Externships

Well, right now I am working as a student nurse extern/patient care technician (the title changes all the time, haha). My main responsibilities are vitals and diaper changes q3h (or as ordered), getting the bottles/NG feeds ready and feeding the "grower feeder" babies if assigned to, and stocking cabinets or doing any random tasks like sending labs. In my downtime I try to seek out learning opportunities, look up diagnoses that I'm not familiar with, and assist other nurses with their patients if they need help.

Each hospital can be a little different in what their externs/PCIs are allowed to do, but in general it's a lot like what student_stephanie described.

Since you can't do a lot of the RN duties, it's so important to seek out those learning experiences and just observe everything you can...go on deliveries, watch procedures, find out about what's going on with a patient's diagnosis or why the docs ordered certain things, and DEFINITELY ask questions!!

Some nurses are crabby about having students, but they are usually unpleasant people to work with in general, so don't take it personally if you find a few jerkfaces. I LOVE having students around! It's fun to work with someone who is truly interested in and curious about NICU, and it helps us experienced RNs learn and reinforce what we do as we teach, too.

Asking questions: DO IT. Do it a lot. Honestly, it's the students/new nurses who DON'T ask questions that we get worried about.

The best students are curious, excited, friendly, and helpful...and it sounds like you're already going to be all of those things! Good luck!

The last few students that we've had have been LVNs in a transition to RN. These chicks had no experience with NICU, but turned their nose up at any teaching we tried to do because "I am not a new nurse, you don't have to explain everything to me!", even though they'd never stepped foot inside a NICU. I was really surprised that they'd be so brash about it, and that they'd think their nursing home experience as an LVN gave them the least bit of insight into neonates.I also promptly removed them from my baby's room. Since I attended the same school as they were attending, and knew their teacher well, I passed a little note on to the instructor in the hopes that they'd work a little bit on the concept of boundries and educational propriety.

I am the same way...if they don't want to hear what I am saying about my unit, instead asking how many weeks vacation do you get in here, how many weekends do you work, how soon could I go to days, how many holidays do you work... Then I tune them out and put them in a chair. I don't get that attitude...

We get some interns from the university programs, but we don't use external unfortunately.