I could not believe this student I had the other night. I picked up a shift on my old unit (telemetry) and the charge asked me if I minded having a student with me as his preceptor had called off sick. Ofcourse not! I love having students. So, I grab my MAR's, Kardexes and tell him we are going to check them over for mistakes. This usually takes about 30 minutes. In that time, NO LIE, he got 2 text messages and an actual phone call. All of which he took.
When I was done I said are you ready? (I will admit, this was said through clenched teeth) and he said, Yeah. CHECKED HIS PHONE ONE MORE TIME:angryfire Then I said, Good. Because the FIRST thing your going to do is take that phone out of your pocket, put it in your coat and leave it there for the rest of the shift.
OMG! I mean, I will call my husband during my break, but I can't think of anyone I need to talk to while I am at work. It was SOOOO inappropriate. Has anyone else encountered anything like this?
believe it or not, there are more than a few nurses I work with who see nothing wrong with keeping the cell phone in their pockets all night long, texting up a storm (and not life-important things at all!!! believe me... things like arguments with the boyfriend or what their weekend plans are with their friends) some of them will even be behind but will stop to read and then answer a text message before starting a medication, for instance.
note: this is never done in patients' rooms however, that i have witnessed.
I'm glad i'm not the only one who sees this as totally unprofessional. I will check my cell phone on my lunchbreak, but don't really understand the need to carry it with me every second of the day, and especially not while i'm on duty!! It really bugs me. (sorry, off the soapbox...)
Hello, I am a nursing student. I do not think that what you told this student was anyway inappropriate. If there was some type of emergency or need to keep using his cell phone while you are teaching the student, then it was his responsibility and common courtesy to tell you , before the shift started, that he had something of an important nature going on and that he needed to use his cell phone. It was rude on his part. I work as a CNA on a weekend, night shift and I recently had a new CNA added to my shift to take off some of load as I am the only CNA that works the med surg dept. in our small hospital. The first thing the CNA did was clock in, go to the chair where the doctors dictate, prop her feet up on the desk and proceed to receive and send text messages to her husband who was at home taking care of her 4 children. This went on for several hours and another co-worker from another department approached me and let me know that this girl was showing her Mediaophraphy pictures that her husband was sending her. Here I am working my tail off while she is propped up, sitting in a designated place for doctors and playing on her cell phone, let alone looking at disgusting pictures! I wrote her up and I ended up writing her up several times during the next two weeks. This girl is still working there. Two weeks later, after I found a total care, bed ridden, nursing home patient who had not been turned or changed in over 6 hours that she was assigned to, I took her to an empty room and chewed her out. I told her that I was not going to continue to babysit someone that could not do their job while she stayed on her cell phone the entire night when I had not even been able to take a five minute break. She huffed and puffed and walked off and went right back to her chair and pulled her cell phone out and held it up high so she could see some more pics her husband was sending her. There is a time and a place for cell phones but work is not one of them. Especially in the medical field of such an important nature. If laws are not going to help us then we just have to step up to the plate and take matters in our own hands. I get so tired of being behind people who are about to cause major car accidents because they are using their cell phones and I refuse to pay good money to go to the theatre to watch a movie because of the cell phones that are going off or being flashed all over the place. People need to get a grip and have some good old fashioned manners. PERIOD!:angryfire
I think being shown Mediao pictures in the work place is a form of sexual harassment. It is possible this woman's creepy husband is using her indirectly to harass you and other staff. You would thinks managment would be glad of an excuse to get rid of these two kinkos.
It sounds like you handled it just fine, and it did need addressed. You were NOT NASTY. You did not attack him personally. You didn't make any implications or snide remarks. You just told him to put his phone away. Which was perfectly appropriate. You were teaching.
I was lately a student, I would not have considered it all right to have a cell phone on me. Now that I'm working, I do carry the cell phone, but only on vibrate, and only to see if it is my son's school calling with an emergency.
If my wife needs to call me, she has the number on the unit (I haven't given it to anyone else). I drive to work with the cell off in my pocket. The only time my cell is on is at lunch when I call her, then I turn it back off. I turn it on again after I leave the unit.
I'd bet even having a cell phone on the clinical site is against the school rules, and I'd bet the student knows it and is taking advantage of you to break the rules. So I'd write an e-mail to that student's instructor right away.
turn the cell phone off - except during the person's break/meal times - and take the call privately (like get up from the table and walk over to a private area so others don't hear your one-sided conversation)
I don't think you were nasty at all. I have carried a cell phone with me, with all noises off, to clinical, and would only check it or talk on it when I was on a break, completely away from the nurses station and patients.
I'll admit, I am a little loopy about wanting to keep my phone with me, just so I can check it once in a while to make sure there are no emergencies with my daughter, but it's unprofessional to have it out, texting or talking on it, on the floor in front of others during working hours.
I think that student's teacher should be notified, because it's not safe to be working on the floor if you're too distracted by your phone to be doing your job. And it was also rude.
If there is a family thing going on the student should have given the family the nursing station number. This is rude and inconsiderate and I would have told him to make up his mind about what he wants to do, leave the phone at home or do clinicals. Very immature.
Even when cell phones came out, I would never think to use one when working!!!
Kinda off topic, but this is why I don't agree with hospitals issuing cell phones to nurses as a way to communicate between staff members while on duty.
When I was a student in clinical, one hospital had all their nurses carry cell phones - I knew what they were for, but I saw more than one patient do a double-take when they saw their nurse answer their cell phone while the nurse was in the patient's room.
Even though they were used for work purposes, it just looked soooo tacky:nono:. Nurses would answer their phones while they were preparing meds, taking VS, etc. And their was no official greeting that they had to use. Most of the time, they would answer their phone, "Yup?" or just "Hello?" So the patient had no idea that they were taking calls for work & not personal calls.
Oh, & I totally agree with what the OP said to the student. I know preceptoring isn't the same thing as a clinical rotation with an instructor, but all of my clinical instructors threw fits when a student's cell phone went off during clinical.
I agree that the student's clinical instructor should be notified. In the nursing program in which I taught, students were not allowed to carry their cell phones at clinical, period, unless there was a legitimate emergency situation (which required their being able to be contacted immediately) which was cleared with the instructor in advance. I can't imagine there are any SONs at which it's okay with instructors for students to be chatting on the phone at clinical ...
Cell phones can be a Hippa violation. Private information could be heard by the other person and most phones nowadays have the ability to take photo's (a big no no).
I would have told him to put it away on the first call and if he wasn't able willing and ready to work/learn then he could go home.
I could not believe this student I had the other night. I picked up a shift on my old unit (telemetry) and the charge asked me if I minded having a student with me as his preceptor had called off sick. Ofcourse not! I love having students. So, I grab my MAR's, Kardexes and tell him we are going to check them over for mistakes. This usually takes about 30 minutes. In that time, NO LIE, he got 2 text messages and an actual phone call. All of which he took.
When I was done I said are you ready? (I will admit, this was said through clenched teeth) and he said, Yeah. CHECKED HIS PHONE ONE MORE TIME:angryfire Then I said, Good. Because the FIRST thing your going to do is take that phone out of your pocket, put it in your coat and leave it there for the rest of the shift.
OMG! I mean, I will call my husband during my break, but I can't think of anyone I need to talk to while I am at work. It was SOOOO inappropriate. Has anyone else encountered anything like this?
That is a major no-no! :nono: The only major exception would be if there was some family emergency and they gave you advanced notice. It is good that you said something. What semester is the student in? This is something that should be drilled in from the very start of nursing school.
:nono: The only major exception would be if there was some family emergency and they gave you advanced notice. It is good that you said something. What semester is the student in? This is something that should be drilled in from the very start of nursing school.
perfectbluebuildings, BSN, RN
1,016 Posts
believe it or not, there are more than a few nurses I work with who see nothing wrong with keeping the cell phone in their pockets all night long, texting up a storm (and not life-important things at all!!! believe me... things like arguments with the boyfriend or what their weekend plans are with their friends) some of them will even be behind but will stop to read and then answer a text message before starting a medication, for instance.
note: this is never done in patients' rooms however, that i have witnessed.
I'm glad i'm not the only one who sees this as totally unprofessional. I will check my cell phone on my lunchbreak, but don't really understand the need to carry it with me every second of the day, and especially not while i'm on duty!! It really bugs me. (sorry, off the soapbox...)