WHAT'S IN MY CLINICAL BAG?

What’s in My Clinicals Bag?

Welcome back to the Nursing School Week by Week Podcast. I’m your host, Melanie, and today I want to talk about all the things that you need to pack in your nursing clinicals bag. It’s almost time for a new semester to start and a lot of you will be going to clinicals for the first time, and the rest of you will be going to clinicals again. I am all done with clinicals now, but I know when I was going through it, I packed a lot of things that I really didn’t need at all, and then there were some things that I didn’t pack, that I kept having to bum off my friends. So, yeah, we’re gonna go through all the things that you need for nursing school clinicals.

Alright, so the number one, most obvious thing is some sort of backpack or bag that’s designated for clinicals. And yes, you can use the same backpack that you use for your lectures, but it’s easier if you have a separate designated bag just for clinicals so you’re not constantly swapping out your books for your bandage scissors and vice versa. You can just pack your bag for clinicals and it can just sit in your closet or the trunk of your car until you need it. Then it’s ready, and you can just grab it and go. As far as using a backpack versus a messenger style bag, um, I prefer a backpack. I find the backpacks usually have more little side pockets that would fit a water bottle perfectly, and from what I’ve seen, most of the other students in clinicals are using a backpack, rather than a messenger bag. But if you see something, and you love it, then go for it. I wouldn’t get anything too expensive, just something utilitarian that’s going to meet your needs. You do want it to have a pocket for your water bottle and a place to stick your pens and stuff; a few separate compartments.

Alright, the next thing you definitely need is a stethoscope. And that can be a fancy Littman stethoscope, those are fantastic, and a really good investment, but it’s also very expensive. So, you know, depending on where you are in your financial journey, it may be more cost effective to get something like an MDF stethoscope. Those you can get off of Amazon, they’re a lot less expensive than the Littman ones and they come in a lot more color options. So that’s fun, and from what I can tell, they work just as well. I mean, maybe if you’re planning to go into a specialty like a cardiology unit, or a pediatric unit, then you might want to consider getting something a little better, but I mean, if you go into a pediatric unit, you’re gonna need a smaller stethoscope anyway, than what you will need in your general nursing school clinicals. So you might want to save a little bit of money, especially if you aren’t sure yet what kind of unit you really want to work on. You could just get an MDF stethoscope in the color of your choice.

You may also want to get, um, cause stethoscopes are kinda notorious for getting “lost”, or should I say, stolen on the units. So it can be helpful to get a little stethoscope clip that just kinda slides on one section of your stethoscope and it can be, let’s see, the one I have is a little paw print, cause I love the doggies. But, I mean, they have them in everything. You could get it really blinged out. Just something so that you can easily identify your own stethoscope. Cause you might get a red stethoscope and show up to clinicals and there are like 10 other red stethoscopes on the unit. So having a clip on it makes it a little easier to keep track of. 

Alright, the next thing on my list is a penlight. You’re definitely going to need a penlight for doing your physical assessments. Looking at patient’s eyes, and in their mouth, and in their nose, and their ears, and all that. And it’s helpful if you’re working into the night shift. You can shine it on your paperwork, if the patient doesn’t want all their lights turned on. Or shine it on their wrist band to check their identification. So the penlight doesn’t need to be anything fancy, you can get those from Amazon. Those penlights do sometimes, um, I’ve been at the end of my clinical shift and look down, and the pocket of my scrubs is all lit up. Like my penlight has been on for I don’t know how many hours, and I’m just now noticing. Um, and I have had to get several penlights. So if you can find one that comes with extra batteries, you could keep those extra batteries in your clinicals bag, that would be really helpful because I have shown up to clinicals before with my penlight, but the batteries were dead, so I still had to bum another penlight off of a friend. And a lot of times the penlights will come packs of 2 or 3, and you could pack an extra one in your clinicals bag and you could save a friend when their penlight goes out or they forget to bring it. You could let them borrow one. 

Alright, the next thing on my list are pens. I would say bring 2 or 3 pens at least, because pens are another one of those things that get lost. You take it out, use it, you accidentally leave it on a counter or in a patient’s room, and you reach for your pen and it’s just not there. So I would wear 2 on you every shift and then have at least one extra in your bag. And I would suggest getting the retractable, little clicky pens rather than ones that have a separate top, cause it’s just easier to work with. You can do it with one hand. Say your other hand is busy, or your other hand has a glove on it, or you know, you don’t want to have to use two hands to take the top off and then write, and then put the top back on. So just get the clicky ones, make it real simple. 

Alright, and as well as pens, you’re gonna want a highlighter in whatever color. And some kind of sharpie. I really like the fine-tip sharpies, and those also come retractable or clickable. Those are helpful for keeping track of I’s and O’s, or writing your initials and date on a wound dressing, or an IV. There are lots of circumstances where you would want a sharpie rather than just a pen. 

Another thing you’re gonna want to pack in your clinicals bag is some kind of brain sheet. And this brain sheet can be really helpful when it’s time to give report. At first during clinicals you won’t need to give report, but once you’ve been there for a couple weeks, the nurse that you’re shadowing may ask you to give report to the oncoming nurse for the next shift. And the brain sheet is what you’ll look at and read from when you’re like, “Ok, we have a 60 year old male who came in with diabetes and COPD and during the next shift he’s going to need this and that.” So you can come up with your own brain sheet, or there are a bunch online that you can download for free. There are also some really cool options on Etsy. They have dry erase options. I just found one online that I liked and printed out like 12 copies of it and stuck them in my clinicals binder. Also, I would find one that has a section for lab values. Some key lab values that you definitely want to know about whatever patients you’re assigned to during clinicals are like potassium, sodium, hemoglobin, hematocrit. Because your instructor will most likely to at least one random check where they will randomly show up on your unit during clinicals and they’ll take you aside and they’ll ask you questions about your patient. They’ll ask you about lab values. They’ll ask you about the diagnosis. Possibly about the care plan that you’re planning for this patient. And that’s the main thing that I saw the clinical instructors get really upset about was if the nursing student didn’t know the critical lab values. One of my friends got chewed out by the teacher because she didn’t know the potassium level of her patient. And she was crying, and it was a whole thing, and we all felt really bad for her because that could happen to any of us, right? So, don’t make that mistake. Get a brain sheet that has a spot for that so it kinda prompts you to look that up and to write it down so that you’re prepared when your teacher grills you. 

Alright, the next thing that you need to have that kinda goes along with the brain sheet, is some kind of clipboard. And you probably won’t see the actual nurses on the unit using these clipboards, most of them will just have a piece of paper folded up and stuck in their pocket, but nursing students have a lot more paperwork to deal with. We have assignments and checklists, things that we’re supposed to have on us during clinicals, so it is helpful to have one of those clipboards that fold in half so they still fit, barely, but they still fit in your scrub pocket. And it gives you a flat surface to take notes on when you're just standing in a patient’s room, or in the hallway, or at the nurses station. You don’t have to find a desk to write a quick note or write down something about your patient. You can just whip out your clipboard and you have a flat surface to write on. And also, most of these clipboards have helpful information in them, like normal ranges of lab values, as well as things you might need during your physical assessment when you’re new, like pupil sizes and needle sizes and injection site, stuff like that. So it is helpful to have that clipboard, even though you may never use it again after nursing school. And you can clip your brain sheet right on the front of that clipboard. Also, you want to have one or two just blank sheets of paper in your clipboard, just for taking notes. When you listen to report at the beginning or end of your shift, you’re most likely going to be writing down everything you can as fast as you can just on a blank sheet of paper until you get used to using your brain sheet. So definitely include a couple sheets of blank printer paper or notebook paper in your clipboard. And one thing that I liked to include on my clipboard, is I liked to come up with my own kind of goals for that week at clinicals. Cause I know at the beginning of clinicals I found myself comparing myself to some of the other students in clinicals. And some of these other students had been, you know, one had been a surgical tech for 10 years or something before she went into nursing school, and I found myself kinda comparing myself and my progress to what she was doing and the knowledge that she already came into nursing school with. And that wasn’t fair on me. So, I found it really helpful to come up with my own goals for the week and keep that in my clipboard. So stuff like, “Ok, this week I want to do 3 full physical assessments.” Or This week I want to push one IV medication. You know, things like that. And it kinda gave me some purpose to my clinical shift. Something that I could tell the nurse that I was following, “Hey, I’d really love to do this today if we have this opportunity. If you could let me do this, that would be great.” So it showed a little initiative and it gave me something that I could be proud of once I completed it, and know that I am learning, and I am achieving my own goals set by myself for myself. 

Alright, another practical thing that you should pack in your clinicals bag is a pair of medical scissors. And this is one of those things that I never packed in my clinicals bag, cause I was like, “When am I actually gonna use that?” And I did have to borrow some scissors from my friends a couple of times. It would have been very helpful for me to have my own pair in my bag. For things like doing a dressing change, cutting the dressing, or cutting tape; Some of those pill packs, some of the blister packs are really hard to get open, and that was probably the thing that I most often needed scissors for. I really struggled. I would be standing there for like 2 minutes trying to get a blister pack open, and if I had scissors I could have just clipped off the end and that would have saved me a lot of time and frustration, cause like 2 minutes is not that long, right? But it feels like an eternity when you’re standing there at the bedside and the patient is staring at you watching you try to open this pill pack for what feels like forever. 

Alright, and the next thing is you want to have your Davis Drug Guide. And this could be in book format, you could actually bring the Davis Drug Guide book, or I would actually suggest you just get the app, because you’re always gonna have your smartphone, right? You’re gonna have the ringer turned down nice and low, just in case you get a call, but you’re gonna have your smartphone and the Davis drug guide app, or whatever drug guide app you want to use. The Davis one is the one most often used. I would suggest you get used to using the app before you even go to clinicals cause there’s a little bit of a learning curve to using it. And that will be so helpful. When your instructor has to sign you off on giving medications, one of the quickest ways to fail clinicals is to prepare a medication in the wrong way, or heaven forbid you give the wrong medication. So before you pass meds your clinical instructor will most likely ask you questions, like why is this patient getting this medication, and you need to know what the medication is for, you need to know the route, you need to know how quickly you’re giving it, and what side effects to look for after you’ve given the medication. And there are a lot of medications that have a reason why they are most often given, but then they can have a secondary purpose as well, and you need to know why your patient is getting this medication. And as a nursing student, you’re not expected to memorize every single medication, I mean, there’s no way you could do that, but you are expected to know how to get that information quickly and efficiently. And having a drug guide app on your phone is a good way to do it. And there are a lot of times when i’ve utilized the bathroom. I mean if you can look it up at the nurse’s station, that’s great, but sometimes I’ll know that I am giving this medication in a few minutes when my clinical instructor is ready for me, and so I’ll go to the bathroom real quick with my iphone and look it up. Look up the med, the purpose, blah blah blah so that I am prepared. And if that’s what you have to do then do it. And I think you’ll look a lot less funny going into the bathroom  with your phone in your pocket than with the Davis drug guide book out. So I really suggest getting the app, cause you can be a little more discreet with it. 

Alright another thing that you want to use your phone for is pulling up examples of care plans, cause in clinicals, your main homework will be to create nursing care plans. And usually you can do all of this at home, and turn it in when you come back to clinicals, but there are a lot of times when you’ll have extra time during clinicals, where you’ll just be like sitting there, looking at the patient’s chart, and that is a really good time to get a headstart on your care plan. And a really good website for care plans is nurselabs.com. That’s where I got so many of my care plans. And when you go on there, it’s gonna have way more than you want to actually include in your care plan that you give to your instructor, but it’s great to go on there and see all of the ideas. Not all of them will apply to your particular patient, but a lot of them will. So you can just like, go to that website, nurselabs.com and type in diabetes care plan or impared skin integrity care plan, you know, all kinds of things, and it will spit out at least one option for a full care plan. 

Alright, another thing you want to have in your clinicals bag is chapstick. If you’re anything like me, you can only go about 6 hours before you absolutely have to reapply chapstick. My lips are so dependent on it. So bring it, and use it, so your lips aren’t like cracking and bleeding by the end of your second clinicals shift. 

You also want to bring snacks. You can pack a full meal if you’re feeling brave. But you may not get a chance to sit down and eat a full meal. So definitely at least bring like a couple granola bars, maybe some fruit, a banana, maybe a little bag of nuts. Something high protein that’s gonna keep you going for a while. And something that you can eat quickly on the run to keep up your energy so that you can do all the things for your patients. Cause if you don’t eat then you’re no good to no one. We gotta take care of ourselves first before we can take care of our patients. 

And with that, you also need to pack, I mentioned it before, but you also need to pack a water bottle. You can get whatever color you want, just make sure it doesn’t leak all over your bag with all your papers in it. And make sure it holds enough water for your whole shift. You don’t want to rely on a water fountain or anything like that. Just bring your own water. You will need it. 

Alright, you also want to pack an N95 mask. As a nursing student in clinicals, your school may have a rule that you don’t go into the room of anyone with known Covid, but just pack an N95 mask in your bag if you’ve been fitted for one. A lot of times the units will have extra n95’s in the supply room that you can grab. And of course they’ll have surgical masks on the unit, so you don’t need to bring your own surgical masks, cause those will be readily available. But I would pack an N95 mask cause you just never know. You might need it. And your school may actually require you to wear an N95 mask, just all the time in the hospital. Some schools do and some schools don’t. So, usually schools will have deals with several hospitals in the area where they send students for clinicals and whichever hospital has the most strict rules as far as PPE, that’s what the school makes their rules. So if one of the schools that they use requires everyone to wear N95s and face shields, then that’s what the school will require for its nursing students. So yeah, pack an N95 and either goggles or a face shield, whatever your school is suggesting. 

You’re also going to need a watch with a second hand, and make sure it’s waterproof. Cause you’re gonna be washing your hands, a lot. And you don’t want to wear a watch like with a leather band or anything that’s gonna be ruined by soap and water and hand sanitizer; a lot a lot of hand sanitizer. Um, the watch that I used during clinicals had a glow in the dark feature, so it would be backlit. Those are really helpful, especially if you’re working into the night shift, and the patient has their lights low in their room. And you’ll use this watch mostly for taking the patient’s respirations, where you’re counting to see how many times their chest rises and falls within a certain amount of time, or if you’re checking their pulse manually. For either of those you’re gonna need to watch the second hand on your watch. And also, for doing IV push medications; most of those will be given over a minute or 2 minutes, and you need to keep one eye on your watch while you're pushing those medications into the patient’s IV. 

Alright, another thing that I just thought of, for women, we want to make sure we pack some maxi pads, or panty liners, tampons. Any of those feminine needs that you may have, cause that’s definitely a situation that you don’t want to be in. And it’s happened to all of us somewhere, right? Where we get our period when we’re not expecting it. Or it was a light day, now it’s a really heavy day, and it’s the middle of your shift. So just come prepared for that. Pack what you need. And it may not even be you that winds up needing it. It may be a friend that needs it. So you’ll be prepared for that as well. 

Alright, you also want to make sure you pack your ID badge for clinicals, and you can get a badge clip or a badge reel. They have really cute fancy ones that say little catchy phrases on them, if you want to get that. I just used a clip and my badge and just clipped it right onto my front scrub pocket. And I did get, from Amazon, it comes in like a pack of 50 or something, it’s way more than I needed, it’s little clear plastic sleeves that you can slide your badge into and it comes with clips as well. And it’s really cheap, and you could maybe just get with your friends and have one of you order it and just share it, cause it comes with a lot of the sleeves. 

Alright, you also want to pack hair ties. One time I showed up to clinicals and I did not have a hair tie and I had to use a rubber band for my whole shift. It pinched, and it didn’t fit right, it was not fun. So make sure you pack a couple of hair ties in your clinicals bag. 

And then, you might consider, I know most of you probably won’t take me up on this because of the aesthetic, but you might consider bringing a fanny pack. And I actually think these are starting to catch on a little bit more on the units, but um a fanny pack is just so handy to have cause it has all the pockets, you can fit all the things right there on your hip. You can keep extra alcohol pads in there. There’s usually a loop on it where you can attach a roll of tape. That is really handy. I used a fanny pack for a while when I was working in the emergency room, and I don’t know how many times they asked to use the tape that I had on my hip. You could keep your scissors right in it. So that’s up to you. It’s not like the coolest look, but it is certainly functional. And sometimes function is more important than fashion, right? 

Alright, and you also want to get a little small, half inch binder to keep all of your clinicals paperwork in. And you can keep all the paperwork for clinicals, like for the whole clinical rotation in this, so you’re not having to make sure you have that week’s paperwork in your clinicals bag before every week. You can just print it all out, put it all in that half inch binder, and stick it in your clinicals bag, and you’ll be ready to go. And you don’t want to include your lecture notes or anything like that. This binder is just strictly for your paperwork for clinicals. And you can put your nursing care plans in it, anything that you need to turn in during clinicals, any checklists, anything that needs to be signed off. Usually you’ll have like something that you’re supposed to focus on for each week of clinicals, and you can have that list in that binder.

Alright you guys! I hope that was helpful in setting up your bag for clinicals. It’s very exciting and very nerve wracking. Thinking about going to clinicals, especially if it’s your first time going to clinicals. There’s so many questions about what it’s going to be like. But, I mean really, the main thing that you want to bring to clinicals is, it sounds cliche, but is a good attitude. Just show up, ready to learn, bring your questions. Don’t be scared of looking like an idiot. Cause you’re a nursing student. You’re gonna look like an idiot. You’re not gonna know how to do very much. You’re not gonna have all the answers, and no one expects you to. Because you’re a nursing student. They expect you to come eager to try new things. To get in there and volunteer to do things, even though they know you’re nervous about it. And they know that you haven’t done this before, but that’s how you learn. You get in there and you try it. But they do expect you to have the supplies you need, so take this time to get your clinicals bag ready to go and packed. Alright you guys. Have a great week, and I will talk to you again next time.