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!
My rotations were 13 hours for the past 2 semesters (6:30 am - 7:30 pm) and our lunch breaks were spent listening to lectures from our clinical instructor. Also, I had three or four patients during the last semester.
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That was how ours worked as well. They tried to give us clinicals similiar to what our work schedule would be like after we graduated.
I think you can see laziness in students and in licensed nurses. I've seen it go both ways. It will catch up at some point.
"When I was in Peds and postpartum, our care plans were due at the end of the day. Do them in advance? No way. Our instructor's position was "how do you know what patients need before you have actually seen them?".
we were expected to complete a draft care plan before clinical that was based on diagnosis and nursing notes (read the day before). After clinical was over we were expected to make any adjustments needed to make the care plan more personalized. Clinical time is supposed to be about learning and patient care. Students should be prepared to give complete care to each patient before even meeting them (even if you're not giving full care). During my first three years, I would spend 5-6 hours every Monday night completing care plans, nursing diagnoses, looking up medications and procedures and doing pathophysiology's. Not being prepared is not an excuse.
To all nurses - please approach the students' instructor when you see behavior that surprises/shocks/annoys you. The students may be unprepared, rude, inconsiderate, or clueless; or they may be following directions or school policy. If they're the former, their instructor needs to know what's going on so he/she can deal with the behavior. Just be aware that not all clinicals are set up the same way. I do clinicals (usually 12 hours) at a hospital where students come from at least 4 schools. 3 of the schools have more tradiitonal clinicals, where the instructor and all 10-12 students are on the floor at once, students are assigned one patient by that instructor the night before, and are responsible for preparing a care plan at home. My program does preceptored clinicals, so each student is assigned a floor and the charge nurse assigns us to a preceptor for the day. We aren't assigned patients in advance, so we have to look up meds before we give them if we aren't familiar with them. We have to look through charts and write down assessment data so we can turn in our care plans after the fact, detailing the care that we actually provided - we do the official writeup at home after some research, but I fill out the hx and assessment parts by hand while I'm there. I often take an unoccupied seat when I'm poring through the chart of a patient who might be unable to tell me their history, because I don't want to disappear into a lounge with a chart someone might need. Now, I'll never turn down the chance to watch/do a procedure, and I can't believe that any of my classmates would either. I jump at every chance to do anything out of the ordinary or get more skills practice in. Even though my preceptors take personal calls on the floor all the time, my phone is always off when I'm at the hospital.
To play the devil's advocate, maybe her instructor expects the care plans to be done before they leave the hospital.
And although I very rarely sit in the nurses station (the nurses don't like it), when I work a 13 hour day, my feet get tired, just like anyone else's. It would be really nice to be able to sit to do some charting.
I don't think any of the posters are directing these comments toward someone like you. It's obvious you're there working hard and I doubt anyone would begrude you a break.
I don't see anything wrong with, on a break, studying or working on a care plan. It's a whole other matter to take over the nurses station or hide in the break room. Or whine out of "boredom."
I'm trying not to take offense at some of the generalizations that have been made here. I'm still in my first few weeks of clinicals and our instructor has been very very strict on the fact that she doesn't want us doing anything but taking vitals, and this week we were each assigned to one patient...and all we could do all day was take their vitals and/or talk to them.
Well my patient slept all morning so I spent my time on the computer by his bed, researching his condition. I logged off as soon as a nurse entered the room, whether I knew she needed the computer or not, I just always assumed she did (not like I wouldn't have time to log back on if she left again).
My point is: just because we're standing (I know better than to sit while all the nurses have to be on their feet) around doing nothing and looking bored doesn't mean we wouldn't much rather be learning something.
Please talk to our instructor if it bothers you! We've tried and they don't always listen to us like they listen to you.
we were expected to complete a draft care plan before clinical that was based on diagnosis and nursing notes (read the day before). After clinical was over we were expected to make any adjustments needed to make the care plan more personalized. Clinical time is supposed to be about learning and patient care. Students should be prepared to give complete care to each patient before even meeting them (even if you're not giving full care). During my first three years, I would spend 5-6 hours every Monday night completing care plans, nursing diagnoses, looking up medications and procedures and doing pathophysiology's. Not being prepared is not an excuse.
Yeah, it was like that for me the first 2 semesters, too. It doesn't usually stay this way for your whole program.
In my last semester of clinical we were not assigned patients until that morning. .
In my last semester of clinical
my last semester
I think I pretty much pointed out that I was referring to first and third semester nursing students in my posts (not last semester).
But hey, if a bunch of people want to cry about/argue the fact that RNs don't like it when nursing students sit around working on care plans at the desk, and how awesome they did during clinicals by always standing up and offering their seat, and how their clinicals were so hard, then feel free. Every RN has been through it so I can completely relate. A nursing student during their leadership semester being precepted and managing 4-5 patients is a completely different ballgame.
No matter if you stood up or not, you still look bad by sitting around with your nose in a book/papers, sorry. I think the same thing about my coworkers when they're sitting around doing nothing.
Look, it is not the OP's fault that students are not being taught a good work ethic as students....Man, there were days that I would have KILLED for something different to do....Changing chest tube systems, trying to figure out how to cath the 400 lb guy, learning how to extubate someone in the ICU, going to a code during our ER rotation, etc.
For the students to complain and sit around is just wrong....I personally feel prepared for work(although nervous, don't get me wrong) because my instructors told us that we better have everything done that needed to be done on our shift before we left clinical each week.....otherwise, we're in deep water....
OP, here's hoping you just had a bad group, maybe the next ones will be excited to learn...
Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, IM, OB/GYN, neuro, GI.
When I was in nursing school we were given a list of things that we had to do before the end of the rotation. We also never knew who our patients were before we got their and had to know what meds they were on and why by the end of break because the instructors would come around and play 20 questions with us about our patients (I had no problem with because I felt it gave me practice when a MD would ask about the patient). When we would try to take the charts away from the nurses stations the nurse would find us and take the chart which was fine because they need it to do their jobs. It was the same way with the computers if the facility we were at had them. We sat at the nurses station and the nurses on the floor had no problem asking us to get up. Only once did a nurse tell us we under any circumstances were not allowed to sit at the nurses station. She told us that the seats were for the MD's. Procedures some nurses would throw them at us and some wouldn't even let us take vitals so we jumped at anything when we got the chance. If we had already done enough for that rotation we would pass it on to someone in class unless it was something that needed to be done immediately and our instructor was tied up with another student.
Maybe you could have your CN or NM go to the instructor and ask for a copy of what the students are allowed to do with or without supervision and have it posted at the nurses station along with the rules that the school gives them. Our instructors also had pagers so maybe you could get the number and if one of the students did something that wasn't allowed you could page her at the time it was happening and let her know.
I also want to mention that I was always bored at clinicals because there was limited things that we were allowed to do in part of the what the facilities allowed and what we were allowed to do with our instructors.
While those students were demonstrating poor behavior, take a step back for the moment. Where was there instructor? The break room? Some leader/role model... Also, it's easy to criticize when you've been through something yourself, but I highly doubt everyone here was the perfect student nurse. I bet quite a few nurses were annoyed with some of you guys too. It's a learning process. Those students don't have the best work ethic, but that is something that develops, especially when you have a tough but caring instructor/boss/etc. I got the first job I ever had when I was very young, and I sure did complain a lot. My boss didn't let me get away with it though, and I ended up becoming his best employee. I pride myself on my work ethic now (though complaining afterwards once in awhile is still a good stress reliever - just as the poster is doing here I'm sure). I am not saying those students are not at fault, they are, but there are often other parts to the picture we cannot see. Maybe they are just lazy, horrible people. Those types of people certainly do exist. But maybe not. Things that seem like common sense to you can be completely unknown to someone in a new situation. The hospitals are a whole new world - it's like being dropped in a foreign country and being expected to know the customs. All you nurses who get to be teachers have such an amazing opportunity to help all us students along. Don't give up on us too quickly - some of us just need a little extra push (even if it hurts). Be a good teacher - be tough but caring and those students should shape up (hopefully).
Batman24
1,975 Posts
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That was how ours worked as well. They tried to give us clinicals similiar to what our work schedule would be like after we graduated.
I think you can see laziness in students and in licensed nurses. I've seen it go both ways. It will catch up at some point.