WOW, the other day we had a new group of students in our facility, and I am still in SHOCK over what their instructor let them get away with! First of all, they were constantly sitting in the nurses' station, taking up most of the chairs. When I was a student, we NEVER sat in the nurse's station!!!
If that wasn't bad enough, THIS just shocked me, too! A student who moaned and groaned last week "I'm BORED" would NOT do a major dressing change on one of our patients, saying "I DONT HAVE TIME"....OMG----she was writing a CARE PLAN while sitting at the nurse's station----MUST BE NICE!!! We were NOT allowed to write care plans while at clinicals---they were on our OWN TIME!!!:angryfire I thought she'd be THRILLED to get this major wound experience, ESPECIALLY because she had complained of BOREDOM last week!
I swear, if we had said "I"M BORED" at my school, our instructor probably would've sent us home, OR said "FIND something to do!!!" Even if it was to go sit with a lonely patient, and we have PLENTY of those!!!
What happened to being DRILLED on meds/ recent labs/ pathophys/ having to explain EVERYTHING that's going on with their patient? Nope, their instructor was hiding in a break room somewhere......MUST BE NICE!!!!:angryfire
Yes, I've spoken to the "higher ups".....maybe something will change, but who knows!
I am an instructor for a community college and would NEVER allow my students to act in this manner--they would be asked to leave and never come back. Where are the instructors in this situation?
I also want to sya that people are entering nursing for the so-called money and job security. Are our standards lowering because of the shortage? Are we willing to sacrifice our professionality---as a nurse for 35+ years, I am not.
I swear, if we had said "I"M BORED" at my school, our instructor probably would've sent us home, OR said "FIND something to do!!!" Even if it was to go sit with a lonely patient, and we have PLENTY of those!!!
I had a student in her first week of clinicals a few months ago snottily say, "Yea yea I've seen all that before," Then proceed to stand at the desk looking up drugs in her drug handbook. The enterostomal nurse was going into a room to do a complicated dressing change, and asked the student if she'd like to observe. It's not like staff is aware of your level of health care experience or anything. I really appreciated the attitude though! Considering her clinical instructor was one of my coworkers, it did get back to the instructor a few days later. Not to get the student in trouble or anything, but instructors need to know who needs more supervision/encouragement to actually learn in clinicals and who doesn't.
Most of us nurses know most of the clinical instructors, it's not like we're strangers (especially at the teaching hospital I'm at where many of the associate professors at the local colleges are also working as floor nurses). 99% of the time the instructors will come back and ask our opinions of how and what you did long after you're gone. muahaha. I've found that as long as a student is putting their best foot forward and making attempts at being involved in the patient care then I'm more than happy to say that everything went fine. But acting like a know-it-all and then standing there looking at your drug book makes you look unprepared.
I also had a student approach me about getting some pain medication for one of her patients, as her instructor was not around at the moment. Sure, right? Right then a phlebotomist approached me to get a draw from a PICC line. I asked the phlebotomist if it could wait for a second (I figured this would take a minute, tops)? Phlebotomist was like, "yea okay no problem." I got the pain med out, cosigned the med book with the student...right then her cellphone rang AND SHE TOOK THE CALL. So I'm standing there waiting for her to take the medication so I can follow her into the room and observe her follow the 5 rights etc etc. Anyways, she was talking about paying some mortgage payment...I figured it was an important call. I waited. I see the phlebotomist looking in the window waiting for me. I gave them the "hang on one more second" hand signal. They nodded. I waited. She was still talking on her phone. Finally I dumped the pill in the sharps container, wasted it, and walked out to go take care of my other patient. The student apologized profusely, I wasn't angry about it or anything but it was just a waste of my time and I told her that. Afterwards my aide mentioned something about the student talking on her cell phone in the hallway. I mentioned it to her instructor later in the afternoon. So far I haven't seen her back but if she does it again I'm going to page her instructor and complain about it.
Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
I also have to wonder about the instructors. I remember mine as being very aggressive in finding things for us to do. If there was a dressing change, foley insertion, trach care, etc etc on the floor, generally a student would be doing it, unless the patient refused. This was true even if the patient was not otherwise assigned to a student.
In my LPN program, we carried little booklets with lists of skills. As we performed them, the instructors initialed these. If a dressing change opportunity came up, then the instructor would see who in the clinical group needed to do one, and that was who did the dressing. It was not optional. We weren't expected to do just one over the course of our clinicals, either.
I recently had a discussion with a clinical instructor about the simulation lab her school has. She thinks it's wonderful, and I'm sure it is. She also thinks, however, that it's an adequate substitute for some clinical hours, and that's where we disagree.
We don't sit at the nurses station (unless there is no one there, just to chart and if we see a nurse coming we get up right away), we do our care plans at home and never say we are board. Are your students really young?? Please don't think we are all that way! We are however only allowed to attend to pts we are assigned to; was the dressing change the students pt or just a pt on the floor? If it was assigned to her that is so bad! Some times I get jealous when a fellow student has a patient that needs more procedures than my pts..."your patient needs a cath?...awwww":chuckle
oh no, "heartsopenwide"---i never pre-judge students, plus, we have many wonderful ones! the other day was just particularly annoying! i have never seen a student sit for such a lonnnng time writing a care plan----like i said---"must be nice!" good grief--- like most of us, i spent **hours** on care plans at home!!! :)
I was a bit taken back with the hostility expressed by nervousnurse's blog towards "student nurses" sitting at their nurse's station. Please tell me where they are suppose to sit and write out their care plans, read their pt's charts, look up their pt's medications, etc.? Obviously, you work at a teaching hospital so instead of getting your pantyhose all twisted up by your perceived flaw with the current teaching methods of future nurses get involved by taking a few of these students under your wing.
oh no, "heartsopenwide"---i never pre-judge students, plus, we have many wonderful ones! the other day was just particularly annoying! i have never seen a student sit for such a lonnnng time writing a care plan----like i said---"must be nice!" good grief--- like most of us, i spent **hours** on care plans at home!!! :)
we would have never been allowed to work on care plans etc. on the floor, sheesh. i would have been tempted to tell her that she needed to find somewhere else to sit and do her *homework*!
Well, if it makes any of you seasoned nurses feel better, at my med-surg clinical this past semester, our instructor (who was very good but very strict) would have KILLED us if anyone had been so delusional as to utter the word "bored." And really, we wouldn't have. When we were not consumed with terror about whether or not she would find any flaws in our pt. assessments (or ANYTHING to do with how we took care of the pt.), we would be explaining our meds./patho in exquisite detail to her, informing the nurses that we'd gladly watch anything they'd like to show us, etc. Ha....if a nurse had offered to show us a dressing change, we'd have been thrilled. As for helping other students with their pts.-we definitely did that also. Yes, we worked on our (massive) care plan also, but not at the nurses' station and only after our patients were completely taken care of...or our instructor would hunt us down and let us know what else they needed. :chuckle
Blueeyedgoose---I never called it OUR nurse's station----I said THE nurse's station which is VERY different.
Also, PLEASE note that I said we offered her a complicated wound care and she chose her CARE PLAN over that-----Clinicals is for CLINICAL experience....NOT for sitting and writing!!! (at least at the schools I went to we never did that----if she was SUPPOSED to be writing care plans over patient care---thenI digress---perhaps I should've clarified it w/ her instructor).
Perhaps your school allowed you to sit and write care plans like this student's did---and that's FINE; however, there were FIVE students in THE (not "OUR") nursing station, and we had MANY MANY MANY orders to transcribe/fax, etc....not to mention the doctors and nurse practitioners had nowhere to sit. I also should've mentioned that we have AMPLE places for students to sit to look things up, they are allowed to take the chart to a HUGE breakroom we have just for them, and yes, do some paperwork. As per YOUR request, I would LOVE to take my pantyhose out of the wad they were in if the students would do all our orders and answer all our calllights! ---oh yea, and be observant of the docs/NPs who had no chairs....
ALSO, we STAFF **have** to be able to hear the MULTIPLE call light requests (which can only be heard at the NURSES STATION)so that when
3 patients ask for pain meds at the same time, and one is yelling out that they're vomiting, and a family member is calling out that the patient just FELL, I can get to them quicker.
SORRY, but we have to be at the nurse's station to hear all of these things.
I DO take many, many students under my wing----I ENJOY students who WANT TO LEARN! I was simply complaining about ONE who complained of BORDEOM last week, and then this week, she REFUSED a CLINICAL skill! :banghea
Do you not agree that MOST students would NOT refuse wound care (or anything) as opposed to saying in a snotty tone "I DONT HAVE TIME"? Oh, and to let you know, I was STILL nice to them and explained NICELY that some of our doctors were there and needed a chair----
It's not so surprising that there are some lazy nurse students, when there are sometimes lazy nurses, lazy CNAs, lazy doctors....some people just don't get the teamwork thing....
Then again, some people do, and are great, and motivated...but even the great nurses/doctors/techs sometimes get "caught" not being all that they could be. I'm a much better CNA on the 3-11 shift than I am on the 11-7 shift....almost like David Banner versus Incredible Hulk!
My point is, often I read on here different groups complaining about other groups: nurses who think all CNAs are lazy, CNAs who think all nurses are hypocritical or mean, nurse students who think all clinical instructors are out to get them, and all of us who KNOW that doctors can't write legibly to save their lives (i spent some time as a unit secretary LOL)
Someone (not in the medical field) once told me that the definition of a team is people who go out of their way to make each other look good. That blew me away. So when someone isn't pulling their weight, we have to find ways to get them on board without screaming at them or throwing their stethoscope in with the biohazard waste.
Or maybe, just maybe, these students need a spanking! bring back corporal punishment!
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(i spent some time as a unit secretary LOL)
pedseducator
41 Posts
I am an instructor for a community college and would NEVER allow my students to act in this manner--they would be asked to leave and never come back. Where are the instructors in this situation?