Four students to take care of one pt. at Clinicals ?!

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

I had my first clinical rotation for my second nursing course, and it was not what I had expected to be. My instructor assigned 4 students to one patient.. That was a big mistake ! Although it was nice to have us all work toghether as a team, I feel as though there was nothing for me to do except review the pts. chart over and over again ! I was so bored ! My class mates and I also had our own way of doing things which caused confliction between us. For the whole weekend all I did was pass meds once, do a head to toe assessment once, and thats it ! My other friend who is a NS in my class says in her clinical group each person had their own patient, and they got to do more things then us. I confronted my instructor about this, and told her how I felt about this... but I have a feeling that nothing is going to change. To top everything off, there is also another clinical group from another college that come on the same weekends as we do, and on the same floor. They are PCT students. Both instructors wants us to work toghether. They plan on having us nursing students delegate tasks to the PCT students. I've never heard of this happening before. Thanks for reading... Please tell me if all this is okay or not.

[Rosa Cabrera, RN]

Sorry to hear that. I was never assigned to work with another student but I can imagine it be bothersome. Sometimes even with you just working with the nurse you miss out on things if you're not on top of your pt and your nurse cause they will forget you need practice. I think your instructor may be trying to be safe but I feel like she may be putting you as the student and your patient at a HUGE disadvantage. Not to mention the actual RN who is assigned that patient having 4 students coming in and out of her patients room. You may want to suggest that she breaks you up into maybe groups of two (if she absolutely will not allow you to be one-on-one with your patients) and suggest that every clinical day you guys have one student as the assigned charge nurse, they don't get a pt but they have to help all of the students with their patients- for the teamwork aspect of clinicals. Then you just rotate that charge nurse shift until everyone's gotten a turn. These are just ideas of some things I have done in clinicals and thought helped me a lot.

Good luck with your rotation!

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

Thanks a lot RC1985. I just wanted to know if my feelings were normal. My last clinical rotation we did have one on one with our pt. we also had a different instructor. I hope this changes... we pay too much money for school to not get the experience we need as nurses.

[caliotter3]

The good thing I can see from this is that it prevents three students from being denied clinical. I'm assuming there were not enough patients to go around for each student to have their own patient? If this is not the case, then I agree that you and your fellow students should ask your instructor to assign each of you to one patient. And the idea of putting you together with the PCT students is not good. You are there to learn patient care too and you can't learn it by not doing it and you can't do it if all you ever do is delegate to another student. You, and the PCT, are being shortchanged. The PCT deserves supervision from their instructor and primary nurse. In this case it sounds as if you will be taking the supervision duties over and both instructors will be stepping back. Not good for you (four students and a PCT student!?!) or the PCT students. Not to mention the added stress on the patient for having as many as 5 students hovering. Your instructors should know better than this. I think lazy is taking over.

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

I'm not sure what her motive was. I do know that the PCT students were assigned their own pt. So there were more than enough pts. I don't even think its a good idea to have 16 Students on one floor ! It not only overwhelms the staff, and pts., but also us students as well. I felt sorry for the pt. She had to wake up to 4 students hovering over her. I was sooo fustrated !

[caliotter3]

You have good insight about this. Maybe you could address this in a short letter to the head of the department if you can't make headway with your instructor. Better yet, to prevent repercussions, do it during your course evaluation (anonymous I hope) after the course is over. Outspoken students often get targeted and you don't want that to happen to you just because you have good sense. Good luck to you during the rest of your term.:wink2: