Has anyone had problems with the nurses during clinicals?

#1rnstudent · Sep 9, 2004

All behaviour has meaning. People deserve respect as human beings, whether they are the patient, another nurse, or a student. Unfortunately, nursing school is a lot like boot camp for some people, me included. There is a nursing heirarchy and students are always at the bottom. Just kill her with kindness and know inside that you are a better person for it. Also, one day she could be the sick person you are caring for... isn't that a fun thought? :rolleyes:

On our second day of clinicals the nurse on the floor was the nastiest person I have ever met! Our clinical instructor told us if we had any questions or problems and couldn't find her to ask the nurse that she would help us. Well when we first met this nurse, she gave all of us the meanest look possible. When we asked her if it was ok to find her if we had any questions so she could help us, she gave another mean look and said "With What" very sarcastically.
Needless to say, we drove our instructor crazy bc we wouldn't ask the nurse anything! Our instructor told us to kill her with kindness, but this didn't work, she was just miserable. This made our clinical experience pretty miserable.
How can someone like that be a nurse?

txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN · Sep 9, 2004

Isn't it funny how soon we forget ,that at one time we were nursing students as too.

PennyLane, RN · Sep 9, 2004

Unfortunately you'll just have to get used to it. At each hospital I've been for clinicals, there are ALWAYS one or two (or more!) mean, crabby nurses. Others are truly wonderful.

The mean ones don't even thank us for the work we've done all day for their patients. Because we're there, they don't even have to walk into the patients room at all on that shift. Then they act like we're taking up so much of their time if we have a question on their patient. It's frustrating to say the least. To top it off, at the end of each rotation we have to buy all the nurses gifts! Now, I don't mind buying gifts or cards for the ones that were truly helpful and appreciative of our work. But I do have a problem when I pitch in $$ that I can't afford to buy a gift for a nurse who's been nothing but mean from day one.

Oh well, such is nursing school.

maire, ASN, RN · Sep 9, 2004

There's always going to be one or two (or 5 or 6) that are miserable human beings. But for every one of those you will find 2 others that are truly wonderful. You learn who you can talk to and who you can't. Unfortunately that's the way it is all over.

ADNCyn · Sep 9, 2004

This is JMHO... I believe already licensed nurses think they are above any nursing student, newly licensed nurse, etc. only because they see others as a threat to them and their stability. LOL As if no one is good enough to be a nurse but them... a somewhat elitist attitude. NOW that's a thought. GET IT?!?! GOOD LUCK!!! I know I am brutally honest and I wish to keep it that way. Thanks for this post.

chris_at_lucas_RN, RN · Sep 9, 2004

Don't know if this is your situation or not....

My first clinical rotation, my classmates were all gripy about this nurse was mean and that nurse was nasty etc., etc.

I didn't see it. They were always nice to me, always smiling (of course I smiled, so that might have been part of it).

What I discovered later, although I was told more than discovered, was that my classmates, when they were "done" with their patients, were in the breakroom, in the hallway or around the nurses station, hanging out, asking questions, reading, whatever.

I didn't know this because I hung out in my patient's room. After I was done with the tasks I was supposed to do, I proceeded to do the ones I saw needed doing.

I straighted up her stuff, straightened up her bed. When she needed something, she wasn't pushing her button, she was asking me, and I just did whatever it was.

I talked to her through it too. When she had a really bad day, she begged me to stay in her room. Even though she needed to sleep, I could tell she was anxious--I had paperwork to do. I made a deal: you rest, I'll stay in here and do my work. And she did, and I did.

And no calls for anything from the nurses station.

See if that might have something to do with it. If students lighten the load of the nurses, the nurses are happy the students are there. If the students cause more problems when they are there than when they are not, well.... how would you react?

Like I said, this might not be the case, but take a look around and see if you might make a few adjustments. Sometimes we can "handle" a mean and nasty person by checking things out from their perspective.

LeesieBug · Sep 10, 2004

My experiences have been similar to Chris's.

The first week or so, we may notice that some nurses seem grumpy toward us, but as time goes on, things improve. Things improve because they see that we are there to work, and actually lighten their load. We have had nurses tell us at the end what a great job we did, and that they were surprised because most of the students they get won't empty BSC's, won't touch a bedpan, won't answer a call light if it's not theirs.

So, the best recommendation is to just make sure you are doing what needs to be done, and see if things don't improve. If the nurses remain hostile...hey, not much you can do about it. At least you will be confident that YOU have nothing to do with whatever their problem is.

I guess I have been lucky so far, in that I haven't run into any nurses that are just plain nasty.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 10, 2004

In my whole experience there was one crabby nurse. She was notorious and she was in the OR during my rotation there. My instructor said, "don't bother talking to her". I was irritated to have been put in that situation, but it was true, she was a miserable human being and killing her with kindness isn't going to change that.

Is this crabby person the only nurse on the unit? The only one you are allowed to ask questions of? Hang in there and good luck! :)

directcare4me · Sep 10, 2004

This is JMHO... I believe already licensed nurses think they are above any nursing student, newly licensed nurse, etc. only because they see others as a threat to them and their stability. LOL As if no one is good enough to be a nurse but them... a somewhat elitist attitude. NOW that's a thought. GET IT?!?! GOOD LUCK!!! I know I am brutally honest and I wish to keep it that way. Thanks for this post.

Actually, I don't think it is as complicated as that. I don't know any nurses working with me who see nursing students as a "threat to them and their stability". I really think we are just tired. Just plain mentally, emotionally, and physically tired. Which for some people manifests as grumpiness, or impatience, or "please just leave me alone". It takes extra energy and time to work with a student, to explain every thing you are doing, instead of just doing it; I try to keep my feelings to myself, and if the student is eager to work and learn, it brings me more into a "teaching" mode. One problem in our unit is that the instructors basically drop off the students and we, the staff, are solely responsible for teaching them. Their instructor is not around, probably has students all over, and is not experienced herself in our specialty. Also, the students I have the most impatience with, are the ones who have done no reading whatsoever on their patient's problems; they want me to lecture them and feed them everything--"tell me all about XYZ". I ask them to look it up--we have good up-to-date books on the unit--and then I will answer any questions that they have.

I'm not making excuses for rude behavior. Rudeness is not excuseable. But if the staff aren't acting all joyful that the students are there, just do your best, show that you don't mind working and that you want to learn, and that you are willing to do the prep work---reading about it--too.

maire, ASN, RN · Sep 10, 2004

Chris does have a point. Don't be the student that has to be told what to do. Be the proactive one. Many of those floor nurses have had bad experiences with 'lazy' students (for lack of a better term) and it has probably left a bitter taste in their mouths. As I said, you learn who you can approach and who you can't. Do what needs to be done, be a help rather than a hindrance and you might find the attitude changes drastically.

Good luck. They don't all suck.

laughingfairy · Sep 10, 2004

Because we're there, they don't even have to walk into the patients room at all on that shift. .

If they never have to walk into the patient's room right there is part of the problem.

A) If they truly never walk into the paitient's room then they are just plain nuts. If something goes wrong, bet your bottom dollar the hospital, the school, and even you are going to say "but the nurse assigned to this patient should have known XYZ". Taking a report from you is one thing, but you are still a student and in my experiance all those assessements, etc. have to be done anyway. It can be more time consuming for the nurse. I know it always through me out of my routine because I did my assessment while I did care. The assessment takes just as long by itself.

B) This could be a problem with your perception. Maybe you don't relize what the nurses need to do when they have a student. The hospital I used to work at had alot of students. We had to check all of their MARs and if a med was not given, given late etc. It was still our med error. Now students couldn't give meds without their instructure so the instructure is trying to give 8 people meds at the same time and quizzing the students about what each med is for, and I was freaking out that geez here are all these med errors on me. We had to read every note. Even though the instructure had signed off on all the notes we also had to sign that we agreed with the note or write why we didn't agree, then we had to right a variance report. Don't even get me started about education and discharges.So if on med-surg you start the day with 8 patients, discharge 3 and get 2 post-ops on your 8 hr shift and then (usually the most stable) 3-4 patients have students, can you see how the day may actually be more difficult.

Please don't get me wrong. I love having student nurses and precepting. I love to teach. I just think that the expectations on both sides get mixed up. I love it when you guys pick up on something that I missed. I love showing you guys new techniques and giving you a chance to do things that you want to do (and some that you don't). But please come to clinical prepared. Know what Lasix is (honest to god LPN to RN program the girl didn't know it by name or generic), know your general side effects of ABT and opiods, read up on your patient before hand. When your instructure can have things handled smoothly with out having to focus on one person who didn't do their homework, it makes the entire unit run better.

good luck and welcome to nursing!!!