It wasn’t that along ago that I was a student nurse, but alas...
In my ADN program, as long as we were being supervised by an RN we were allowed to do tasks (dressing changes, IV start, insertion of foleys/NGs, etc). At my current gig at a large teaching hospital, I try to seek out these opportunities for students when they arise and offer to walk them though it. However, many of them tend to respond “oh I can’t do that unless my instructor watches me” even if it’s a simple dressing change...and these are last-term students that will be graduating in a few months. Some of these students have never inserted a Foley on a real person! One instructor frequently has 8 or 9 students, so it might take hours for a dressing change to happen if the instructor is busy helping with med passes.
Is this normal for nursing programs nowadays? I could approach the instructor about it, but I’m still new and she has probably been an ICU RN longer than I’ve been alive.
Specializes in Surgical, Home Infusions, HVU, PCU, Neuro.
When I was in school we had to do everything with the instructor until the last semester when the RN signed a paper agreeing to be our preceptor. Now when we get nursing students on the floor for their clinical, there are some times and some groups, where I don't ever see their clinical instructor.
I'm currently in nursing school, 3rd semester, and our clinical policy is that the first time we perform certain skills in a clinical setting (IV insertion, foleys, etc) we must do it with our clinical instructor. Once she has seen us perform it correctly, we can then perform that skill under the supervision of the patient's primary RN going forward. It can be hard to catch the instructor quickly if something needs to be done urgently, so I will typically observe or assist if I can't grab my clinical instructor quickly enough. But my instructors recently have given us their pager numbers so we can get in touch quickly, and there are 8 students total, we're split 4 to a unit but the units are next to each other, ex 4E, 4W, and she spends all day moving between us. We also try to look at orders in the morning so we can set a sort of "appointment" with our instructor to meet us so we can perform the skills, and inform the RN. I normally like to talk with the primary RNs of the patients I've been assigned with that day, a few min before/after huddle and just let them know what skills I can perform, what our schedule is for the day, and to just let them know I'm there to learn and work, a sort of please use and abuse me today.
My instructor is so enthusiastic about getting us opportunities to see/do new things, so if a nurse lets her know she's got something cool/interesting to do, or a complex patient and invites the student to participate, our instructor finds a way for us to get in there and take advantage of it.
Kallie3006, ADN
389 Posts
When I was in school we had to do everything with the instructor until the last semester when the RN signed a paper agreeing to be our preceptor. Now when we get nursing students on the floor for their clinical, there are some times and some groups, where I don't ever see their clinical instructor.