Here are a few examples that I've experienced or witnessed during my time in clinicals:
1. It is common that I or one of my fellow students will ask a qustion, or simply say hello, good morning ect to a staff nurse, LPN, or CNA and get absolutely NO reply. In the case of a question I've even asked several times on occassion only to be treated as if I wasn't even there (to me being absolutely ignored is almost worse than saying they won't, can't, or don't have time to answer a question).
2. On another occasion I was accused of deliberately not giving a bed bath by a CNA. In fact, I had made a mistake. I was the "student charge" nurse and when I returned to my patients room (after performing "treatments" for fellow students) the door was closed. The REAL charge nurse said that the CNA was giving a bath to a patient so I should wait to enter (unfortunately I should have asked which patient, but didn't). Then when I did enter the room (after helping another student give a bed bath down the hall) there was a used bed bath pan on the table, and two wet towels there also. My patient was semi-comatose (CV accident) and was sleeping in any case so I couldn't ask him. I assumed that my patient had been bathed and went on assisting other students. At the end of the day when I was leaving the CNA wanted to know which student had room eleven. When I said it was me, she got right in my face and said "if you aren't going to do a bath then you should tell someone and if you can't do that then you have no business being a nurse!" This was in front of my instructor. I apologized and offered to do the bath right then, but was refused the opportunity. The next day I was assigned to a patient in the ICU stepdown unit. At first the RN who was also in the room (assigned to another patient also in the room) was very pleasant we even made various "small talk". Then the CNA who yelled at me the day before stopped by and they went into the hall to talk.
After that the RN who had been pleasant became silent, she wouldnt' converse with me anymore. What is more when I went to give my patient a bed bath she criticised me at every step. She said I was too slow ("no hospital will ever hire you if you can't go faster than that"), and then criticised how I washed the perineal area saying I was being too gentle and not using enough water. When I went to change the water (as we are trained to do in school) she said I shouldn't leave my patients bed side during a procedure (I put the rails back up). I didn't say anything except that I was doing my best and would try harder. Finally, she accused me of deliberately doing a poor job so as to cause her to take over the procedure (which she did) and suggested that I should consider an alternative career. At this I nearly broke down in tears and went to see my instructor who re-assinged me to a different patient. However, the nurse in question walked into the room and said she wanted to talk to my instructor in private. She accused me of "patient abandonment" for leaving my patient (when I went to see my instructor and was reassigned). My instructor said she was probably mad at me because the CNA in question was written up for the way she confronted me on the previous day. Honestly, it seems like maybe 25% of the staff nurses (and I'm being conservative in my estimate) would just as soon we were not there. This is the first time I've ever experienced anything this dramatic and it's been bothering me for a few days now to the point I can hardly sleep. I swear, that IF I make it through school that I will go out of my way to be nice to furture nursing students who are doing there best!
