🔴 HEAD TO TOE ASSESSMENT (NURSING)

Hello, everybody. Hi, YouTube. My name is Christina Rafano with nursingschoolofsuccess.com and this is a super exciting video I have. So what we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about the head to toe assessment for nursing school. And I also have a free head to toe assessment transcript to give to you. So this is actually a transcript of the nursing head to toe assessment that I created for you. It's a full transcript of how I basically how I do my head to toe assessments in nursing and how I did them in nursing school. So it will literally walk you through word by word what I say and it'll be super, super helpful for you to give you kind of a guide on how to do it. So I know in nursing school the head to toe assessment, super terrifying, right? It's just, it's pretty mind blowing how just really, really nervous you can get and how terrified and just scared not only to do it in front of patients, but also your instructors too, when you have your check off can be really terrifying. So I put that in the link, I put that link down in the description of this video. So you can go there, head on over there, click, click that link and it'll have you enter your name and email and you can get that transcript sent right to you. It's amazing. It's going to help you out so much. I'm so excited that we have that available. It's usually only available for Nursing SOS members inside of our Nursing SOS membership community. So I am releasing that now for you for a very special reason because actually over the weekend we reached 1000 YouTube subscribers. I can't even believe. I am so excited. I am. I just feel so grateful for this whole community of nursing students to come together and be so supportive of each other and just want to. And we have so many, so many students that just want to be the best nurse that they can be, like you. So I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you so much. So this is really my gift to you for you, my, let's call it a virtual bear hug because I just love you so much and I'm so, so grateful and appreciative of your support for everything that we do here at Nursing sos. So I'm so excited to have you here. That's my special gift to you. So again, the link to that is down below. It should be in the description. Hopefully that'll work. Yeah, hopefully it all worked in the description. I will also be sending it out to our email list. So if you are on our email list, I will send it to you later as well. So make sure to click that link down below, enter your name and email, and it will send you that head to toe assessment transcript right to your inbox. So that's the first thing we'll talk about. And then now I wanted to give you a few head to toe assessment, head to toe assessment kind of tips to help you, I'm gonna call it, I'm gonna call them tips kind of hacks. They could, could also be hacks, but I think that these will help you because they really, really helped me in nursing school kind of, you know, not be as anxious, not be as nervous. And so that's exactly what I want to help you with. So the first thing I want to do is start by telling you my first, tell you about my first time head to toe assessment in nursing school. So it was in a long term care facility that was my first clinical rotation. Brand new, brand spanking new nursing student. I was first placed into a long term care. That's typically where my school starts nursing students off right off the bat, you know, you're in your very first term. This is kind of like dip your toe into the water, try not to drown territory here. So long term care. So we were there and I remember going to assess my first patient, you guys, I was, I was a hot stinking mess. I was so scared. I, I, I can't even believe, like I, I was so nervous. I just remember, you know, like my throat tightening up. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk, I couldn't, I, I didn't feel like I could even walk down the hall. I was so nervous to just, you know, even talk to a real life patient. Not only do you have to actually talk to them, but you have to actually ask them personal questions and actually, you know, know what you're doing with your stethoscope and with all your equipment and everything, you know, there's a lot to know, you guys. So with that, I just want you to know it also, it also took me like two, I think it took me like two hours literally to get through that one assessment. Not because I was there for two hours, but I kept forgetting things. So I would go into her room, I would ask her questions, you know, go through a few questions and write some things down. On my whole, I think I had a whole clipboard full of paper filled with notes. Oh man. Life as a new nursing student. And then I would go back out of the Room realized I had forgotten a million things and then have to go back in. And I did that several, several times. I think. I'm pretty sure it took like two hours to get through through the entire head to toe assessment. So that was my first experience. I wanted to share that with you because yours might be similar and that's totally okay. So this is something that I don't feel like enough. People talk about is the nervousness, the fact that you don't need to know everything right away. Nobody expects you to know everything right off the bat. It's your first week of nursing school. Are you kidding me? You are just fine not knowing anything. And then two years, four years, a year and a half, whatever program you're in, you are going to be amazed. Amazed at how much you know. It's going to be incredible. Girlfriend, you are going to blow your own mind. I'm so excited for you because you are going to walk out of school, be an amazing, amazing nurse. But it starts right here. It starts on the first day when you have to do your head to toe assessment and you got all these nerves and you know, your heart's racing and everything. You got to start some, somewhere. So I wanted to share that story with you to know, for you to know that you are totally normal, to be nervous and that it's totally, totally fine. Nobody's gonna hold it against you if you don't know everything or anything to begin with. Okay? So you're totally, totally normal. Now the second tip that I've got for you is that to do it by body system, most. I want to venture to guess that most nurses actually do their head to toe assessments in that systematized way by kind of body system. So you literally go. For me, at least you literally go, hi. Hi Theresa. Hi, Linda. You literally go head to toe. So you start at the head, you assess their head and you literally go through their whole body, you know, head to toe, make sure it's a systemized pattern. That way you don't forget anything. So you want to make sure that you kind of always do it the same way each time so that you're not going back and forth. You know, I'm going to do maybe the head first one day. I'm going to start, you know, in their abdomen one day, you know. No, just do, do it the same process the same way every single time in your, this goes for in your practice, in your skills lab, at home as well as at clinical. So do it the same, same way, the same pattern, the same system Every single time. And that way you will get it down faster. And you know, you, you'll get it down, you'll really get it down faster. So make sure that when you're in skills lab, you're practicing the same way that you do at clinical. That way you memorize it, you've got it in your mind. Then when you go into clinical, you really won't be as nervous because you'll really. It's kind of like that muscle memory, you know, Even though your brain is kind of freaking out, like I don't know what to do, your body will know what to do. So you'll, as long as you've done it several times in skills lab and at home, you will, you really will get it over time. Practice, practice, practice. Another story to share with you. I think my husband was probably the bomb nursing head to toe assessments by the end of my first term in nursing school. I mean, for real, the poor guy, I practiced on him so so much I was called him my guinea pig because everything that I was learning in nursing school, okay, not everything, but you know, for real, the head to toe assessment, at least I really practiced on him again and again and again and again and again. I swear, every single day. So I really do recommend that, that you find somebody in your life that loves you enough to go through that with you, to let you practice on them again and again and again. And this could be a nursing school buddy, it could be your husband, it could be just a really good friend, it could be your mom or your dad. Just rope somebody into it. You've got people all around you that love you and support you. So, so find somebody that is willing to do that for you. And that's what I really recommend is just practice, practice, practice. Start at the head, work down to the toe. If you don't want to do that, just at least make sure that you're doing it the same way every single time. That way when you go into clinical, you know it, it's muscle memory, you've got it down. So that's tip number two is to make sure that it is systematized that you really. I think most nurses do go head to toe. So I think that's way to do it honestly. And that is how I actually set up the head to toe assessment transcript for you. So as you go through that transcript again, the link is down below to that. It's a free cheat sheet for you walking you through literally how I assess patients head to toe. So I actually use that system that will give You a really good guide on pretty much word for word how I do a head to toe assessment and how you can do it for nursing school. You, you know, they're not as comprehensive in clinical or. Well, they should be comprehensive at clinical, but you know, in the real world as a nurse, not usually as comprehensive. So I know you guys know that, but just make sure that in nursing school, I know for your exams you really need to make sure that you're hitting all those points. So I included all of those there for you in that head to toe assessment transcript. So again, link down below to that, make sure you download it. And then now the third thing that I do want to mention is documentation, because I know that that is a really big deal for so many nursing students. So this is now going to be our kind of nursing school hack number three. I have a couple of tips here for documentation. When you are first starting out in nursing school, I always recommend nursing students literally write everything down and to write it down as you go. I know that a lot of other nurses out there, a lot of instructors might not agree with this, so, you know, kind of go with whatever you think is best. But honestly, this is what I think is best and this is what has worked best for me in nursing school is to literally write down everything as I go. If I didn't, I would forget it. I mean, goodness gracious, there is so much to know. You know this, there's so much in your brain right now in nursing school that it's so hard to remember everything. And then especially when you're just starting your head to toe assessments, you are learning them and you're doing them fresh on a brand new patient, it can be really overwhelming. So I really, really recommend that you write everything down as you go. So, you know, take a whole bunch of paper. I know if you have a brain sheet, take a brain sheet. Typically I would say just get a whole bunch of paper because you'll literally have to write everything down. Brain sheets are kind of, you know, to jot really short notes and things. Kind of, once you get the hang of it, a brain sheet would be really helpful for you. But in the beginning, I would definitely recommend I had a whole clipboard with I think probably a whole ream of paper. Oh man. So that was my experience. I do recommend that just because I know that you might forget stuff. So. And then as you go, as you, as you continue, you know, in nursing school, you get a little more comfortable every single day. You will build that confidence. Then you can really like I said cut down to kind of a brain sheet or cut, just cut down your papers, right? You can even go through your whole head to toe assessment. Once you get more comfortable, go through the whole thing and then document it afterwards. Directly afterwards, document everything. So you're not necessarily documenting as you go and as you assess your patient during the head to toe assessment, but you can document afterwards. And then another thing that I do recommend just to save time as you get more comfortable with it and more confident, is that you document what is abnormal. Oftentimes I've seen nursing students try to, you know, even when they're a, you know, third year nursing student or almost graduated even, they're documenting just on their brain sheet, like everything. So you really don't need to do that because you know what's normal by that point. Once you've, once you're really seasoned already in nursing school, you've got it down, you know what you're doing, you're on top of it. Once you're kind of there, head to toe assessment is no big deal for you anymore. Then on your brain sheet or on your notes at clinical, just document what is abnormal. So forget the things that are normal. If it is, you know, if it is abnormal, make sure you jot that down. So if you hear a heart murmur, jot that down. If they don't have a heart murmur, then you won't need to write anything there. You just, you know, you know that that's normal not to have a heart murmur. So then just jot down. If they have it, that would abnormal. So then you would jot down that. Now this doesn't go for vital signs or anything. You have to document vital signs even if they're normal, you know, of course, so make sure you document those. But I would recommend just to kind of save space, you guys know, at that point, once you're kind of seasoned, you know what's abnormal and what's normal. So, you know, I would just recommend kind of save time, just document what is abnormal. It'll also save you a lot of paper too. All right. And now really, the last thing that I want to talk about because I'm a huge stickler for this, and if you're a nursing SOS member inside of our nursing SOS membership community, you probably already know this because pretty much in any intervention video or see assessment video, I always mention this is to make sure that the patient has a working iv. I know. So if you're a nursing SOS member, you've heard me say this a Gazillion times in like all the videos because I'm such a stickler for it. This is such a big deal to me, you guys. I just, I will shout it from the rooftops. Please make sure that your patient has a working iv. So this is super important because if your patient codes, you want to make sure that you have direct IV access for that code, you know, obviously. So make sure that they have a working IV so that you can do nursing interventions or when and if you have to do them. I've seen situations where patients have been being discharged from the hospital and their IV site was taken out in my mind prematurely. You know, maybe it was per facility policy, maybe not, I'm not sure. But then they coded during that discharge process. So make sure that this is just my recommendation. So go per facility policy or your school's policy. But I would recommend that if you are discharging a patient that taking out their IV should be one of the last things that you do. You want to make sure that if anything happens, you have control, you have IV access. So you've got it in there ready to go. If something were to happen like that. It's just, it's really, really good to have. So make sure that when you're doing your head to toe assessment, you make sure that they have a working IV site, you know, that it looks good if it was a field start, meaning that if they got it on their way to the hospital in the ambulance or something that make sure that it's working. I know some hospitals now actually do keep those in regulations before standards before were to replace it once they got to the hospital. But now I think, you know, for some, at least some hospitals it's, it's. You can leave some of those in. So make sure that you check with your clinical facility for sure to see what's best if they do have a field start, if you can keep that in or if you can or if you need to change it. So that will be for per facility policy. So just make sure that they've got a working IV in. So when you do your head to toe assessment, that is definitely something you will want to check out. So. So I hope that all of those tips helped you out. I am so excited for everything that we've got going on here at Nursing SOS and on our YouTube channel. You guys are amazing. So much. Again, I want to make sure that you downloaded that head to toe assessment transcript that I've got for you. It is amazing. It's going to help you so so much. So please make sure that you download it. It's literally word for word. I walk you through what I say during a head to toe assessment. So basically it's just your guide through it. So print it off, take it to clinical, take it with you to your skills lab, take it with you when you practice on your husband, or on your best friend or your nursing buddy or whoever you've got in your life. So I hope that that helps. If you have any questions, I'm always, always, always here for you. Again, thank you so much and I hope you guys have a great week. Thanks for joining me here on YouTube live. We'll chat soon. Bye.