respiratory student here....need to ask a question

[respiratoryqeen]

Hi all........

I am in my last year of Respiratory Schooling. Well, I started my clinical rotations yesterday and was treated absolutely horrible by all the rn's. I know you all can not speak for them, But do you have suggestions on why they were so mean to me and the other students. We were working the cardiac unit doing o2 rounds. We were instructed by our CI to look at the charting to get familiar with it. I had a nurse come over and take it from my hands and said she needed it. I was like what? Do you think she should of asked me first. I didnt know what to do. I am a student so I didnt want to start any riff raff.

Another incident was when I went to observe a thorascopy. The nurses in sugery were very rude to me also. I felt so out of place in the surgery I just wanted to run out of there. They were cold to me and when I asked questions, like i was suppose to, They would say I have no Idea really mean like I didnt matter. I just took it with a grain of salt. I really admire nurses for all the hard work they do. But, I work hard too. Our schooling is very rigorous and the grading scale is 5 points above the nurses. So I know what it is to work hard. I thought respiratory and nurses work hand in hand? Or did I just have a bad experience with my first few. I dunno just wanted some opinions.

thanks

Respiratory Student

[jeepgirl, LPN, NP]

I don't know why the nurses would be rude to you as an RT student. I mean, gosh... I don't know about you guys, but I depend heavily on my RT people. Especially in Peds, were so many of our patients have respiratory problems.

For the most part, we have good RT people at our facility. It bothers me, however when we have RT's who:

Refuse and buck at us when we need a croup (or O2) tent set up for a kid. Don't they realize by the time that we need a tent that we're not playing games? Oh, and don't go in there and start grilling the parents at 0200 in the morning trying to make an Asthma dx so you can try to refuse to set the booger up. By this time, we've already confirmed that the kid DOESN'T have asthma with both the parents and the docs. Promise!

Moan and groan when we call for PRN breathing treatments. Isn't that your job?

Oh, and if a patient asks you to help them sit up at the side of the bed, or heck, even help them sit the head of their bed up... can you just help them? We had one RT when I was an NA who would track us down to sit the patients on the side of the bed. And these weren't assist X2 patients... one time, it was just the fact that the patient needed help moving her bedside table. Once, this certain RT even paged us to hand the patient her box of kleenex that was on the ledge in the patients room... EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS STANDING IN THE ROOM OBSERVING THE TREATMENT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BED (the ledge was on the opposite side of the bed)! Lazyness!

But no, no one deserves to be treated like that. I'd speak up and let your clinical instructor know. We had a situation like that when I was in nursing school. If people speak up, maybe classes behind you won't have to go through the same thing.

Oh, and in my RN program if we made less than 78% we failed.

[11:11]

A 78 would have got you asked to leave my nursing program. Above 90 was expected and those that didnt stay there were "advised" to try another.

As far as being protective the one poster was correct. As far as I am conserned other discipines are expected to ask for the chart as a courtesy. Even MD's that I am not familiar with are not appreciated if they come in and just begin to help themselves.

If your problem extends to other clinicals and facilities you might try looking inward for the problem-

11

[RN4NICU, LPN, LVN]

Anything below 80 was a C in my program and you had to get a B to pass. 79.9 - you're out.

I am also very protective of my patients - it is very much an ICU nurse thing.

Can't add to the advice you've gotten so far. Those before me have said it well.

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

You meet all kinds in health care. Some are jerks, some are wonderful. Cherish the latter, and don't forget to thank them. When I did my ICU rotation, there was an RT there who did a quick, but thorough explanation of ventilators and obviously had a ball doing it. Like many people, she loved sharing her wisdom with an interested student. For me, it was way better than reading a book.

At my job, RT's have their pet peeves, usually involving us touching their stuff. Most other departments have pet peeves of some sort, and nursing has it's pet peeves toward other departments, as well. Management speaks of an 80/20 rule--20% of the people cause 80% of the problems. I think it's really more like 90/10--it's just that the problem children are the noisiest.

[begalli]

At my job, RT's have their pet peeves, usually involving us touching their stuff.

I wouldn't dare touch or change vent settings. I mean, I disconnect for suctioning, silence alarms, push buttons to see numbers, but never change anything...neither do our docs (they try..but we stop em and call RT). We call the RT for all changes. I wouldn't call it a pet-peeve, it's more of a safety issue. They have to be aware of what's happening with the patient as well.

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

I wouldn't dare touch or change vent settings. I mean, I disconnect for suctioning, silence alarms, push buttons to see numbers, but never change anything...neither do our docs (they try..but we stop em and call RT). We call the RT for all changes. I wouldn't call it a pet-peeve, it's more of a safety issue. They have to be aware of what's happening with the patient as well.

I wouldn't either. I was referring more to things like moving an O2 flowmeter from an unoccupied room to an occupied room with no flowmeter, or setting a D/C'd Bipap out of the way. And they have a valid point--the more things get moved around, the more they get lost. But there are those who are rational and those who are peevish, just like in every occupation.