A Day in Scrubs: Inside an NYU Nursing Clinical Day

You start the day by stepping into the hospital and meeting up with your clinical group and instructor for pre-conference before heading to the unit. This is where you go over patient assignments and talk through what to focus on for the day.

You will also be assigned a nurse to shadow for the day, which helps you get a real sense of how care is organized and prioritized throughout a shift. Depending on your instructor, you may also be asked to arrive earlier than 7:00 AM to receive a change-of-shift report from the night shift nurses. 

Once you finally get onto the unit, you might be eager to see your patients, but there are a few important steps that happen first. You typically start by introducing yourself to the nurse you’re paired with and get oriented to the patients you’ll be following for the day. From there, you spend time reviewing your patients’ charts before entering any rooms. You look at their past medical history, current condition, medications, lab results, and anything else that helps you understand the bigger clinical picture.

This is when everything starts to feel more real. You enter the patient’s room, introduce yourself to them, explain your role, and begin your head-to-toe assessment. It’s not just about checking their vitals. It’s also about observing and listening carefully and connecting what you’ve learned in class to a real person in front of you. Depending on your clinical sequence, you may also be required to complete handouts during this time, which help you organize key patient information and will later be discussed during post-conference.

The morning is usually fast-paced and hands-on as you and the nurses settle into the shift. You provide morning care such as making beds and helping patients with hygiene and moving – small but meaningful tasks that help patients feel more comfortable in the hospital. This is where you start building core patient interaction skills, even if it feels like “dirty work” at first. You also work closely with nurses by grabbing supplies and answering call bells. Depending on your clinical sequence, you may also administer medications under supervision, including oral meds, IVs, and injections.

Lunch is short but necessary. You get a moment to step away, reset, and talk with your classmates about how the morning went. I highly recommend even leaving the hospital to take a walk or get a sweet treat if the weather is nice!

In my personal experience, the afternoon is typically slower than the morning, but there is still much left to do! You go back to reassess your patient and continue providing any care or assistance they might need before you leave for the day. Once things slow down, you spend time documenting everything you did and observed, such as your vital signs and intake/output.

Charting helps you reflect on the specific actions you performed and think critically about the reasoning behind each step of care. It’s less hands-on, but just as important for developing clinical judgment.

This is also the time for you to write your patient handoff report (either through an SBAR report or AIE note), as this is how you will share the most important updates about your patient’s condition, care provided, and any changes throughout the day during post-conference.

You regroup with your clinical group and instructor to reflect on the day. Everyone shares their patients’ reports and any other experiences and lessons they learned throughout the shift. It’s a space where you realize how much you’ve actually absorbed in just eight hours and how different each student’s experience can be.

After post-conference, you finally head home. You reflect on your patients, talk things through with classmates, or simply enjoy a quiet moment after a long day. Once you get back, you take time to decompress and reset for any evening plans that await you.

By early evening, you’re usually out again, maybe meeting up with friends or heading to the East Village to try a new restaurant. This is really a chance to step away from clinical life and enjoy everything the city has to offer, especially after a full day on your feet.

Later in the evening, you might attend a club event or social. Club life is very big at NYU, and I can guarantee there is always something happening in the evenings across campus. Even though the days can be long and oftentimes tiring, you start to realize how special it is to have both worlds (hands-on clinical learning and a bustling campus community) all happening in the same day.

Hooray! Guess what – you’ve officially made it to the end of yet another clinical day! By this point, you’re usually ready to wind down and sleep. Clinical days are long and packed, so rest becomes just as important as everything you did during the day–especially knowing you’ll be back again very soon!