Having a difficult time with my Practicum Experience:

[mistymae22]

I feel awful. Practicum experience is suppose to be one of the best learning experiences in nursing school. I am working on the postpartum unit, and it was my number one choice. I thought for sure that I would love it; however, ever since week 1, I have just been clashing with most of the nurses on that unit. I found a lot of them seem to be either lazy, clueless, or both. I was assigned to a preceptor, and I constantly asked her what I could do to help. I always consistently checked on the patients and was willing to help her out and the other nurses out as well! Well, she went to the manager at the end of my first week and told the manager that "I wasn't interested in what she was doing....." When I worked with her, she was so lazy, sitting at her computer the whole time and kept talking about her pregnancy. She barely checked on her patients...all she did was complain about her nausea feeling and how it will be like 9 months from now..... Anyways, I got really upset but the manager did change my preceptor.

Now my new preceptor is much better at teaching me and is more pro-active than the other preceptor; however, I feel like she thinks i'm a dummy because I forgot how to do some nursing skills, since I didn't work in the hospital for about six months. And it's been a year since I was in OB clinicals. I don't trust that she would give me a fair and accurate evaluation report. I was suppose to work with her this week, but she had another job to do on the unit, and she wasn't assigned to patients that day; therefore, she could not precept me that day. The manager told me not to show up even because she had no one to work with me. Basically, in nice words, "no one who is working that day will wanna work with you...."

I only know one nurse on this unit who likes working with me and likes to teach me. She lets me do most of the skills and I learned from her in one day more than I have the past 5 weeks I was on that unit. Unfortunately, she can't be my new or secondary preceptor because she's a new nurse

I basically feel alone and unsupported at all. I've tried talking to my school instructors about this, but they don't say or do anything about it.... I've tried talking to my friends about it, but they don't understand because they have awesome working relationships with their preceptors. I tried talking to my parents, but they just blame me and think i'm just bugging the nurses and that's why they don't want to work with me.....This is one of the worst experiences in nursing school...and I do not know what to do.....

Luckily, I'm half way done with my practicum....but it has been stressing me out, when it's suppose to be a learning experience for me..... Any tips or ideas on how to deal with this practicum misery????

[mistymae22]

Well I don't know how much more positive I can get. Like I've said before, I go there and I always offer help to them and I always smile at them. Btw, even when someone doesn't constantly smile at you like a robot, it doesn't mean they are negative. I even smile and make nice with the nurse who bad mouthed me to the manager. Even my teacher said that I handled the situation well!

But I get what you guys mean about having a more positive attitude. I didn't mean to sound like I was ridiculing them, I was just expressing what I saw and my experiences. I don't feel this way about all of them. Some of them are sweet and great, however, I do see a few that sit around and gossip and just talk on the phone to their friends. Now, I was always taught throughout nursing school to never do those things...and when I see nurses do those things, I can be a bit judgmental and I'm guilty for that...but, my nursing instructors really drilled it into my brain to never just sit around the unit and gossip or talk about what's going on with me personally. I guess I can be less judgmental....but I really am not there to talk about peoples' personal lives, I'm there to mainly learn!

[bTRUE]

In response to your miserable practicum experience: I think your forgetting the point of practicum ... Your calling yourself a dumdum and assuming the nurses think your incompetent , additionally your very sensitive to what other women say about you, and additionally your drawing negative attention to yourself. Remember this: your there to learn, grow and transition into the nursing profession. Maybe instead of seeing this as a miserable experience (which trust me I had many of those days in preceptorship) maybe you should see this as a reality check that your going through a very stressful transition into the work force and learn how to deal with different personalities. Bc when you do land your first nursing job , one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was be on good terms with everyone you work with.

You WILL get through this! Your there to learn , not help ... Remember that!! Don't focus too much on what other ppl think of you.

[loriangel14, RN]

[it's also difficult when my preceptor looks at me like i'm a dummy for not knowing how to do something or not remembering material from a year ago. Before this clinical qtr., I haven't stepped foot in a hospital in about 6 months! So, I haven't had practice clinically wise.]

You need to stop blaming others and take responsibility for your own learning instead of making excuses.You call the nurses clueless and stupid but then defend your own lack of knowledge. You are a student in a placement with licensed experienced nurses. You need to stop assuming you know it all.

[mistymae22]

I never said I know it all.

And I do take responsibility for what I don't know. I always ask questions, and sometimes, nurses get annoyed with that. I observe them, and sometimes, they get annoyed with that too. I never said they are stupid. I just said that they don't seem to be used to emergency situations, since they don't see that many emergency situations on the unit. Most of their patients are fairly healthy and not coding in any second. I just get motivated and get frustrated when the nurses don't use me for help when the situation isn't an emergency or critical.

[heartsgal, ADN, RN]

Unfortunately it sounds like your OB clinical won't be as good as your others were, but it will be over soon so all you can really do is press on and keep smiling and saying please and thank you, like you're doing now. I was on OB this week and wasn't able to do any skills and the day was super long because of it. I also like to stay busy, busy and tend to my patients, but it just wasn't in the cards this week with no one in labor and only 2 scheduled c-sections and my nurse for the day was new so she was still learning the protocols for their OR. And no matter how grumpy my nurse might be or how much I disagree with her way of nursing, I always say, "thank you so much for all your help today, I really appreciate it" with a big smile on my face before leaving that unit. It's a must do habit for me and 98% of the time I really do mean it. Hang in there.

[mistymae22]

Thanks bTrue and heartsgal: I'm luckily almost done. I thought for sure OB was gonna be my calling, but at least I know I don't wanna get into that when I graduate. For the most part, my preceptor is pretty patient with me but I don't think I'll be seeing too much of her anymore since she has another job on the unit, so she won't be assigned to patients. I'll have to just show up on the unit and hopefully find someone to work with. There's always at least one nurse on the unit who doesn't mind students. I'm gonna be working a lot this week and next so I could finish faster (: