Trying to make time out of nothing at all

[OnTheRoad]

OK, so I am in assessment class and I am doing well, have a 94%average so far. For my last MAJOR demo return (skin hair nails, thorax, heart, JVD) My partner didn't show for our demo and I had to snag someone that had finished theirs in order to have someone to assess. Later that day my partner called me and apologized, saying he didn't realize that was what we signed up for and had no clue we weren't doing it in regular scheduled lab time. I was able to do my demo with no prep time and that is included in my average btw.

Today we started bowel sounds and PVD and he apologized for not being there and also noted that he felt he didn't do so well because we didn't spend extra time in lab practicing. Now he wants me to take time to practice with him. I have no problem doing that within what my schedule allows. I do not have alot of extra time however to be at school to practice... I have 4 kids to take care of and am running out the door when classes end almost literally.

I told him he needs also to practice on anyone he can at home, but apparently he has noone possible to practice with so now I feel responsible to make time to help. I feel I need to be helpful to my partner, but I need to know some limits, and I cannot be the only one trying (if I am coming in extra and taking time from my family and study time, I feel I need to be able to call the shots if you KWIM). How would YOU go about setting limits to what you will do to be helpful? If you can't tell, I have problems setting boundaries when I want to help others (especially those in my school who I honestly think could make it easily if life weren't a factor). OK back to boundary setting....

[Race Mom, ASN, RN]

Can you practice outside of the lab setting? If so, and it isn't a problem if this is a male/female issue, I would let him know that he can come over to my house when I am available and we could practice. Everyone deserves a second chance, but that is it. It is not your responsibility to make sure he does well, nor to go out of your way to help him if he screwed up.

[OnTheRoad]

I doubt practicing at my home would be good for him seeing as I have 4 kids ages 4-12 (personally, I can assess best with multiple kids running around demanding things of me, but I doubt that is the norm), and my husband has no problem with me having a male partner (even doing femoral artery assessment ....gasp), but I don't think I would be comfy going to his home.

Maybe If he cannot get enough practice with me... I could tell him to try to get friendly with the other students for practice. I already told him... at school, we can focus on him getting practice whenever we have time, because I have people I can practice on at home.

[locolorenzo22, BSN, RN]

Right, but if he proves himself untrustworthy a 2nd time, it's just not working out. I can understand where he's coming from. I live alone, and my family isn't very close by, so I just can't "come over for dinner" and whip out my steth for some assessing...etc. My last partner and I agreed to get together on Sat to practice assessment, but I lost his number and he didn't get mine. We chalked it up to "live and learn", but made sure to meet out at the school 2.5 hours before demo to run through everything. Did it once, then got what we needed to do out of the way before the start, and whipped through it. I'm demoing with him next week, and it works out well. However, if one of us doesn't show up with no call/no explanation....well, let's just say that the male/female issue better not be an issue(the rest of the class is female).

It's not your responsibility if he doesn't prove himself an asset. Once is ok, twice is enough. just my .02 cents.

[OnTheRoad]

Right, but if he proves himself untrustworthy a 2nd time, it's just not working out. I can understand where he's coming from. I live alone, and my family isn't very close by, so I just can't "come over for dinner" and whip out my steth for some assessing...etc. My last partner and I agreed to get together on Sat to practice assessment, but I lost his number and he didn't get mine. We chalked it up to "live and learn", but made sure to meet out at the school 2.5 hours before demo to run through everything. Did it once, then got what we needed to do out of the way before the start, and whipped through it. I'm demoing with him next week, and it works out well. However, if one of us doesn't show up with no call/no explanation....well, let's just say that the male/female issue better not be an issue(the rest of the class is female).

It's not your responsibility if he doesn't prove himself an asset. Once is ok, twice is enough. just my .02 cents.

If he does it again, I will have no problem just focusing on me and not helping out. I said there wasn't a male/female problem, but I don't know if that is true. For my end it is, but maybe he has issues with it. What gets me, and got me today was that he again apologized for not being there, but then kinda dumped his not doing well on the demo on me by saying, "Listen, we have to practice for this demo you know, I didn't do so well last time because I didn't have enough time to practice on you". That made me a wee bit upset because every time I said, hey let's go practice since we have 2 hrs between classes, he had other things to do. I sure don't blame him for my lack of practice, because I have taken it upon myself to make sure I get the practice I need and I am lucky it is available to me, but I would get a blow up doll if I had no living persons to practice on at least so I knew the routine for demos.

I am just ranting at this point, because I don't want to say some of these things to him, but I don't think I am to blame for someone elses lack of preparedness KWIM?