Precepting

[amjowens]

I just had my first day of precepting toward my 96 hour graduation requirement. It's in a med-surg unit.

My preceptor is soo relaxed. She's a very cute-likable type of person, so I can't really say I don't like her. She was nice to me. But, I spent about 11 hours of following her around-which mostly involved racing to give a med or some quick bit of patient care, only to race back to get to the desk and chat with coworkers or talk on the phone.

I do have to say, she was nice, and in line with her style of patient care, did quickly inform me about where glucose monitors were located, paperwork, etc. Her plan the first day was to have me follow her, just to watch how things are done.

If I were in clinical, I'd feel completely fine just going and doing patient care, and following up with others if they could use help. I wanted to respect her plan for the first day, though. It's not as though we didn't have anything to do, as we had four patients, with one just getting off suicide watch the shift before ours. I swear she saw the patients like three times that day (during med rounds). And she charted every two hours, just making things up. I'm kind of down about my experience. Hopefully, I can just take the patients next time, and do the care I'm able to independently.

It's just such a disappointment. One nurse was talking all about her booty call that night, as she was on the phone with her divorce lawyer angry about the child support money her husband was trying for (he was to get the four kids). My preceptor was prank calling with another nurse a guy from another department, having him come to the unit for no reason, just to see him. She is divorced, and went on and on about how her needs, and how long it's been, etc. It's just the setting that was bothersome, with all those patients...but charting, and anything that would reflect on the nurse, did get done, I have to say. Is this nursing??? I need to keep thinking about all the positive mentors in nursing. It's just that I'm having to work so hard to keep my mind positive after my clinical/precepting experiences lately. It's like half the work, keeping my mind right, not getting taken down by the negatives.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Talk to who ever assigns the preceptos and tell them what this nurse was doing, what you expect from a preceptor and ask that you be assigned to another preceptor.

[amjowens]

It was difficult to find preceptors for our class. I will let my precepting instructor know what's going on, but I'm going to have to try to appreciate the lesson for what it is-and try to stay positive-for the duration of my precepting. This site, I've discovered, is a nice place to let out frustrations, as I always get good advice or just understanding words.

[rotteluvr31, ADN, RN]

I am sorry that your experience is anything but professional.

Our instructors remind us that even bad nurses can teach us something - they teach what type of nurse we don't want to become.

Good luck to you.