We are going to share some of our ride or die items that get us through every clinical shift! Clinical can be fun and an amazing learning experience, however it can also be stressful and exhausting. Read along to learn about some of our recommendations to help make clinical go as smoothly as possible!
CLINICAL BAG
First of all, let's start with choosing a designated bag for the hospital. We recommend using a bag with material that is able to be easily wiped down and sanitized! This pleather bag is amazing and fits a binder and all of the other essentials! It's easy to wipe down after each shift to help with infection control! This particular bag was purchased at Aldo for $20! They usually have really good sales for bags so we recommend checking there!
CLINICAL RESOURCES
This one is huge! It will save you time and help with organization. In the above picture, we have our resource cards from Scrub Pocket that are designed to fit on a badge reel! They have a variety of cards with different tips on them! We highly recommend these as they are the easiest resource to refer to quickly. Another resource we recommend are the NRSNG books by Jon Haws. He has a variety of great clinical resources, but our personal favourites are "140 Must Know Meds" and "Lab Values for Nurses." These books can be purchased on Amazon for only $10 each.
ENERGY BOOSTERS
Having full days of classes as well as long days of clinical can get physically and emotionally draining. We are pretty sure every nursing student can agree with us when we say caffeine is one of our best friends! We usually start our morning with a fresh cup of coffee, however we tend to fade throughout the day. To combat this, we rely on Awake Chocolate to get us give us a second boost of energy. These yummy chocolate bars contain 100mg of caffeine! They come in a variety of flavours - our personal fave is caramel!
STAY HYDRATED
This is HUGE! Clinical gets so busy that we often forget to drink enough water! This can lead to fatigue and headaches. We always keep a giant water bottle with us and make a conscious effort to drink LOTS of water. We love using Starbucks venti tumblers since they fit so much water! Our favourite reusable straws are Softy Straws, which come in a variety of colours - pink is our personal favourite! These straws come in grande and vent sizes, plus they have larger diameter straws for smoothies! We own all of them and use them ALL the time!
APPS
In clinical, we both have our fave apps that we highly recommend to use! There is a free app called medscape. This app is amazing to look up any drug interactions, normal dosing, potential adverse effects, pictures of the pills, medication calculations and nursing considerations. It also has information on specific medical conditions you might not know about, or what to learn more about. The nice thing about this app is that you don't even need to use data when you are looking up your medications and other information! It also has a section for new research on medical advances! Another great app is the Davis Drug Guide app, however there is an annual fee for this one.
STETHOSCOPE & SKINS
Our favourite stethoscope is the MDF MD One Stainless Steel Dual Head Stethoscope. We have used these stethoscopes for the past year and absolutely love them! They come in a bunch of fun colours and designs too! We recently discovered Skope Skins, which are our new favourite stethoscope accessory. These amazing skins come in a variety of colours and protect your stethoscope from wear and tear.
SCRUNCHIES
We always keep a couple extra hair ties in our bag to be on the safe side. Our personal favourite scrunchies are from BunHead - the pink velvet scrunchie is pictured above. We use these almost everyday and they do not lose their shape! We can always rely on BunHead to keep our top knots tight and cute!
OILS
We LOVE essential oils! They are so beneficial for a variety of things. Specific to clinical, we love using oils that help us focus and stay calm. We got these cute nurse-themed oils from @kdreyerco. We love the "Smarty Pants" oil for clinical especially, because it contains a blend of frankincense and peppermint - a perfect combo to help you focus and promote critical thinking!
NOTE PAD & CUTE PENS
We always have a small note pad with us in clinical, to allow us to make notes about our patients' medications, comorbiditions, vital signs, etc. We keep multiple black-inked pens with us, as this is mandatory for the Health Care Authority we work within. We also bring a highlighter which we use to highlight things on our task list that are top priority. This helps us stay organized and manage our time efficiently!
WATCH
A watch is a must-have for clinical! You will need it for counting heart rate and respirations, administering IV direct medications, and for a variety of other things. We both have Apple Watches, and feel like they are perfect for clinical. We set hourly alarms, as a reminder to help keep us on track of tasks such as medication administration. We also set reminder alarms when we plan to follow up with something. For example, if we administer pain medication to a patient, we set a reminder alarm to check on the patient's pain level in 30 minutes, to ensure we are following up with interventions. Also, Apple Watches are nice because you can customize the front screen to your personal needs. For our watches, we have the stopwatch on the front screen, as well as the alarm, a breathing app to help with stress reduction, and our Starbucks Rewards of course!!
We hope that you can take some of these tips with you to clinical!
Thanks for reading,
xx Tara & Sydney
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