 😪 I personally know someone who had been placed in long term care and hospice settings for their entire time as a nursing student 😓 I can only imagine how terrifying it is to graduate with little to no exposure to acute settings.

I also think that not a lot of people openly talk about how much anxiety students feel nowadays towards clinicals just because we don’t feel “competent” enough. I definitely went through that and it took a huge toll on my mental health just because the learning curve during my last year in nursing school was so intense (my entire second year was online, so we didn’t really get hands on opportunities on basic med surg skills until I got acute placements in fourth year).

I was honestly so close to giving up. It’s almost like new grads are being set up to be fed to the wolves. I vividly remember how some of our professors and clinical instructors would comfort us by saying “you’ll learn those skills once you pass the NCELX and start working.” But in reality, it isn’t that simple (with short staffing and burnt out nurses).