This is my journey from S.N to R.N

It’s that time again. Evaluations at work AND at school.

I’m not against evaluations…they lead to my pay raise. It’s just that there is such a long process before I get to my evaluations. In the hospital setting, you have to do all of the annual modules on the computer for compliance showing that you’ve read the policy for things like proper hand washing, or Accucheck policies. I was talking with some nurses at work and it seems as though the self-evaluation; thing never ends! You’ve gotta do annual ones and sometimes there are more as a new grad depending on your facility (i.e.- 30, 60, 90 days). So draining!

At school, it’s a little different. My clinical instructor from Postpartum is big on evaluations though- she used to be a nurse manager. Every week after clinical, we have to do a self-evaluation in clinical to talk about our strengths and weaknesses. I guess they’re trying to prep us now. But, I’m starting to find this semester while doing my own weekly evaluations the growth that is really taking place. I found this nifty article on why self-evaluations are so important, something I hadn’t really considered before this semester. When I compared them with my evaluations from first and second semester…it’s amazing to see how much I’ve crammed into my head in the last year and a half.

Examples:

First semester:

Strengths- Good communication, improved basic assessment

Weaknesses/Improvements- Will work on doing quicker, focused assessments.

Second semester:

Strengths- Medication administration, quick and focused assessments, tying in the Pathophysiology with the care, dosage calculations

Weakness/Improvements- Will work on time management and handling multiple patient load (two patients max), keep learning pathophysiology

Third semester:

Strengths- Improved patient education, handling more patients, more pathophysiology

Weakness/Improvements- Quicker analysis, build more confidence b/c we’re doing different aspects of patient care now (i.e- patient education and discharge) and are responsible for just about everything, and of course- more pathophysiology

What about you guys? Do you have to do self-evaluations for your clinical or for each instructor?

Sidenote: I hate doing evaluations at my work. It’s this long laundry list of the same questions that are worded differently and it kills a bunch of trees. After reading the other article I mentioned earlier, there was a link talking about this nifty online evaluations program. If you’re reading this nurse-manager-at-the-hospital-I-work-at, I wish you would get with the program because this would make my life a lot easier every year. Thanks.

Love,

Laney