New grad, first week off orientation and assigned at student nurse

[aem31]

How does your facility handle this? I was kind of shocked when I saw I had a student with me my first week off orientation. I feel so fresh and new myself and still have not even done a variety of skills myself (hang blood and insulin drip comes to mind). I love teaching others but really felt uneasy having a student with me so early on. I'm not in my groove yet at all and am still figuring out how to hold my own. Is this common to be assigned a student so early on as a new grad? I felt very tense and nervous thinking I might make a mistake.

Does your facility take these things into consideration? Do they ask RNs if they want a student nurse, or just assign them? Just curious what the norm is here.

[AZMOMO2]

Most times the students don't want a lot of explanations for everything that you are doing. They really want to observe. If there is anything interesting going on, let them in on it, or let them observe. You do not have to spend your entire shift babysitting them and being the clinical instructor, they have one for that. If they have one of your patients and need to pass the meds or do the treatments, then that is what the clinical instructor is for, hand over the info and just make sure they report off to you. Heck I would have loved to have students to help me with my 30 patients and do some of there dressings and treatments for me.

As an LPN who has had students with me, I say watch closely, when I get a second I can explain anything you want. Write down questions you have so it'll be easier. If there is down time I show them things in more detail. I also make sure their is instructors are here to give the meds and do the treatments with them. I am pretty good with time management sostudent or new employee, I have had to train them both and either way, the work gets done.

As an RN student now, and having to go back into student mode, from being "the nurse" I can tell you I appreciate being able to watch and I don't expect you to teach me everything the whole time. I know when to stay out of the way, or when to dig in and get my hands dirty.

But maybe that is just the difference in actually having worked as the nurse and not ever having been a working nurse as a student.

[reveriies, BSN]

Yikes, that's crazy! I don't think that's fair for anyone. I am about 4 months off orientation and I just recently did two shifts of orienting our new nurses (no students for me since I'm night shift). But my main role was just to get them used to the computer system and how we documented things. And the only reason I was the one chosen to orient them was because I was the least newest person to the unit on those particular shifts. Heck, they were teaching me things, considering that each of them were nurses for far longer than I.

But being a new grad actually teaching the basics of nursing to a student? That definitely would be too much. You're already trying to find your own way of doing things. I wouldn't have been able to do that and expect myself not to be overwhelmed. I think that would be something you might want to bring up to your charge nurse or manager in the future.

[sandyfeet]

I would be upset about that too. As new grads we are still figuring out time management and other skills. I'm in the ED so we have students come through, but they are just practicing skills like IV starts so it's easy to grab one and offer to supervise while they do it. In your situation I would have to speak up and say I was unable to have a student due to patient safety.

[CaptScrubs13]

AMOMO2 - I completely agree. From my clinical experiences, in most cases I did not expect the nurse to be actively teaching me something.. most of the time we were "on our own" doing VS, toileting, assessing etc. If we passed meds the clinical instructor and student would let the RN know, but CI & student passed together. In the beginning (first & second semesters) most treatments were done with CI. Of course there were times when we asked/consulted with/notified the nurse of things, but mostly it was them saying "hey I'm gonna hang blood, wanna watch?" and literally just watch what they did. Or, "I'm gonna pack the pt's wound, do you want to observe?" .. not necessarily step by step with the students helping.

But, OP, I completely understand where you're coming from. In my final semester I did a preceptorship (me one on one with a nurse for 160 hours) .. a couple times we'd come in at 0700 and realize that a [sophomore] student had been assigned to our pt. We just pointed it out to the instructor and they switched, OR, just watched what we did and pretty much just took VS.