Are students in the way?

Nurses General Nursing

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Those of you that have to guide students through a specialty area. Do you enjoy explaining things to us and helping us have the best experience possible or are we like chains wrapped around your ankles? Please give your thoughts.

Try explaining that to the cream puff trial lawyer when it is your patient who went to meet jesus after being inadvertently infused with intravenous Jevity Pulmocare. It has happened before.

Im only saying what i was required to read in fundamentals, it actualy also says "Nursing students are responsible for their own actions and are liable for neglegent acts commited during the course of a clinical course

Specializes in acute rehab, psych, home health, agencey.

As a nurse who has managed to last in my position on my unit, over the years I have had both new hires and students rotating through on their clinicals. As nurses, part of our responsibilities is to educate those given to us to learn from our experiences,mistakes and how to nurse not from a book but often on the fly. As in any "teacher/student" or "nurse/mentor" even nurse/patient relationship there has to be some type of common understanding that will allow the exchange of ideas to flow, this flow can and is often interrupted or disrupted by a wide and various set of physical,emotional and predjuicial factors. As far as the liability issue, it depends upon who was or is supervising the student/newhire at the time the event happened, if something went down on a patient who received care from a student, the response of the primary nurse afterwords can determine the primary nurses liability.

I have been a clinical instructor for 3+ years...

I have checked w/ the AZ BON...

The students are not practicing "under my license"

They are practicing under the school's insurance plan...

However, if the bedside RN, or the instructor is present and "allows" malpractice, then one's own license could come into jeopardy...

Think about it - as a clinical instructor in a 500 bed hospital, with 10 students, you are always on the go, and if a student does something stupid, and you are 5 floors away, how could you be held liable (I had a student in the OR whom the surgeon allowed to close a surgical wound)

She was placed on probation, and nothing else happened

btw.. it's a myth that students work under the instructors license

Boy are you wrong! I am an instructor and all the students work under her license and it is very nerve wracking. We have to watch them constantly!

Specializes in Medical Telemetry, LTC,AlF, Skilled care.

Well from a student's perspective, I've almost completed all my clinical rotations (2 months until graduation :monkeydance: ) and I've been very lucky to work beside some terrific nurses who were willing to take the time and explain procedures, meds, disease processes, and reasure me when I started my first IV and my hands were shaking. I will never forget them, to try and return the favor on the days that I knew they had a tough assignment even if I was on the opposite side of the hall I would make sure their VS and BS got done and if they needed help with an admission I would do what I could. It's all about respect, staff nurses are SO busy and as students we're there (or should be there) to learn and in order to effectively learn, in my opinion, you have to get your hands dirty. If a nurse asks a student to d/c a hep lock or foley cath instead of saying "Oh well I've done that before, no thanks." Just do it, doing something one time doesn't make you an expert lol. It irritates me so bad when some of my friends say "That nurse just wouldn't leave me alone every five seconds she wanted me to do something." umm isn't that why we have clinicals, so we can do something? I dunno, I'll get off my soap box now lol but kudos to the nurses out there who are able to take time and teach us students, you have no idea how much you impact us. :icon_hug:

First off, as a nursing student, I am eternally grateful for the kindness and patience that I have been shown by the nurses I work with.

In Georgia, student nurses work under an exception in the Nurses Act. This allows them to go through the motions of nursing, without a license, in the sake of education. The student's covers their liability. Unless the nurse or instructor was obviously negligent, their licenses would be unaffected.

Every state is different, this is just the way Georgia does it.

Even instructors sometimes believe this myth about "working under the license", but as others have pointed out, it doesn't really make sense. I would be surprised if any state does it that way--can anyone provide a source from their state Nurse Practice Act?

Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

I like students who are interested in learning. Unfortunately, we haven't had that kind in a while.

The last crop that came through was particularly terrible. They sat at the desk, taking up every available seat, chatting about the weekend, boyfriends, mututal friends, classmates, yak, yak, yak. You practically had to pull them by the ear to get them to watch anything. One asked if she could watch me start an IV, then proceeded to chat the ear off the pt because she found out she knew the pt's dau. ("Is she still dating Kevin? Oh, they're engaged? That's so cool!") Dear God. I just did the stick and ignored her. I work in a dept. where we do not have the time to dilly-dally around; you roll 'em in, move 'em out. You snooze, you lose when it comes to clinical experiences.

But my real pet peeve is the congregating at the desk. There was no room for staff to work, and God forbid you say something or be accused of being an "eat your young" nurse. Of course, the instructor was nowhere to be found; the instructors usually drop the students off and disappear til the end of the day.

So, if I had a motivated, responsive student with me, yes, I'd love it. But I have neither the time nor the patience for students who need to be lead around by the nose.

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