I don't want this to be viewed as sour grapes, and I don't want to be viewed as a nurse that doesn't like students; however, I have to get this off my chest...
My shift starts late morning. One day there was no parking in the staff lot, and I had to park in a visitor lot (and pay for that privilege). When I got in, I apologized to the secretary for being a few minutes late and mentioned my parking issues. She told me there were no spots today because there were "a ton" of students that were parked in the lot.
Again, I don't want to appear a whiner about this, but I pay a monthly rate to park in that lot. I've also seen drug reps, medical equipment vendors, etc. park in the staff lot. No idea if these individuals or the students pay to park there. When I was in school, one hospital where we did clinicals had ample free parking, so it was not an issue. Another did not. As students we could park on the *top* level of the visitor parking garage (and pay the daily fee for the lot...and get in trouble if we parked lower than the top level). Otherwise, you had to find parking on the street, pay the rate in the meter, and possibly have a fairly long walk to the hospital.
I like students, I like mentoring them, I want them to have a good experience in our hospital. I don't hold these views because I want students today to go through the struggles I went through. However, I'm not too crazy about the students using staff parking.
Thoughts?