The student nurse

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Apr 5, 2012

I thought maybe I was going crazy so I re-read the first few pages of this thread and reassured myself I still never felt that wish_me_luck came off with an attitude. In fact, at times I felt that (despite making worthwhile points) RNsRWe was more overtly hostile. But THEN I read this gem:......

Thanks. I think.

PetsToPeople · Apr 5, 2012

All of the original questions posted by the OP have been answered, although in a round about way. If she is doing some sort of research for a report or some such for school, I believe she is getting a bit of an idea of what she may expect when she goes to clinicals. Basically it will be either hit or (mostly) miss on whether or not she will get a nurse who is a good teacher or a bad one. Either way she has some control over her own destiny, and either her nurse will teach her or she can go find someone else who will. Be proactive, this is your education, your future, and atleast for me, I will be darned if I will let anyone get in between me and my families future.

The nurses less than enthusiastic feelings on taking on a SN can have to do with many things, such as higher pt to nurse ratios and higher pt acuity; just as some SN do not make great students, some nurses do not make good teachers; low morale in the dept where the nurse works and also consider the group mentality of that dept., if there are many nurses there who do not like taking on a student, other nurses tend to pick up on and share that mentality...there are so many factors at play.

When I worked as a Vet Tech I loved to take on new employees for training, of course it wasn't easy, but things worth doing seldom are. Somedays I was a great teacher, and some days not so good. And I have had great students, good students and reeaallly bad students. What I loved the most was to see that wide eyed look they get when they do something new on their own (while I observe, because, seriously, no one is going to really learn from just watching someone else do something), and then they look at you and you get to share that moment with them, as if it were ten years ago and you were doing that procedure for the first time all over again. And the more complicated the procedure the better, such as intubating a cat or doing a jugular blood draw, or helping them through a critical thinking process on an ICU pt and you see them connect the dots and see that light over their head flick on because they've solved the puzzle.

I am a firm believer that a nurse should never be forced to take on a student, and of course there should be some type of compensation for those who volunteer, and it does not necessarily have to be monetary in nature. I was never paid extra, nor compensated in any way, although it would have been a nice.