Floor nurses that make clinicals a bad experience

[NurseLoveJoy88]

Once again I find myself having a bad clinical experience due to nurses that are rude to students and act like they were born with a RN license. First let me say I appreciate the nurses that do show us students respect and don't make us feel like a burden. I am a nurse in LTC. I'm a LPN. I have had nursing students on the floor and to say the least it is overwhelming !!!! I have 20 residents, med pass, treatments, documentation, dealing with docs, family, other emergencies and to have six students on top of that can be stressful. Having to answer a bunch of questions, being asked to look at something or to clarify something is alot on just one nurse.

With that said I have never been rude to the nursing students or acted as if they were a burden. I know what it is like to be a student nurse. Granted there are some students that are a little more needy than other but then there are some that really just want to learn but at the same time want respect.

Being on both sides I'm more aware of how they can make it better for students and how students can make it better for nurses. As students we should take initiative but at the same time realize that the nurses are busy and may not be available as soon as we want them. Also that the patients are the priority and our learning comes second. For nurses we must remember what it was like to be students and just having a little more respect. Floor nurses don't need to teach the students but allowing us to observe a thing or two would be nice.

Just a little vent.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

I have to admit, I just don't get it. I guess my experience has been really abnormal, but I am in my second-to-last semester and have yet to have a rude nurse on the floor at clinicals or in my externship, which I have been working for nearly a year now. I have had some who are busy and I have had some who were better at teaching than others and some who obviously enjoyed teaching more than others, but never yet one who was outright rude, condescending or just plain mean.

I do find the way I am treated is proportional to the interest, energy, mood, appropriate humor, flexibility and gratitude that I bring to my encounters as a student. I wonder what would happen if every student treated every encounter with someone at the hospital as a working interview? That sounds like I am purely blaming the students and that really isn't my intent. I am just a big believer in personal responsibility. I am not responsible for how someone else acts but do find when I focus on how I myself act, others are similarly affected.

[rachelgeorgina]

It's also part of the job of a RN to work through problems with students, not just be rude to them.

To those who stated that it is not the RN's job to teach - in Australia it's actually part of the national competency framework for the registered nurse. From the Australian & Midwifery Council's Competency Standards, which are used across the healthcare system as the standards that guide how nurses and midwives are to practice:

4.3Contributes to the professional development of others

●demonstrates an increasing responsibility to share knowledge with colleagues

●supports health care students to meet their learning objectives in cooperation with other members of the health care team

●facilitates mutual sharing of knowledge and experience with colleagues relating to individual/group/unit problems

●contributes to orientation and ongoing education programs

●acts as a role model to other members of the health care team

●participates where possible in preceptorship, coaching and mentoring to assist and develop colleagues

●participates where appropriate in teaching others including students of nursing and other health disciplines, and inexperienced nurses

●contributes to formal and informal professional development

So while nurses aren't paid for having a student shadow them and they receive no compensation and yes, we do make your day one hundred times more difficult because we don't know where things are or how to do everything and we need to ask questions and sometimes a lot of questions - it's still a part of the Australian nurse or midwife's job description to contribute to the teaching and education of nursing students.

I'm a third (& final) year nursing student. & while I really do love nursing, the culture of it petrifies me. Our clinicals are made or broken by the attitude of the staff of the ward we're assigned to (though of course the attitude of the student does contribute to this. What I'm refering to is the nurse's general attitude toward students, not an individual student.) It's not our choice where we are sent for clinical - clinicals are not even optional! We have to be there as much as the nurses have to put up with us. I know that I don't go on clinical to make another nurse's life hell. I often apologise to the nurse I am working with for potentially getting in her way, I state up front that I don't want to make her day more difficult and ask what I can do to prevent that and what I can to do help. I make it clear that I am eager to learn and participate in patient care/ward activities and acknowledge that I am potentially a burden on their workload. Some nurses appreciate this - I've had nurses thank me very sincerely for my help and for my enthusiasm. I've had others who haven't. & I take the good with the bad and do my best to learn without stepping on any toes, making anyone's day more difficult or compromising patient care.

[cherrybreeze, ADN, RN]

I have a little anecdote re: students, and mind you, I normally LOVE to teach, and am told I am good at it.

We had LPN students on our floor a couple weeks ago. TWO students to ONE patient. Talk about overkill. Anyway, patient tells me that they did her bath, except for her peri care, because they did not know how to take her underwear off (disposable pull on briefs). Huh? Sure enough, that was the reason given....patient had a foley, so between the two of them, they could not figure out how to change these briefs. REALLY? That just plain scares me.

[rachelgeorgina]

If I were a new student I would have been hesitant to do that by myself for fear of dislodging the catheter or breaking something/causing pain. Nurses often have little tricks of the trade for sorting out small but inconvenient issues like IV lines in sleeves. I probably would have asked the patient how it was generally done - or asked my nurse how she would approach it. Once I'd asked once, I'd know how to do it for next time!