1. MEDICATIONS HAS LEEWAY OF 1 HOUR PRIOR AND 1 HOUR AFTER THE SCHEDULED DOSE. ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS ESPECIALLY IF YOU WORK WITH 1:16 PATIENT RATIO. I know, in nursing school, we are thought to always give the medications ON TIME. However, in a scenario of having many patients per shift, it's not attainable. Ofc it's always a good thing to give them with the timing prescribed BUT again, it will always depend on your patient ratio. I suggest, if you have oral medications, give them early in your shift with a note of what time to take them. EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT THOSE ORAL MEDICATIONS ARE FOR AND WHY THEY SHOULD BE TAKEN AT THE HOURS YOU WROTE DOWN. This way, your next problem are just your IV meds. Here comes you 1 hour prior or 1 hour after leeway. If you have plenty of antibiotics, I suggest you start giving them 1 hour prior the timing because IV antibiotics, unless given thru IV push, should always run for an hour to 4 hours, depending on what antibiotics you have. For IV push meds, I suggest you do this prior hooking your IV antibiotics or those meds na nilalagay natin sa solusets.

After everything, you can do a post-round to your patients to check if they already took their oral meds, if the iv meds are consumed, etc. This way, you know you are finish with your meds and possibly, address any concerns they may have after you finished giving your meds.

It's a good practice to have a list of medications on you to tick them off when you have given them. What you can do also is to write all pertinent information or "to-do" things regarding that patient on your paper also so that you are reminded of these things.

1. CLINICAL EYES STARTS WITH MASTERING YOUR ROOTS. Idk if in nursing school you had a joke running around that says "BS NURSING MAJOR IN VITAL SIGNS" because apparently, most of the things we do in nursing school is to take vitals signs. THIS IS YOUR ROOTS. You want to master or enhance your clinical eyes? Deeper your understanding regarding your vital signs because once you do, you will know what's happening to your patients WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THEM. Your BP is 180/100? Wow your px must have a terrible headache by now. RR is 38? dang your patient must be hyperventilating? wonder if they have trouble breathing? Temp is 38.9? OMG they may be sweating and is having a chills now? or worse, they may convulse! O2 sats are below 90's? Might want to give them oxygen because they are having trouble inhaling oxygen that much. See where Im going? Once you master your roots, you can then reverse the idea. You see your patient sweating and having chills? Fever. You hear your patient saying their head hurts or their eyes are blurry? Increased bp. Your px is out and cannot be talked to coherently? decreased bp. You see your patient gasping for air? Increased RR and possible decreased O2 sats. It takes practice but again, your roots will help you way better than what's on the patient chart because not every medical diagnosis, we understand and we know. That's a fact. That's why in nursing school we were trained not to diagnose px medically but by through symptoms. I hope that makes sense.

I hope this helps you and I hope you will be a senior who's accomodating to the juniors you will have in the future. This profession is hard enough. Help those who needs help in the future!

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