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!
im quite upset by these comments made about students, i am a new student and at my very first placement i rarely had anything to do, because the home was too OVERstaffed believe it or not, the only thing i was told to do most of the time was the washing up, sometimes we are not given the opportunity to learn techniques, i would love to be busy with patients, but i didnt get the opportunity!!
I love to have students with me at work. Usually they are enthusiatic and I take it upon myself to give them the best experience on our unit as possible. I realize that not ALL students are this way. We were all students ouselves! However, I have encountered I know everything attitudes and "I've already done that so I don't need to do it again". (When I was a student, I would have inserted a foley 10 times if given the opportunity just to get better and more confident at it). Again, no offense at the general nursing student population. WE WERE ALL THERE! I just think that not all of them go into it for the right reasons.
This is going to become a circular argument. Nurses commenting on student behaviour and students commenting on nurses behaviour...and around it goes....
I could tell some stories from my time as a student where I was not allowed to do anything and then got "spoken to' for daring to answer a call bell in an area that was not mine, (the nurse for that room was on break). Equally I can tell stories of the student who's eyes glazed when I tried showing her the early stages of a pressure sore on a pt's heel.
Like every group, there are good and bad.... but I believe that the bad make the good so much better.
It depends on both the nursing instructor and the facility sometimes. I had a nursing instructor who wouldnt LET us do anything, I also had an instructor who wanted our careplans done by lunch time. I went to a few different facilities where the nurses were less than helpful, wouldnt let us near their patients and made our rotations miserable.
True, this happened to us on a couple of placements.
Truthfully, expectations from both the hospital staff and the school need to be put into writing AND everyone should know what they are.
Clinical instructors should be on the floor with their students-No one should be sitting on their behinds. If assignments are handed out in the morning-it's simple-the instructor must be onsite early to get pre-information-the students should have a little time before hitting the floor to get ready for their assignments, and the receiving nurses should be ready to make use of these students not only for assigned patients BUT AS NEEDED.
Students cannot possibly understand that wasting clinical time is a travesty! You never get it back and can be at a deficit if you graduate and end up with poor training as a new nurse. For those of you who worry about lazy nurses-they don't last either due to being fired, or when they realize nursing is not for them.
Clinical instructors should also be looking out for opportunities for their students to observe, if not DO interesting things while on clinicals. The staff should be made aware that lounging students are fair game for boosts, am care, dressing changes and what ever else.
As a fairly new nurse, I made sure I got as much as I could out of clinicals-unfortunately, some students need to be taken by the hand. As an older student I realized the importance of being everywhere-that's experience....younger non-experienced workers/students often don't realize that opportunities are "gifts" not chores.
For you instructors out there, please supervise your students. I love to teach when the opportunity arises but I hate it when an instructor drops off the student herd at 8am after a cursory review of the patients issues and the staff nurses don't see the instructor for 4-5hrs. It becomes my job as a staff nurse to train the students. I have enough on my plate just managing my assignment without having to watch everything a student does to keep them from killing one of my patients- YES they are my patients and I have been told to delegate thier care to a student. I feel ultimately responsible for ensuring the patient has a positive outcome. If the students are just sitting around it is the instructors job to evaluate learning opportunities on the unit and facillitate the nurse-student interaction. I neither have the time nor the desire to watch your students' every move, evaluate thier learning needs, hold thier hand through each proceedure and review thier charting. If you want me to show a student how something is done- sure, I will walk them through it as I am preforming my usual care. I'm busy so there is always a lot to learn. Please don't expect me to plan my day around taking care of your fledglings- that's what you get paid for. I get paid for taking care of my patients.
Normally, I LOVE working with nursing students. I feel like I have a lot to teach, and they have a lot to learn. In particular, I like to make sure they know WHY they are doing what they are doing, so they aren't just following orders.
But I admit, there are definitely some things SOME nursing students do that really drive me crazy. First of all, even if they don't sit at the nursing station (which many do), most of them still hover in large groups at the nursing station. It's not just chairs that are at a premium there- counter space and phones are at a premium too. If they want to hang out and chat, they should do it at the end of the hall, where they aren't in anyone's way. It's like the old saying goes, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
I had one really bad situation with a nursing student in particular. The patient was a trached baby, who needed to be bottle fed. The student kept covering the trach with a burp cloth, saying she didn't want the formula to drip down and infect the trach. I corrected her, and explained the rationale (ABC's- the AIRWAY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT), and she actually argued with me, that it was more important to prevent infection than it was to preserve the airway. She then covered the trach two more times during the feeding, and each time I corrected her, and told her this was not up for debate. After that, I wouldn't leave her alone with the patient, for fear that she would bundle her up wrong and cover her trach or something.
The next day I told her instructor, who admitted she already had concerns about that patient. But, I think the student still passed the clinical (and she bragged about how she was almost ready to graduate- :shakes head:).
I believe if the nurses who are doing the training have nothing for the student nurses to do, they should dismiss them for the day. Students could use the extra study time in a library somewhere, not at the hospital where they are underfoot. Students do not want to be hanging around the nurses's station or lounging around, but sometimes there is nothing else to do, or no where else to go. In addition, students are told to observe the professional nurses, which means the activities at the nurses station and conversations business related over the phone. Instructors should not be dropping the students off and leaving them there unattended, relying on busy nurses to police them for six hours. The students should get in there, do their required business for the day, and anything else thrown at them. When tasks run thin, they should be sent home. Then, we would not have this problem.
For you instructors out there, please supervise your students. I love to teach when the opportunity arises but I hate it when an instructor drops off the student herd at 8am after a cursory review of the patients issues and the staff nurses don't see the instructor for 4-5hrs. It becomes my job as a staff nurse to train the students. I have enough on my plate just managing my assignment without having to watch everything a student does to keep them from killing one of my patients- YES they are my patients and I have been told to delegate thier care to a student. I feel ultimately responsible for ensuring the patient has a positive outcome. If the students are just sitting around it is the instructors job to evaluate learning opportunities on the unit and facillitate the nurse-student interaction. I neither have the time nor the desire to watch your students' every move, evaluate thier learning needs, hold thier hand through each proceedure and review thier charting. If you want me to show a student how something is done- sure, I will walk them through it as I am preforming my usual care. I'm busy so there is always a lot to learn. Please don't expect me to plan my day around taking care of your fledglings- that's what you get paid for. I get paid for taking care of my patients.
I feel for those of you who get stuck with less than reasonable students.
The more I read the more I wonder if I ever want any of these future nurses anywhere around my family...or anyone else..their attitude sure seems out of place....Thanks for defending the patients from these brats.:angryfire
Again, no student should be onsite without their instructor and behavior parameters. The school and the hospital are at fault if that doesn't happen. Don't blame the students for lack of direction.
The posts regarding nothing to do....I don't believe it....there is always something to do, and someone doing it. If staffing is that great than attach yourself to the people actually WORKING! You will learn something...or, spend time with your assigned patients and work up the psychosocial effects of hospitalization on your patient-their experience in the hospital....and their thoughts on how they are treated.
Ultimately, the instructor should be "active" looking for opportunities to learn. When we were dismissed by our nurse, or we had finished charting-we were to meet in the cafeteria-NO ONE LEFT THE FLOOR UNLESS THEIR JOBS AND CHARTING WERE COMPLETED. We were able to leave 30 MINUTES prior to our floor end time. Again, no one hanging around-no congregating, no one was to annoy the nurses-clinical sites are competitive in this area(they can kick you out-then what?)
Always we had post conference to discuss our days-I don't recall anyone ever being bored...if they were they never told us....our instructors were tough....they would never have had that complaint again!
Oh my, students got me steamed this morning. The nurse I was giving report to was running late and both of my patients were getting 2 students each. I don't function well past 7 am and was getting antsy. The nurse finally gets there, we go over to the nurse's desk outside the rooms and the students are sitting in the chairs, taking up all the table, looking through the charts and the flowsheets. I asked politely if I could have them. I got a dirty look, "Um, I guess. We're kind of using it so why do you need it?" Excuse me? Oh, I was bored and wanted to doodle in the margins. I was going to be nice and let them sit down so they could write during report, but when I got attitude, I made them get their tails out of the chairs so the real nurses could do their jobs.
And then they kept interrupting me to ask questions about every little thing. I love helping students learn, but when I am already 30 minutes beyond when I should have left and have an hour commute through traffic ahead of me, I don't have time to tell you what every little lab value and med means. I said, "Look, I don't have time for you guys to keep interrupting me. Write down your questions and look it up later, but right now you need to be quiet and just listen." The secretary told me that after report while I was packing up my stuff, they went and found their teacher and complained about me. I was tempted to find their teacher and complain about them. :angryfire
Sorry, I really like students in general and don't mean to be a jerk. I was just really irritated by their rudeness and needed to vent. Thanks. I love you students!
Specializes in Home care, LTC, subacute/acute rehab.
We get different groups on students at a time in the fall and spring. I hate to say it, but I find that how the students behave can be a reflection on the instructor. One of the instructors I work with will have her students help out with answering lights when their assignment is done or will find things for them to watch or get in on. I did a vac dressing with 8 students watching at one time. The instructor needs to keep the students busy. On the other hand, one of the other instructors was sitting at the nurses station chit-chatting with the nurses while her students were wondering aimlessly. She got reported by the charge nurse and we haven't seen her again. If we have any problems with students or instructors, we inform out education department who deals with the issues. (if we can't work them out on our own.)
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lowypop
10 Posts
im quite upset by these comments made about students, i am a new student and at my very first placement i rarely had anything to do, because the home was too OVERstaffed believe it or not, the only thing i was told to do most of the time was the washing up, sometimes we are not given the opportunity to learn techniques, i would love to be busy with patients, but i didnt get the opportunity!!