Extremely beneficial clinical experience...

[douxmusique]

that taught me what NOT to do as a nurse.

Trust me, it took me a full day to process the entire experience and put a positive spin on it so that I wasn't left with feeling like my day was a waste.

We started at a new clinical site and after a few hours of orientation we were assigned nurses to shadow. We choose on patient to do an assessment and plan on, but we are to follow the nurse to all assigned patients. Without being too wordy, let me just list out what I witnessed (and trust me, I'm aware of nursing school vs reality).

1. Nurse goes into pt room and then tells me that the pt is on isolation precautions but it was no big deal because there was just a history of positive swabs and no active infection. Hands discharge paperwork, points out what should be read then discharges and leaves the room.

2. No handwashing in or out in any patient room. I only saw one handwashing in four hours. Since I was shadowing and not running around I had a lot of observation time. I can give a little understanding for some things but handwashing is seriously the easiest quickest thing a person can do to promote health. I don't think that's asking too much for a nurse to wash their hands?

3. Nurse had a family member visit, hung out in the hallway for 35 minutes visiting and ordering products offline then went into employee locker room and took a personal call for another 30 minutes. I visited pts to check if they needed anything (water, trip to the bathroom, etc) and then informed my instructor I probably needed a new nurse but was told it was too late in the day for that to happen since we only had two hours left (really?).

I have a whole three pages worth of actions that I could list but I'll save some reading time and brush those off as a real world nurse not having a great day and being burned out over the constant pain med seeking she was dealing that day.

I did my assessment on my chosen pt and spent some time practicing "therapeutic communication" and trying to take everything in.... but spent most of my time walking around attempting to "look busy" or find my instructor.

I am just incredibly disappointed. I was genuinely excited to get in and learn and expand my abilities and gain more confidence in what I'm learning/training. I was really robbed of a great opportunity yesterday. The instructor said she won't use that nurse anymore but that doesn't change the fact that my classmates were able to do so much more hands on learning and I'm left feeling behind the curve in everything now.

Hoping next week is better :). Any tips from anyone on how to handle this type of situation in the future?

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

well, you are right. You learned what NOT to do. I hope the instructor passes along the information to the facility Educator. When I get negative comments I pass them to the Director of that department and take that nurse off my list of preceptors, which takes them off a list of being paid for the precepting.

However, I hope you did spend some time learning about your patient and their condition, medications, etc. Remember to ask others besides your preceptor so you can take advantage of the time you are in the clinical area. Good luck!

[douxmusique]

I did classicdame. I did try to Get as much from the patient as I could and might end up using the pt for a care plan if I don't find another next week. I'd say bilateral PEs is a pretty good care plan patient I'd be interested in working with :)

[RunBabyRN]

Unfortunately there will be those experiences. I had one that wouldn't let me do ANYTHING, even though I was a third semester (of 4) student with prior medical experience, and I'd worked with the patient the day before and was doing a lot of the care.

When I was in the NICU, NONE of the nurses wore gloves or washed their hands. It HORRIFIED me. I was like, these are sick, immunocompromised newborns, and you're not washing your hands??????

At least your professor did address it, and took note. Don't let it frustrate you too much, just focus on what lies ahead and providing the best care you can. You learn as much from those nurses as you do from the good ones, if only because you learn what NOT to do, and you are kind of forced to work independently.