Are students in the way?

Nurses General Nursing

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Those of you that have to guide students through a specialty area. Do you enjoy explaining things to us and helping us have the best experience possible or are we like chains wrapped around your ankles? Please give your thoughts.

Specializes in PCICU.

When i was doing clinicals in NS, all nsg notes and med notations were done on the computer. Our instructors wrote the notes, then added our initials as well as hers. So, theoretically, that means that my instructor was the one vouching for my actions. I would assume that in this instance I was indeed working under her license. This must vary from state to state, though.

Listen, one thing is to be tired and frustrated and shorthanded while having a nursing student. it is quite another to be given complete and total attitude, some going as far as look at me in the eye and say "i dont do nursing students". I'm sorry, she must have been born a nurse.

While i nursing school i came across a good deal of nasty nurses. Fortunately, i also had a good deal of excellent nurses, who were nice and polite enough to say "sorry kiddo, i'm really busy today so you'll just have to watch and stay out of the way, but why dont you do X, and if i can figure something out, i'll come get ya".

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I like nursing students but it depends a lot on the student AND the instructor.

I LOVE the instructors that will help the student with the assigned patient and use me as a reference. I DO NOT LIKE the instructor who hands me a student, tells me (s)he is covering a patient for me but hasn't ever done a fundus check or newborn vitals, and expects me to teach her. That really gets my goat. If I ever have an easy assignment its easy but usually with 4 or 5 couplets...no time to teach new skills from the get-go.

The students have to be willing to do stuff. I told a student I was going to d/c an IV to a heplock, do a couple other clinical things, and asked did he want to come and do it under my supervision. His comment?

"Nah...I'm good"

Whatever. I am not paid to babysit you and you are paying for your experience, get what you want out of it.

Usually tho, I love having students because most actually want to learn and they are very helpful. Plus when they ask me questions, it allows me to reinforce my own knowledge as well. I always request to have students on my assignment, even the ones that the instructor dumps. (If she is dumping them on me, I always wonder what the heck they are being taught anyway) So no, in general students are not in the way.

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At our school, our instructor signs off on our meds and everything with us, so I'm guessing they are held atleast partially responsible.

Second- When I'm working with a patient, most of the time the nurse has not entered a room once, unless I go to inform her of a complication the pt is experienced, and I know its because she is busy. But how can she chart everything if she doesn't do it? Thats what confuses me. At the end of the day, I report off to the nurse for my patient and she won't have been in there at all, and she'll ask me if I took care of such and such for her...not all of them, some really great nurses will also do an assessment and stuff, but in general they haven't...

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The students have to be willing to do stuff. I told a student I was going to d/c an IV to a heplock, do a couple other clinical things, and asked did he want to come and do it under my supervision. His comment?

"Nah...I'm good"

Whatever. I am not paid to babysit you and you are paying for your experience, get what you want out of it.

:yeahthat: :yeahthat: I love working with students, but they have to do their part of the learning process too. The first thing I tell a student shadowing me is: "If it gets hectic and I don't say anything to you, do not be afraid to follow." If I see the student sitting at the desk reading a chart when an ambulance just arrived with something gnarly, that's it, she's on her own for the rest of the shift and I will be talking to the instructor.

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Specializes in ICU-Stepdown.

-Crazy -I don't mind students. Sure, at times it does kind of slow me down a little, but I enjoy it just the same. Kind of neat looking at these things through a students' perspective from time to time -that which is 'old hat' to one of us, is usually quite new to them. I think it adds to the fun of it.

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Specializes in ER.

Hey, I'm not afraid to say it...sometimes they ARE in the way, but in the same way a loved child is in the way...

We appreciate your being there and working so hard to learn a difficult profession that annoyance is usually pretty well down on the list of reactions. Hats off to anyone who makes an honest effort and jumps in, because it is scary in the best situation.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

I have always loved working with students as I find it helps me keep up to date, yes there are good as well as bad students and sometimes I wish they would ask questions at the right times not when I am in the middle of an emergency but overall have had good experiences with students

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, Home Health, Oncology.

I love working with students;

Also, I like precepting new nurses.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

I have had nursing students with me and have precpeted a lot of new grad RN's and i love it. I wouldnt refuse to take one under my wing, but i will give a realistic eval for both their instructor and my NM as far as if i think they would be a good candidate for hire after graduation.

As far as whose liscense they are practicing under. Its not a matter of them using my license to practice. They by working WITH me have the umbrella of MY license when they are with me and I am responsible for their actions, not their instructor. They all carry their own student that was bought by the nursing program when they started. How do you think you started getting all that junk mail? You are on the list due to the student insurance your program bought for you to cover THEIR behinds.

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Specializes in ED, ICU, MS/MT, PCU, CM, House Sup, Frontline mgr.

I agree with the others, I just learned that we do not practice under anyone's license. Please correct me if I am wrong... it is my understanding that the BON of our state has printed material regarding students and our scope of practice. If we, as students, violate our scope of practice our nursing school is able to contact the state BON regarding disciplinary measures to include giving us the boot from school.

This is not to say, however, that our instructors are not responsible to give proper supervision. In fact it is my understanding that if our instructors fails to give proper supervision, he/she can have disciplinary actions placed upon him/her as well. This is probably why people are confused about students working under the license of instructors, but this is not the case.

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Specializes in ER, telemetry.

I don't mind having students with me as long as they are there to learn. I walk and work fast, and try to explain as much as possible as I work. If students don't have a sense of urgency (esp in the ER where I work), then sometimes they fall behind. I don't slow my pace down too much because I can't. I have precepted great students who have listened and learned thus far in nursing school and are go getters and self motivated. I have also precepted students who sit in the chair and don't move. I am not their instructer, so I do not scold them, but they end up missing out on a great experience. And when they get out of nursing school, they will be in for a rude awakening. We have many different types of students, LPN, RN, students from different nursing schools, and they all are able to do only certain tasks. It helps to have a list of these tasks to give to the primary nurse. It also helps to ask questions, because I do not know what you have been exposed to already, i.e. foleys, ivs, ekgs, cardiac monitors, etc.... And, like I said before, if you are shadowing or following a nurse, keep up with the nurse. You will learn a lot more.

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Since a student doesn't have a license to do patient care, they would have to work under someone's license. My instructor says we work under her license. Maybe it varies from state to state

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Im only saying what is in my fundamentals book ( FUNDAMENTALS OF NURSING CONCEPTS PROCESS AND PRACTICE, chp 4 pg 64 "Students do not practice on thier instuctors or another nurses license, each nurse and nursing student is resposible and accountable for providng safe client care

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