I'm in my 4th semester of nursing school and have one more to go (graduating in August!!) and I truly have a deep passion for nursing and I am very excited to get out into the field.
However...
I am SO tired of the future "paycheck nurses" in my class. Just to clarify (and this is from an instructor not me) a paycheck nurse is a nurse who really has little to no interest in the field of nursing outside of the job security and pay. You know the kind, probably older, probably doing nursing as a second career, or younger and still thinking "I don't know what I wanna be when I grow up but nurses are paid pretty well so here we go!". My class is pretty large (started around 150 people, now down to about 80) and a good few of the people who just wanted the good pay and a "guaranteed" job were weeded out pretty quickly (usually shortly after they realized nursing school required effort) but unfortunately there are still a few left.
It just really grinds on my nerves when I see them passing (barely passing, more often than not) while people who truly want to be nurses, who would be great nurses, fail. These paycheck nurses in training are pretty open about why they're in nursing school (they're nothing if not honest), but they're negative attitudes in class and clinical is getting pretty old pretty quick.
In class they're the ones on their phones the whole time checking facebook or whatever, and when they do decide to tune in to the lecture they ask questions the instructor just answered and waste everyone's time (thankfully the instructors are starting to call them out on it but still). They're the ones bragging about having not even bought the book or taken it out of the plastic wrapping, but not bragging about their grades. In my school, after the first two semesters attendance isn't mandatory (lectures/powerpoints are recorded and posted online) and you can go hybrid and only come to class for tests, and they tend to be the ones who only come for tests.
In clinical they like to hide, doing the bare minimum patient care and avoiding anything they don't want to do (answering call bells, giving baths, assisting pts to the bathroom, skills, etc.) and when asked to do these things by the clinical instructor they roll their eyes and whine about it the rest of the day. If a fellow student asks for help they look at them like their stupid and spout little gems like "Ew gross, no." or "That's CNA ****" or my personal favorite "I'm an RN student so go find an LPN or CNA or something."
NOTE: Our school really emphasizes, and I firmly believe, that nothing is beneath us at clinical; if someone asks for/needs help then we should help them.
I know the news and everyone likes to talk about nursing be the land of milk and honey, and that kind of representation attracts this kind of person but I can't help but think that if paralegals or electronics technicians or some other associate degree accessible career were paid more than nurses then these people would be sitting in legal or electronics classes instead of medsurg ones.
ALSO: I don't mean to say that every second career nursing student, or older nursing student, or anyone is automatically a paycheck nurse in training. I have several friends that are older/second career who are in nursing school because they want to be nurses, and they are just now having the chance to pursue their dream for whatever reason. I have nothing for respect for anyone going through nursing school for the right reasons, but I have a hard time respecting those who don't respect the profession enough to treat it as anything other than a meal ticket.
