Losing respect for nursing students

Nurses General Nursing

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I've always been one that enjoyed having students. Im not one to eat the young. We were all there once. But I feel like I'm losing respect for some of the new students coming out. I guess I'm old school but we did not sit when we were students and we did not stand at the desk and gossip. You did not see a nurse or a doctor standing and a student sitting. Uniforms that look disastrous and hair hanging down. They are at times loud and unruly. Is the respect for our profession gone? Or is it just me?

Specializes in Management, Med/Surg, Clinical Trainer.

There is always those people who will push the envelope and try to get away with anything they can. That is not a new issue. What is new is how it is reacted to.

If the nursing school wants to graduate as many nurses as they can; then they may lower their standards to get more students in the door.

If the nursing instructors do not react when there is unprofessional behavior; then it will continue.

WORSE if the nursing instructor wants to stop the bad behavior, but she is not backed up by the school; then the behavior will continue.

If the hospital staff witnesses unprofessional behavior and take no action; then it will continue.

There are many points along this chain where there are opportunities to help the student nurse out or help her OUT.

Yes the student ultimately owns the behavior, however as stated at the beginning there is a group of folks who will push the envelope, if they are not stopped by anyone along the way it is an open invitation for a breeding ground for more bad behavior.

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I think it's funny how many of us silently (or not so silently, apparently!) smirk at the fresh-out-of-high-school kids in nursing. I look very young, so even though I'm mid 20s and already have a BBA in Accounting and an AS in Business Admininistration, people see me in classes and dismiss me as being one of the young crowd. That's okay, though. I'm going all the way =).

I know how strict the nursing program that I'm trying to get into is. May whatever god you believe in have mercy on me if I ever try to show up to clinicals and act like one of these students you all are describing! I'd be corrected so fast I wouldn't even have time to blink.

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Specializes in Management, Med/Surg, Clinical Trainer.

Absolutely. The age of the person is not the issue, it is more about the person and the program. In my program we had a 30+ something acting up; however she did not do that long. The instructor we called the Hatchet helped her OUT of the program.

Good luck Amnesty. Do not worry about this thread as long as you do your work - and it sounds like from your post your are very responsible- you will not be treated like those who don't just because you look young.

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One of my all time favorite clinical instructors would do the same. Make us go find our own answers. In group report at the end of the day, we would share what we learned with the other students (more times than not, if one of us were unsure, there had to be at least one other student who wasn't clear on the subject). If a question came up during group report, she would give us an opportunity to answer it, if no one had an answer, everyone of us had to look it up during the week and include the detailed answer on our clinical packet. I'm not sure, but I believe with kids growing up with the ability to have answers so readily available via internet, it's changed them a bit from when I was growing up (having to look in encyclopedias and research in multiple books!) It's almost like if they can't google it, how the heck are they supposed to know if someone doesn't tell them (aka lack of critical thinking abilities).

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I don't think this is a generational issue. I think it's about the boundaries, standards, rules, and expectations of the individual nursing program. There is a college in my town whose nursing program is made up almost entirely of traditional students (18-22). They are by far the most professional, polite, and hardest-working of any nursing students in the area. They also always look impeccably neat. Every student I have worked with from this program has been exceptional. That is because anything less will not be tolerated by their instructors and administration.

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I have been a nurse since 2005, but unfortunately when I was in school, when it came time to do clinicals, it seemed like most of the "old school nurses" that I had training me, acted like I was wasting their time. I got more eye rolling than I cared to see. I was scared to ask questions because I didn't want to "bother" the nurse. It seems like these days you get more and more of those type of nurses. I am a great nurse, so I've been told by many patients, families and coworkers. All I can say is, if you don't like your job, get out of the profession before you ruin someone elses thought about being a nurse. To be a great nurse you need to be patient, caring, and WANT to help people.

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It isn't about age so much as maturity level. Some folks are level-headed and responsible at twenty. Some are still self-centered and undisciplined at forty.

Maybe it's time for clinical sites to dust off (or come up with) their expectations for students in a clinical setting. Yes, the students are under the direction of the instructor, but while they are on the floor, they represent the facility in the eyes of patients and their visitors. It is not the least bit unreasonable to require respectful and responsible behavior, demeanor and appearance. If the students can't rise to that level for clinicals, they don't seem like good candidates for employment. I would go so far as to present the students (and instructors) with a contract clearly outlining the rules and requiring them to sign it if they want to proceed.

I find it laughable that a student would say that she didn't want to take vitals because they "already covered that." Are you kidding me??? New skills don't replace the old ones--they are added to them. The goal is to integrate all the individual pieces of patient care into one functional unit, so that by the end of the clinical the student is doing everything she has learned that semester for those under her care. People who don't get that need an attitude adjustment.

If I were an instructor, I would want to make it clear to my students that they are on the floor to learn and become proficient at nursing basics. If, after a warning or two, they found their phones or their classmates or anything else to be unmanageably distracting, if they couldn't be bothered to take learning opportunities offered by the staff, if they displayed an entitled mindset and showed anything other than respect for the staff and patients, I would show them the door with only one chance to make up the missed time. Instructors who aren't willing to shepherd their flock, so to speak, may not be up to the job.

Clinical settings have been lost due to the actions of an irresponsible few. For the sake of the group, bad apples need to be dis-invited to the party. Instructors who are unwilling or unable to enforce the rules should not be in that leadership role.

Clinical performance may open or close doors to students after they graduate. Many times a reference from an instructor or a precepting clinical nurse has helped someone to get a job. The smart ones know that.

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.

We're orienting a couple of new grads on my unit who act a lot like the nursing students that ya'all are complaining about.

/night shift

//doesn't see many nursing students

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Specializes in FNP, ONP.

We don't get nursing students in the clinic, just medical students (all of whom have been fabulous, and fun to have around) and MA students, (80% of whom have been great). We did have one MA student that was just awful. We have a no cell phone policy that applies to everyone, patients and employees alike. We warned the MA student several times and she just wouldn't listen; it ws if she thought the clinic rules did not apply to her. She fell down on the job in many, many respects, but the was the most galling. When it came time for us to fill out her evals, every single one of us gave her failing marks. It wasn't as though we hadn't warned her repeatedly. That last day, she left screaming and cursing because she would have to repeat the semester. We thought we were going to have to call the police for crying out loud!

My last few years in hospital working around nursing students were so frustrating, I just refused to precept anymore. The NP student my colleague had for part of a semester was a total dud too. She called his school and told them she didn't want him back after about 6 weeks. He was that bad, with no promise of improvement (and a chiropractor in NP school to boot, serving to further lower my opinion of that so-called profession, lol).

I don't think it is nursing students in particular. I do think that the bar being a bit higher for med school helps weed out the total social losers, but by and large, students these days are just entitled nit wits.

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I have found that our local hospitals are not giving out as many clinical spaces to the schools. The schools have to bargain over spots.

I have done both my LPN and RN rotations and can say that for the most part our students were very respectful. As a PN student if there was something interesting going on the floor the instructor or nurse would ask the pt if they would mind students watching or participating. Some pts would even allow all of us in the room to watch, most of us would "fight" over who got to practice a set of skills.

In RN school I cannot recall students sitting at the nurses station, except now when we are printing pt data sheets prior to the start of our shift. We will sit in designated areas for nurses to sit, but we are in management and taking on the nurses entire pt load and doing all the charting. I still try to be respectful and offer my seat if I notice a nurse standing. Nine times out of ten they refuse. (we both have been on our feet for 10 plus hours) I still get up faster than I would like because I know how tired my feet are and I just rested them and feel it is time for someone else to rest theirs. We are doing our clinicals on a stroke floor so we hardly ever have time to sit so when the chance comes I do not want to hog all the time.

In each group we have had one or two students who text, chat, and just do not seem interested in pt care. However in the RN program said student did not make it to management.

I think you are going to have your lazy, disrespectful, or just out right scary nurses in all levels. Some are students, some are already nurses. I do not think it is a generation thing, I think it just boils down to some people who are out for number one and they cannot put themselves into someone else shoes.

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As a recent graduate finishing up a nurse residency program, nursing school and my clinical experiences are still fresh in my mind. In our first clinical rotations, we all remained on the same floor - with direct supervision from our instructor who utilized a teaching method much like some that have been mentioned in this positing, hands-on with high expectations - and we were: well-groomed, well-mannered, and perhaps most importantly, well-prepared. But as we advanced through the program, sets of two students would get sent to multiple floors, and a single instructor was now responsible for "supervising" 10 students in multiple places. Needless to say, attitudes and appearances began to falter.

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I'm 27, graduating ADN in September, brand new to medical tho. All the stuff mentioned here... sounds like so many from my program.....

We are combined with LPN's bridging. They are some of the worst. They have been a nurse for 30 years, so they know absolutely everything. And they will tell you, or the nurse or the instructor, "that's not how WE do it at my job"....

Well, those bridging LPN students shouldn't be so smarmy about it, but they do know way more than you, a student with no past nursing experience. They've been nurses for years, while all you've done is read about it in a book and experienced the ultra-sheltered, nothing-like-the-real-world clinical experience. I mean, come on, a LPN with 30 years doesn't "know everything" by any means. But, yes, they know way, way more than you.

No excuse for their disrespect to the instructor, though.

The hardest part about being a LPN-RN bridge student is you're only too aware of the chasym-like abyss between "real world nursing" and "nursing school nursing". When they say "this isn't how we do it at work" they aren't just whistling Dixie.

Of course, the smart LPN-RN student will just smile and nod and keep their mouth shut when the instructor says "administer each pill separately in a feeding tube" or some such nonsense.

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