Nurses Eating Nursing Students

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Cisabel

13 Posts

Apparently, people missed the point of the entire post. I don't care about the nurse. It is MY point of view of what happened to me on my first day of clinical. There are many snarky comments and things that happened throughout the day and I won't outline a full 10 hour day. The point that my instructor should reassigned me is something I can agree with. I did not volunteer my services or was begging for attention. I was more so trying to make myself available like other blogs have said Nursing students should. I am very aware that they do not get paid to teach students and when my instructor came she made it seem like it was not a problem for me to be with her she walked off and it changed every time. When I returned to the floor months later, she acted the same if not worst and she did not have another student. I overheard her saying things about my classmate and my second clinical instructor knew it wasn't the truth. After that, no one was with her again during my second clinical rotation there. I just want future nursing students or current students to know that there's no perfect way to avoid some things. I fell right into the trap of "this is what you do and don't do".

Cisabel

13 Posts

Desperate to be a victim í ½í¸‚! I'm far from a victim! Overburdened with one patient and just came from a 14 day vacation? Ok.

TriciaJ, RN

4,328 Posts

Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.

Let me tell you about my experience as a student: I had some good clinical days and some crummy ones. Some days I was assigned to (or found) someone who took me under her wing. Some days I wandered around looking for people to help and things to do. That tactic works most of the time. Not all the time.

Fast forward to being a preceptor: I arrive at 0700 and I'm informed I'm getting a student. No, I can't just say I don't want a student. It's not optional. There is also no differential for precepting a student. The student blows off my attempt to create meaningful experiences and states emphatically: "I'm only supposed to take one patient." The instructor never shows her face on the unit.

I assign the patient whom I think will be the best fit for a student I haven't laid eyes on before today. Every time I check on the student, she is chatting with the patient and nothing is done. I have to continually prompt the student that a postop bath needs to be completed and the patient needs to ambulate. I can't hang around to babysit because I'm swamped with my other patients. Sometimes I'm given an extra patient "because you have a student".

At 2:00 pm I go to check on the student again and she is gone. That's right. Post conference is at 2:00. The student has not bothered to report to me. I find the patient in a raised bed with a lowered side rail; the water basin is full and there is dirty linen on the floor. There is no feedback mechanism. I can't tell the instructor the student's strengths and areas to work on; I never see an instructor. The student seeks no written or verbal feedback.

How was this experience of any real value to the student? The patient certainly got marginal care. I had to clean up a mess at the tail end of my shift. Now how excited do you think I am next time I show up for work and find I've been assigned a student?

You have no idea what that preceptor had dealt with before you got there. She probably was not given the option to refuse to take a student. She might have just been sick of babysitting other people's kids in addition to looking after a bunch of sick people. Maybe you're a much more stellar person than she is and your students will always feel the love. All the best.

sevensonnets

975 Posts

You don't care about the nurse, but you fully expect her attention to be focused on you and your perceived needs, to the detriment of the senior nursing student she was already working with? The cornerstone of nursing is teaching? Not altogether, because the majority of our attention has to be focused on patient care. It is your instructor's job to teach you and to reassign you if need be. It was your responsibility to go to your instructor and tell her that the nurse you were assigned to already had a patient. I've had students come in that wanted to watch me make the bed because "we haven't been taught to do that yet. As Triciaj said, we are not babysitters.

Davey Do

10,476 Posts

Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

Welcome to AN.com, Cisabel. You're get some honest feedbackback from some seasoned nurses. Take the eclectic approach- use what you need and leave the rest.

Forgive us for our straight shooting ways. This topic has been discussed numerous times. Put "nurses eating their young" into the search engine found on the bottom of the forum page and you'll get all sorts of threads.

Here's a good one:

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/-quot-nety-quot-1068125.html

Good luck to you, Cisabel!

Specializes in CEN.
Thank you for questions because I can correct you...Also, she had one patient at the time. One was in dialysis, one was assigned to the other student and the other was discharged.

Here's what I have to say about these three easy patients from the medsurge nurse perspective:

PT IN DIALYSIS- I have often had to go to the dialysis unit in the middle of a busy shift to collect my patient which can be more time consuming than you think. The dialysis nurses often can't give the patients medications that are due because it would just be cleaned out during dialysis which means that I now have to give those medications. I need to do a full set of vitals because my PCA is on break and no one else is available. A full assessment needs to be done too. A patient being gone for a few hours does not make my day eaisier.

PT ASSIGNED TO STUDENT -Students are a liability to a nurse's license. They need to be constantly watched. Students make a nurse's day harder.

DICHARCHED PATIENTS - They need lots of paperwork printed out, signed, and explained. Often the patient refuses to leave because he wants a certain prescription that wasn't included in the discharge or he suddenly feels nauseas and now I have to page the doctor who is busy with a code and can't come. Patient and family are now bothering me every 5 minutes asking me why the doctor isn't here. The fact that there is an emergency going on is countered by "You should just hire more doctors." By now, the patient is here long enough that I must chart on him as well. When the patient finally leaves, I need to prepare myself for the admission I know I'm going to get within the next hour. The ED hasn't called yet for report, but it's super busy down there so I know they will soon.

These are all things that have happened to actual people on a consistent basis. Looks can be deceiving. The so called easy patients are often the ones that take up the entire day. I'm not trying to negate your feelings, just trying to help you see inside of the preceptor's head.

Editorial Team / Admin

Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN

6 Articles; 11,663 Posts

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

My suggestion? Print out this thread and reread it after you've been tasked with a student or two. Maybe then you'll get it.

nutella, MSN, RN

1 Article; 1,509 Posts

OP - obviously you feel that somebody did something "wrong" to you and you want to "call out a nasty attitude" and to focus on your point of view.

When nursing education became academic, it created some problems along the road. In our profession where we rely on people actually applying critical thinking and skill from day 1 it is very important to get the exposure to work during school. A lot of nursing students seem to be driven by "wanting to care" but also want to experience that somebody actually needs them. They are proud about the fact that they made it so far, have gone through selective admission in many cases, and are excited to apply their knowledge.

I value that you want to give your point of view that basically screams " I did everything to be accepted and valued but all I got was feeling dismissed and not accepted." I encourage you to look at it differently. As others have pointed out, your school and instructor have the responsibility to make sure you have a patient and who to shadow. And you can't take stuff personal to that degree when you work in healthcare. Don't make yourself that dependent on other people's actions and emotions. Nurses are human beings like the patients you want to serve. We all sometimes say things that may be not so nice or diplomatic, we all have different personalities, we can have a bad day. Nurses are very protective of their patients, you probably realize that. If you want to be successful in nursing it is probably a good idea to let go of the "they are not nice to me" thing. Don't expect everybody to be cheerful. Be realistic.

In my hospital that houses LPN and ADN students regularly - they are literally everywhere several times a week - the instructor looks at the census and assignment the day before and assigns students. Once in a while there is something like you described - patient gone for procedure or discharged - and students share a patient. Always talk to your instructor - they get paid and know what you have to learn.

I do not own patients because I see patients on all floors and units in the hospital and I encounter a variety of attitudes all day long. Because I am a palliative care nurse, some people do not have cozy feelings towards me. Even though I might be cheerful and friendly, the other nurse may be stressed out and react confrontational or is "grumpy" or what not. It does not define who I am or what I do - I do not give people that kind of power over me. But I respect everybody and respect their way of working, thinking and expertise. And I do not hold grudges. Yes - a case manager got very confrontational with me when all I did was doing my job and my goal is not to make her life miserable. But she is a human being and stressed out - I am not very reactive and do not judge people easily. She apologized and said she is "sorry" once she realized she was basically yelling at me. I just let go of those things and move on right away. I basically forget those things 5 seconds later - All we do as nurses needs to be understood in the context of a team - there is no single "me" when caring for a patient.

quazar

603 Posts

I appreciate your point of view but this was not the case. I teamed up with the MA that was helping with her patients. I didn't know at the time. She was perfectly fine with me cleaning up her patients and changing their linen. At first I questioned myself but after returning to that same floor and my other classmates experiencing the same thing. I wish shoe would just say that she did not want a student nurse. She gave conflicting emotions because she acted the way she did but also would say "If you have any questions, let me know!" I told my instructor and I just went around helping other people that wanted to be helped. My whole point is not to believe the other posts. They don't always work. I don't care about the nurse. I will just remember the way it was this day for me. If I am too busy I will let their instructor know.
Of course she was perfectly fine with you cleaning the patient and changing the linen with the MA. She would have been fine with one of her coworkers doing it as well. She had a senior year nursing student to precept on her practicum, which meant they needed to be doing things well beyond cleaning patients and changing linens at that point.

Saying your whole point is "not to believe the other posts and that they don't always work," e.g., to imply that the other posts are falsehoods/deliberately misleading and/or are some kind of magical formula shows emotional and professional immaturity and lack of fully developed critical thinking skills. The posts you read gave suggestions, not a magic, step by step tutorial on "how to always have an awesome day at clinical." They also gave suggestions on what worked for them, with the implicit understanding that, as with any advice you read on the internet or really any advice given at all: YMMV.

You're a graduate nurse now, presumably on the burn unit, presumably yet to have a nursing student of your own to shadow you yet. I would like to hear back from you when you do have a student to hear how it went and what your thoughts were on the experience from the other side of the bed.

Specializes in ED, psych.
Apparently, people missed the point of the entire post. I don't care about the nurse. It is MY point of view of what happened to me on my first day of clinical. There are many snarky comments and things that happened throughout the day and I won't outline a full 10 hour day. The point that my instructor should reassigned me is something I can agree with. I did not volunteer my services or was begging for attention. I was more so trying to make myself available like other blogs have said Nursing students should. I am very aware that they do not get paid to teach students and when my instructor came she made it seem like it was not a problem for me to be with her she walked off and it changed every time. When I returned to the floor months later, she acted the same if not worst and she did not have another student. I overheard her saying things about my classmate and my second clinical instructor knew it wasn't the truth. After that, no one was with her again during my second clinical rotation there. I just want future nursing students or current students to know that there's no perfect way to avoid some things. I fell right into the trap of "this is what you do and don't do".

I can see what you're trying to say: you can do everything you're supposed to do as a "good" nursing student yet still ... it's not enough.

BUT ... the one thing that you did NOT do as a nursing student -- you *continued* to be with this nurse regardless of what she said in the first place. As someone who's recently graduated (last month ... so my clinical experiences are still fresh in my mind), that's Nursing Student 101 -- immediately see your instructor and find a new nurse to shadow. Most instructors have no issue with this and will switch you immediately.

I've been is a similar position a few times, so my first action was to thank the nurse for letting me know and immediately hunt down my CI. No biggie.

It's *my* job to find the CI and inform them that my assigned nurse has another student. It's NOT the nurses' job to find me another placement. It's NOT my CI's job to be "all knowing" about the situation. She has other students as well. Your assigned nurse informed you that you can ask questions throughout the day - it doesn't seem like she was faking it. Why would she?

Whether you like it or not, your assigned nurse WAS advocating for a student nurse. It just wasn't you.

Jules A, MSN

8,864 Posts

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
I just want future nursing students or current students to know that there's no perfect way to avoid some things. I fell right into the trap of "this is what you do and don't do".

Are you a BSN? If so this is a strange introduction into our group here with an inflammatory title but in any event if only taking your experience at face value your statement about falling "into the trap of this is what you do and don't do" seems rather counterproductive. These are sound options to attempt to increase the value of a student's clinical experience. Why wouldn't you or others try the strategy again because you had one bad experience? I'm sure no one guaranteed you a 100% success rate. In my vast life experience there is not very much that is "perfect" in this lifetime so I'm not sure where you got the idea that if you follow these suggestions you would always have a delightful clinical experience. Again based only on what you have written it sounds like you tried to make the most of the day so I'm unsure why you are so focused, possibly years later, on a nurse who was too busy with her patients and another student to assist you to your satisfaction.

They weren't eating you.

As a student I had a nurse tell me point-blank she was not going to take a student. My CI took me to another area of the hospital where I blended in with the background, emptying foleys, turning patients, taking them to the bathroom, etc. No meds for me that night. There were MANY clinicals I never stepped near a medication. I did whatever the charge nurse or host nurse asked me to do and I spoke when spoken to. I changed beds, put patients on tele, EKGs, etc. I got my just desserts for my capstone in a busy ICU. Very fragile patients, codes, 3 assessments per shift to chart...I missed my earlier clinical days!

This fall I had a very chaotic night and was given a student to boot. She got to give Miralax. That's just how it goes. I did not have time to explain the disease process for every patient - I just didn't. As nurses we are happy you chose nursing but we have to protect the patients first. Many of my clinical assignments changed on a dime - that was fine, I had all my hours when I applied for my license and passed NCLEX. Your instructors should not penalize you if you have a night when you don't get to give meds - this happened to me often because it was just too crazy. But I had some fun surprises, like getting to give a baby Culturelle. Everyone else was stressing over antibiotic calculations.

If a patient is unstable or coding, often docs and nurses will clear the room for anyone not directly involved with that patient. This means students. If I get a whiff that the patient is anxious or upset, that's not a good student assignment. It just isn't. A violent patient in 4 - point restraints is not a good patient assignment. In time you will see what we mean. I had the opportunity to do CPR on a few patients while I was in school. They ran the codes for that long (that students were in line to do compressions).

If you have graduated and are working now, why dwell on this? Just move forward. If you truly feel wronged and upset, the best thing you can do is try to pay it forward and always volunteer to take students.

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