Amazing Experience!

Wow!

This is PROOF that IT really does just take one to turn it around!

Pay it FORWARD!

I always TRY and do just THAT!

Practice SAFE!

Pug, I'm so glad she did that! The O.R. is indeed a very interesting place to work. I think if we nurses would spend just a little time with students it would be the spark they need to continue! Sometimes, we get so absorbed in what we're doing we forget that this is so new to students. Good luck with nursing school! I hope that you continue to have an interest in some aspect of O.R. nursing.

ebear

When I was in nursing school I was feeling very much in-the-way doing a PACU rotation. One of the OR staff was busily trying to pass off the patient and one of them asked me who I was. I told them I was, "just a nursing student." The CRNA standing at the bedside and she interrupted and said to me, "Never say you are just a nursing student. You are the future of our profession."

Don't you just love nice people? :)

Some people are born to be "teachers" and you got lucky enough to run into one. What a wonderful gift she gave you...sharing her knowledge and nurturing your desire to be a nurse.

It is nice to hear something positive for once. So many threads about bad student experiences....

That's wonderful! I'm happy for you. I'm glad you were able to find someone who would do that for you. I hope I am as fortunate when I start clinicals!

Good luck!

Tiffany

I'm so glad it worked out well and I hope you have many more positive experiences.

I think, if you are feeling bold, you might want to speak up, privately, guardedly but definitely, to some of those idiot nurses who were so mean to you. Just let them know that you are sorry to have been an extra burden to them and let them know that you ARE the future of the profession and that, if they can possibly pull themselves together and help YOU and today's other students, they will be helping the profession and the future of humankind. Let them know that you are sorry to cause them extra work but how are you ever going to learn anything if no one will show you - if THEy don't show you? Do offer much gratitude, take each of them something to eat - bring bagels or a Little Debbie pre-wrapped cake, an inexpensive little Christmas ornament for their lapel, just some little something to ease the way, perhpas, if you can afford to do so. Candy apples, a bag of several Egg McMuffins, and do this just once - like your first day

there - to get in good with them. Believe me, it will set you apart and positively influence them.

Having a student does take a staff nurse's time, which is at a terrible premium these days, and they are not getting paid to teach, really. Not your fault, I know, but you can understand how they might resent the extra duties. Also, staff might be feeling ill, be worried about their kids or domestic situation, or about sick parents or the upcoming holidays that they are going to have to work, or a million other personal things, they might have a work problem going on, etc. So just try to inject a little humor or good cheer.

Make rounds with docs, too. You learn stuff and it gets you out of the station, gives staff a break.

I would just like share a quick experience I had with a CRNA. I'm a nursing student right now in an ADN program and some of the hospitals in the area that we have clinical's at are not usually that supportive of students. I was at one such hospital for my surgical rotation, and had been there for a few weeks, the previous week, the nurses on the floor I was on just about drove me to tears, it was horrible. The next week I had my rotation in day surgery, I got there, and it was the same thing as the nurses on the med/surg floor, I was just another person to be in their way and they had no problem showing it. So I was just standing in a corner trying to stay out of everyone's way and yet trying to see what everyone (the doctors, nurses, etc) were doing with my patient without being in the way. This one woman noticed me (I must have looked like a scared little puppy dog cause I noticed a look of pure pity on her face) and asked why I was here and if she could help me. I told her I was a student and observing so & so's surgery. She said "great, I'm taking care of her today, you can follow me." So I followed her around the entire morning and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever done! She explained everything she did, all the drugs she used, what she was writing down, how to read the monitors. EVERYTHING! I don't even think I watched any of the actual surgery I was so wrapped up in everything that she was doing. I always thought that being a CRNA would be kind-of boring (no offense) since the patient is asleep and it's a lot of standing around, but that one experience totally changed my mind. I'm not sure if I have the grades or the brains to actually become a CRNA, but it is so interesting and so complex and just so amazing, I have to try. She totally opened my eyes and I have so much more respect and understand for the profession. I just hope that one day I'll be able to be the one that saves that terrified nursing student (whether I'm a CRNA or not) and give them an experience they'll never forget like my CRNA did for me. Thank you to all the nurses out there that do that for us students every day!

That is awesome! OR is a weird place! Everybody wants everything done, like, yesterday!!! Rush, rush, rush... and then wait (during the case that is). It is not just you even if there is a bucket between that stretcher and the PACU you want to just show it not be there again! It is ridiculous, I know. This rush is mostly surgeon and cost driven. But guess what? You HAVE to be assertive and make people understand what you want. Have confidence in your desire to learn. Tell the nurses, you'll do whatever they need. CRNAs (most of them now) inherently want to teach beecause that is how they all learned during their training. Behind every good CRNA there are 10s of other GREAT CRNAs.

Consider this awesome career. It is rigorous but so rewarding. I see a lot of NPs that go back to school to be a CRNA, but I don't know any CRNAs that go back to get their NP degrees!!! That's gotta say something.