Just off to do a night shift so thought I would get this of my chest first. Can I add that collectively I have so much admiration for Student Nurses, I cannot believe how many work fulltime to fund nursing school and I generally find them hardworking committed and utterly professional
however......
Dear Student Nurse
I know that you think that it is my mission to make your placement as hard and unpleasant as I can but the truth is very different:
The reason I pull you up about arriving late is that when qualified a floppy fob watch is simply not tolerated and if your late it shows disregard for your colleagues who end up covering for you.
I know that you cannot understand my asking you to leave your mobile phone in the staff room. It is not as you believe because I am so old and sad that I cannot possibly remember what having a social life is, it is because I am scared that at some point I may have to perform a phoneectomy as you seemed to be permanently on it.
Please don't tut if I ask you to do something in the thirty minutes before the shift ends. I understand that you feel that this is winding down time but it's not and it's not acceptable to leave jobs to the next shift because you have run out of steam.
I ask you not to chew gum when giving patient care not because I am mean but because in order to gain their trust patients need to see us as professionals and you chewing and popping gum somehow might detract from this.
The reason I asked you to consider the appropriateness of 3cm nail extensions is not because I am an outdated fashion disaster (although there is some truth in that!) it's because I am terrified that you are going to have some poor patients eye out.
When I ask you questions about Anatomy and Physiology or a medical condition I am not doing so to score points or make you look stupid I am doing so to check that you not only know what you are doing but more importantly why and saying "dunno we haven't covered that" falls a bit short.
I know that the elderly, demented chronically sick patients are not nearly as exciting as the big traumas but these patients are our bread and butter. They deserve the best possible care we can give them so please do not resent them taking you away from the more exciting stuff. Trust me you can learn everything you ever need to learn from this group of patients.
Please don't expect me to be anything other than cross, really cross when your patient has an accident because you "forgot" the commode they asked you for. No excuses, not acceptable.
Although I don't use facebook trust me if you post ab
out your sxxt placement and battle-axe Sister I will get to hear about it.
When I ask you to consider whether nursing is the right career for you it's not because I am having a bad day, it's because I genuinely have concerns that you have either the capacity or more importantly the want to nurse. My suspicions were originally aroused whehn I asked you why you want to nurse and you told me that you liked the uniform!!
I know you think I am so old (i'm 41!!) that my sight and hearing must be going but trust me I hear every obscentity that you mutter as you stomp off.
Don't think I am daft if you come back smelling of cigarrete smoke I am much more inclined to think that your last job took so long because you shuffled off for a crafty cigarrete rather than you have found a new thoroughness!!
Finally the reason we are meeting with your nurse tutor is not because I get some great power trip from it, it's because I have a responsibility to current and future patients. I would also be doing a disservice to hundreds of other student nurses who are committed and hardworking, who deserve the opportunity they are being given and truly value the opportunity.
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I don't get the comment about no make up. I don't wear a lot, now and again I play up my eyes, but mostly I just like to pull off an even skin tone and some mascara and liner and a really good lip balm. (which the best one I found is actually a mens one they sell at Sephora).
We are not allowed to wear any fragrent lotions or perfumes or anything like that. The hospital I am at has the nurses station and then all these little cove like charting areas with the "WOW's" every few rooms and you can always find lotion there since the excessive hand washing is drying on the hands and that isn't good either. It's the stuff we give patients.
I saw a comment about the alcohol gels, we were just taught that "evidenced based practice" has shown that the gels are just as effective as hand washing on non soiled hands. So we are told to do either if there is nothing visible and that we should wash after every 3 uses of the gels.
My school is pretty strict on our appearance and policy in clinical policy but that's only effective if you have a CI enforcing it. Last semester many students would go to there cars and smoke (windows rolled up with a few of them in the car) and come back into the nursing home we were placed at. Our CI never said anything to them or there many breaks going and doing this. But it's clearly stated in the handbook that smelling like smoke is prohibited.
Is anyone raised with morals, values, and ethics anymore? I just started my BSN program and am shocked that you have to point these things out to someone who is entering a professional career. I started working when I was 13 though, so maybe I have just had more practice? Anyway, kudos for being a great mentor!
Lastly if you were my student some of the things you have said would cause me concern although I am sure that it is down to how we use language differently in the UK. You say "let me tell you something" and more concerningly "I had a couple of kids who were not very sensitive or wise" KIDS???? A nurses potential and ability is based on experience, training and personal values and has nothing to do with their age. I have 22 year old nurses in my department who have more potential than I ever had. They are bright, hardworking and I have complete trust in them. I believe that they make fantastic mentors and would not hesitate in having them mentor nurses twice their age. I apologise for doing so but have to say I find your use of language disrespectful and would not allow any of my nurses to be referred to as "kids"
Everyone starts out getting my respect - that's how I operate. If they do something that would cause me think otherwise, they will lose it. It's that simple. The persons I was referring to as kids were fellow nurses aides who made it plain that they would rather not be precepting anyone. It's OK - it's helped to teach me a thing or two - like finding my own answers to things if I ever need to. Maybe I was deliberately given who I was given just to see how I'd react to the situation - I don't know. I deal with both nurses and nurses aides. My evaluations of people are usually spot on. I guess you'd just have to be here and experience it to know what I'm talking about. I don't know how things are done in the UK. All I know is that if I refer to someone as a kid, they have earned that title. Do nurse's aides in the UK swear and use the f-word in front of patients? One of my preceptors has. She's a young girl BTW. That immediately put me off - should have had the guts to call her out on it right then an there but I didn't - it was my first week on the job and I didn't want to stir the pot. Do you have to deal with this sort of stuff there? This is the culture here in America......
Amen to all of this. I am a preceptor and also deal with these issues every time a new student starts. It is hard to impress upon them that their behavior during clinical time will mimic how they will probably behave in their first job which, unfortunately, may be very short-term unless they follow the rules. We are all trying to "groom" new nurses into their new roles but now, it has become so much more difficult.
Every single time?
So you haven't had ONE decent student nurse?
Why are you even mentoring if all the student nurses are incompetent fools?
Okay, I agree that every job on the face of planet has workers that are smart and good, and workers that suck. Name one job that doesn't? However, that's what mentors are for.
To teach, guide, and weed the bad from the good. If you go into every preceptorship thinking the student nurses are idiots, then you've already failed them. Self-fulfilling prophecy......
And really.....have us student nurses changed THAT much from when you were one? You claim it's much more difficult now......but I don't understand how. You were a student once too, were the rules more lax back then or what? Because as far as I can tell, people are just as smart now as they were back in your day (at least according to science). Our brains haven't changed in any way, shape, or form.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I'm pretty sure gardengal doesn't believe all nursing students are taking a return trip on the Darwin scale, but an attitude that essentially puts the onus of success on the preceptor/mentor rather than the student comes in at all IQ levels.
I think student nurses have changed from when I was one. Student nurses are not set apart from society as a whole. We're trying to drop the handmaiden image, and that's good, but instead of assertiveness sometimes we get an aggressive, "in your face" attitude. We hear students talking far more about what the preceptor needs to do for them rather than the other way around. This can grate on a preceptor's nerves, and it isn't because she is taking her anger at the system as it was out on students of today in a twisted effort at revenge (a theory I've read here).
We have many more students of varied ages and life experiences. Again, a good thing, but some people come into this feeling their prior career makes them a sort of "superdeluxe" nursing student who's opinion should matter more than those other run-of-the-mill nursing students. This causes some people to loudly sound off about things they don't know anything about. This tends to annoy both preceptors, and I'll venture to say, their classmates. A student with less formal education but lots of life experience has just as much to offer, many times more. Having some humility and teachability doesn't make you a subservient person. And by "you" not talking about anyone in particular, just some observations of mine.
OP, your post made me think and evaluate my behavior in the clinical setting and I'm happy to say I rate myself an "A"
Unfortunately, I have run into students like the ones you talk about. I remember in my first semester of nursing school during post conference when our clinical instructor asked us what our experiences on that floor was, everyone but me had a negative report. Their main complaint was that the nurses they were paired with ignored them during our time there and when I was asked to speak about my experience I said I had a good one. I was looking at the instructor but I could feel fellow students eyes boring into my skin,lol. I told the instructor that I didn't wait for the nurse to give me a special invitation each time, I merely got up and followed her and even volunteered to help her with anything she needed with her other patients and I asked questions of things I didn't understand. I even helped the aides with making beds, filling ice pitchers and giving baths. In essence, I kept myself busy and wasn't a burden to anyone there; as a result I came out of it with a positive outlook.
As for the unprofessional dressing, we wore white as our clinical uniform and we were told during orientation to only wear white under garments, no thongs and to cover up tattoos. Only stud earrings were allowed and no nail paints or acrylic fingernails were allowed, our shoes had to be white and long hair was supposed to be pulled back. We all had to assemble at 0630 for pre-conference and if you didn't have your care plan ready, you'd be sent home and it counted as one missed clinical day. I have a hard time fathoming why the student in your care was behaving like she did and I must say she did not learn unprofessional behavior while working with you, she'd had for a while and somehow all the people that mentored her let her swing by with that behavior. It is really sad she turned out that way but I just want you to know that there many of us student nurses who are hardworking, professional and take the art of nursing seriously.
P.S: Sorry for this epistle.
P.S.S: I have gum in my mouth sometimes, the minty type, because it keeps me from throwing up especially during the times my visitor is in town as all smells then make me nauseous. One thing I never do is chew it in front of patients, when I'm patients' rooms, I just let the gum be in my mouth.
I see "those" people already, and I'm in pre-nursing right now (starting nursing school in sept).They don't pay attention in class, they skip half the time, they roll their eyes when the teacher says that something is important, and please stop talking. When you ask them why the're going into nursing they either stare at you blankly, shrug threir shoulders, or say idunno, or say I heard the pay is good, the hours are flexible at the very best... They seem so careless, uninterested about most things, don't have initiative, are oblivious to everything around them, and completely self involved. They come half an hour late to their classes, spend half their time texting... *sight*And it makes me think *** are you people doing here anyway? Thank goodness some of these people are dropping out, and not going into nursing school after all, because frankly I have to wonder what good, if any they'll do in health care. This might sound mean, but I'm sure you've all seen those people, and wondered why they're going into HC. It makes me sick to my stomach knowing that if any of them will end up graduating NS everyone who will work with them, as well as the patients will have to endure their complete carelessness, bs, and lack of respect for their profession, their coworkers, and most of all their patients! arhg!!!!!!!!!
I'm not some angelic creature, I'm far from perfect, and I can't give 150% 24/7, but I come to class, do my stuff, participate, pay attention, I'm interested in what I learn, enthusiastic, I have some initiative, respect my teacher, and my classmates, future profession and future patients. And I can clearly explain why I'm going into nursing without having $ come up as the top reason or just blankly starring back.
One of the most frustrating things as an instructor is the sense of entitlement from a few students (NOT the majority). You set rules, enforce them without exception, but there are always a small few who believe they are entitled to special dispensation and can come up with a million excuses for why they can't perform up to expectations, then become angry when you won't allow them to get away with infractions. For example, we have a rule of no use of cell phones for any purpose not related to clinicals (ex- you can use programs to look up labs, but not to post on Facebook). Yet, despite explaining and reiterating these rules, you will always find the student who breaks them the second you are out of sight.
For this reason and many others, I appreciate mentors and staff nurses who care enough to assist in teaching professional behaviors. As faculty, we can't be everywhere at once. I liken it to the saying "It takes a village to raise a child." Nursing students certainly aren't children, but it takes the efforts of more than one person to model and enforce professional behaviors. This is a reason it saddens me so much when staff nurses dislike students. As faculty, we are often seen as the "bad guys" because we establish and enforce rules. It's almost like a teen who will listen to anyone except their parents, lol. So many of the students greatly look up to and respect the staff nurses, especially those practicing in their areas of interest. We all have a really key role to play in helping students become competent professionals and it is so nice to see someone so committed to being a great mentor.
That said, the majority of students strive to succeed and behave in a professional manner. It is so frustrating that the majority of time seems to be spent on handling the trouble makers instead of truly guiding the exceptional. I believe this is another casualty of our litigious and entitled society. If we don't get everything we want, we sue. Unfortunately, this extends to nursing schools as well. Even those who perform poorly despite much counseling, mentoring, and guidance feel they are "entitled" to a degree because "they pay our salary." They of course, bear no personal responsibility. I absolutely love my job most days, when I am able to concentrate on helping students discover their strengths and improve their areas of weakness. It is those who don't seem to realize that they must work for this career that cause the most irritation.
By this scale, I'm passing with flying colors! Whee! Actually, I've taken to wearing my hair in a bun since reading these forums
My biggest pet peeve with my classmates are the ones who feel ENTITLED to an A. "I'm a four-point-oh student and if I get a C, I'm going to throw a huge fit."
~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN
5,259 Posts
I don't get the comment about no make up. I don't wear a lot, now and again I play up my eyes, but mostly I just like to pull off an even skin tone and some mascara and liner and a really good lip balm. (which the best one I found is actually a mens one they sell at Sephora).
We are not allowed to wear any fragrent lotions or perfumes or anything like that. The hospital I am at has the nurses station and then all these little cove like charting areas with the "WOW's" every few rooms and you can always find lotion there since the excessive hand washing is drying on the hands and that isn't good either. It's the stuff we give patients.
I saw a comment about the alcohol gels, we were just taught that "evidenced based practice" has shown that the gels are just as effective as hand washing on non soiled hands. So we are told to do either if there is nothing visible and that we should wash after every 3 uses of the gels.
My school is pretty strict on our appearance and policy in clinical policy but that's only effective if you have a CI enforcing it. Last semester many students would go to there cars and smoke (windows rolled up with a few of them in the car) and come back into the nursing home we were placed at. Our CI never said anything to them or there many breaks going and doing this. But it's clearly stated in the handbook that smelling like smoke is prohibited.