Attention all clinical instructors, would you do this??

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I am a nursing student in my 2nd year of the adn program. We are starting our clinical rotation on a local med-surg floor, until now most of our clinical experience has been in LTC.

We have a new clinical instructor this year, our class is broken up into two groups, AM's and PM's. The AM group receives their clinical patient assignment on Monday @ 1pm, they start clinical @ 7am the next day. The PM group gets their clinical assignment @1pm on Tuesday and clinical starts @ 3pm the same day. All of us on the PM clinical are quite upset about this, the AM group gets a whole evening to do their prep work, yet the PM group gets 2 hours, not fair in our opinion. We voiced our opinion to the instructors and were told, "well when you get to the real world you won't even have the two hours to prepare" We all understand this but we are students, not RN's yet, and that is not the point, still the other group is getting an advantage over us PM'ers by having a whole entire evening to review pathophys, meds, dx, h&p, etc....

Would you create this type of problem in your classroom?? Do you have any suggestions as to what us PM'ers should do?? I obviously hit a brick wall with the instructors.

At my college there is a waiting list so long, that I had to register summer 03, in order to get into Fall 04' ADN program. I am just thankful for that. I can't wait to get crammed with all of that knowledge and stress, and I am married with two kids.

I must be nuts!;)

jules

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Originally posted by PSUNURS05

Switching weeks...that's a really good idea....I think I will email my past clinical instructor and mention in...I will never have her again, but maybe she might talk to the senior instructors about it..

They are starting this for us. In our LAST semester. Several students may have to QUIT due to daycare issues. They just do not have anyone who will watch their children until 11 pm, then come back and watch them at 8 am (lecture). I would seriuosly consider other students and their schedules with work and home life before trying to get a program to change. Had it been done since the beginning, then these students could have saved YEARS of their lives.

It is a very sad, upsetting thing that these students have now been in school over 3 years and must drop out last semester.

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
Originally posted by Vsummer1

we get NO breaks, even to pee

THat sounds a lot like a real job..........
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RN 2B 5/04,

As difficult as this is going to be for your group it is really a crash course on exactly what it is like when you are working. Talk to your instructor at post clinical and ask which parts of your care plan are due when you walk on the floor and be sure to find out how she expects you to get it all done in 2 hours.

The only good thing that I see about this particular situation is that unlike some daytime students you will more than likely have the patients that you are making a careplan for. I can't tell you how many times I went to clinical after researching 30 meds, looking up diagnostic procedures, labs and writing a detailed pathophys page only to have my pt D/C'd the day before. All because my instructor made assignments too early the day before because students were complaining about not having enough time. Basically, double the work. :(

Gator

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The thread was made in October. For some reason it has come alive again

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I agree! Well said Barb!

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

I am a student; not an RN yet and we get the information on our patients along with the nurses getting report. I would be thankful for the two hours you do get, as far as the other students getting more time....life is not fair......I had one week to prepare for a case presentation and was in the first group to go with little guidance on how the project was suppose to laid out, other groups got 2-3 weeks and had my group to get an idea of how things were suppose to go. Last year in clinical my friend got two easy patients while I got two patients that both had dementia with sundowners...I could go on about all the unfairness that goes on in nursing school, but I think you get the point.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

warning!! original post was oct of 2003!!! god willing, the op graduated in '04 (as her name suggests :) )

i cannot resist a couple of comments, tho, for newbies who are reading this, as the same issues will undoubtedly apply.

the shortage has gotten worse since this person had her dilemma, so educators are being forced to be 'creative' with their clinical placements. i know it stinks for you guys, and you deserve better. but i know most of you would rather not wait another semester to graduate, and pretty much 'suck it up' and take what you're given. i know that is not the solution, but the reality is, there is none. there are only so many hospitals, units, days in a week, hours in a day.

the reality is, no matter what time you are on the floor, no matter what type of unit you are on, you will learn. with the right instructor, who takes a creative approach, you will learn. you may not be 'doing' everything you think you should be doing (ie, inserting foleys, suctioning, injections), but you will learn the more important aspects of nursing (critical thinking, assessment skills, time management, communication, etc). students seem to put these 'tasks' on the bottom of their lists of importance. a monkey can learn how to put in a foley!!!

so, for the ones who feel that the other group is getting away with 'just standing around', think again. and if they are truly 'just standing around', is that really where you'd rather be? these kids are going to be in a pile of trouble when they do graduate, not knowing anything.

and for those who are 'just standing around' on an off shift, or on a slow floor, where there are no meds or am care, you need to think outside the box!! hopefully your instructor will guide you. but my advice to you guys: you'd better know everything that is going on with your patients. when i first started out as a clinical instructor, my boss came to visit my group (for a unit related issue). she popped in on the students, and quizzed them. she came to pot conference, and asked many questions that the students could not answer. she was not happy. she said to me "and these students have the nerve to tell me there's nothing to do here?" they could not come up with nursing diagnoses, could not correlate abnormal lab values, could not tell us why the patients were taking certain meds. i learned a valuable lesson that day as a novice instructor: there is always something for the student to be doing!!

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Specializes in Behavioral Health, Show Biz.

i feel for you, rn 2b 5/2004.

what a mess!!!"

not only would i not design or develop such a clinical program, i adamantly refuse to work in that confusion.

:nono

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

Remember you might want a reference letter from that instructor. Show flexibility and team spirit and get in there and do it. That is reality.

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Specializes in ICU, School Nurse, Med/Surg, Psych.

As a former instructor sometimes the class has to go with what is available. The school has limited resources (ie. instructors and clinical space) so you get the best situation for the students as you can. Barb is right- you learn background information so you can pass your licensing exam in school, but you learn the job of being a nurse once you have a nursing position.

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