med-surgical trainning

Mito · Feb 1, 2002

Hello Ann,

If your acused of doing something you didn't do confront the person involved. There are plenty of nurses, nursing students and health care workers out there who will be diffucult to get along with. Stand up for your rights and don't let them walk all over you or make you feel small. Remeber these Rn's weren't born nurses they had to learn at one time as well.

Mito

Tiggur · Feb 1, 2002

im like the other person who replyied ...if i was accussed of such things ,,,i would confront that person .....but of course you should go down the chain of command......but id get to the bottom of that real quick.....it could have just a big miss understanding,,,,,

RN-PA, RN · Feb 1, 2002

Nursy_ann, I feel for you because I struggled with low self-confidence all through nursing school. I've always cared too much what other people think and I will always struggle with it to some degree and I'm in my mid 40's!

I know it's easier said than done, but try your best to put this incident behind you. YOU know the truth about what happened with the baby and that's what matters most. I'll never understand why some nurses eat their young, but I think it sometimes is a result of stress, frustration, and anger (NOT to excuse the behavior) from the offending nurse. Would it be helpful to talk to your instructor (if she/he is someone you can trust; if not, some other instructor or advisor?) about what happened, to tell your side of it and to let them know how this is affecting you? I'm not sure about returning to talk to the nurse who accused you; she may be "unbalanced" or may make things worse for you.

Try to focus on all you've done and are doing RIGHT. We are often so hard on ourselves and overly-sensitive, but we are also often the more compassionate and patient nurses, too.:)

We all make mistakes and it's important to shake them off after trying to correct what we can. Prepare as best you can for your Med-Surg clinicals-- knowledge is power. But if you let the stress and bad feelings from this experience begin to infiltrate your coming rotation, it'll be harder to concentrate and do a good job when you're there. Please take this from someone who's been there and suffered for it way too long. And don't let this keep you from becoming a nurse. I "fell off the horse" many times and wanted to quit, but I kept climbing back on, and I'm glad I did!

nursy_ann · Feb 3, 2002

hi

Thanks for the advices.

When it happened, I talked to the instructor....and she said she believed what the nurse said . She also said she could see that it is hard for me to be with children and that she had a theory about that. She didn't want to tell me about it.

Before my ped. clinicals I took a few minutes to tell her I felt nervous and unconfortable with the children. I was expectedsome advices from her to help me to deal with it. But the only thing she did was to laugh and say " you'll find how to react when you'll be on the unit"

One night she came to take supper with me...I wasn't alone....and she said "I'm looking at you since a while and I cannot decide what kind of girl you are. I mean there's 3 types of students. 1- the good students 2- the bad students 3- those who shoudn't be there. I can't place you on these categories...it bother me."

Then I said she didn't need to do that. she answered "I know you're special in the way that I can see you have problems at home....I know they beat you and drink ... "

WOW HOW CAN SHE SAY THAT????? My parents are just so lovely with me. She don't have the right to say that. She never saw them.

GRRRRRRR.... She said that even if I don't want to say it is true...I have nothing to say...SHE KNOWS!

Really I didN't havea good experience with her doing my clinicals. She never gave me any positive feedback. One day I asked her to tell me what was wrong cause she had a bad attitude with me. She said she wasn't judging me according what I live at home. "THERE'S NO PROBLEM AT HOME!!!" I said

Anyway I finished my ped clinicals and i won't have her as an instructor in the future.

I just don't know what to do now. Should I talk about it with my new clinical instructor? I'm nervous...I'm sure I won't be able to stay calm and do all what I gotta do.

Do you have any idea about what's the best to do in my situation?

:rolleyes: Ann

RN-PA, RN · Feb 3, 2002

YIKES, Ann! :eek: You sound like you're surrounded by some unstable people, to say the least! Have you talked to some of your classmates to see if they have experienced anything similar from the Peds instructor? Do you have an advisor or another instructor who might be sympathetic to what has happened who you could talk with? Again, ask your classmates who they'd recommend you talk to.

I've encountered instructors who were hard on us and seemed unfair many times with their comments; the way I looked at it though, was that I was paying for my education and I had the right to expect certain behavior from my instructors whose salaries I was helping to pay. Some people shouldn't be instructors-- they're too negative or angry or impatient and not compassionate or encouraging enough. Maybe because I was in my mid-30's when I started nursing school, I thought this way. I was still intimidated by some instructors and was often discouraged, but now is the time to try as best you can to learn to work with difficult people. Your patients, their families, your co-workers and managers may all be difficult to deal with at times, and now's the time to try to get a thicker skin if possible.

I even had to get some counseling for around six months to help me learn to cope better with the stresses of nursing school, so I KNOW how hard it can be if you are sensitive or have low self-confidence. But if I can do it, I believe you can do it, too, Ann!:) Again, I hope you will find someone to talk to and please let us know what happens-- I'm pulling for you!