My Preceptorship
During my preceptorship experience on the 5th floor at the Syracuse VA hospital, I was given the opportunity to provide care for many patients who required different levels of care.I credit my success during my preceptorship with my ability to prioritize, delegate, and supervise.
Prioritization:
During my clinical rotations the most patients that I had to care for at once was two. Because of this I never really had to the opportunity to truly prioritize my patients. With that said, during my preceptorship I found myself prioritizing up to five patients at once, which proved to be a challenge. The way that I was able to resolve this problem was by creating a plan in the beginning of my shift and sticking to it as much as possible. As a result, by the end of my preceptorship, I found myself comfortable identifying the priority patient out of the five that I was assigned.
Delegation:
Because we did not have more than two patients at a time during my clinical experiences, I did not have the need for delegation as I was able to complete all care for my patients on my own. With that said, once I started my preceptorship I found delegating to others to be slightly intimidating. The reason for this was because I did not feel comfortable asking LPN's who had been working at the facility for ten years to obtain vital signs on my patient. In the end, once I realized that delegation was not about telling someone what to do, but more about providing timely care for the patient, I developed confidence in my ability to delegate and did not feel intimidated while doing so.
Supervisory Skills:
Anytime your going to delegate care to a patient it is imperative that supervision is implemented. The reason for this is because unlicensed staff are ultimately working under the license of the registered nurse. Because of this, in order to ensure that the delegated task is carried out correctly the registered nurse should periodically check in with the unlicensed staff to ensure care was performed according to hospital policy and procedure. During my preceptorship I supervised the care that was carried out by the LPN and at the end of the day was responsible for cosigning their notes. This was done because often times assessments performed by the LPN must be reviewed for accuracy by the registered nurse.