I'm a Student not an Employee

barcode120x, RN, NP · Mar 5, 2021

Tough to say because I haven't come across this issue at any of my family practice clinicals. All the MA's, secretaries, and managers have never bothered me with these sort of tasks. Don't get me wrong, I'd be willing to do any of them if they asked. Being a floor nurse, I'm used to giving medications, IM's, collecting UA's so it's all normal for me and I would no problem doing them if I was asked during clinical. I mean technically, we are still "qualified" to do these tasks and being in a position of higher standing doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing these tasks.

But if it's really getting in the way of "doing NP stuff all day" and you are actually busy doing NP stuff, maybe tell the MA that you're about to see the next patient or getting ready to see the next patient and will not be able to do said vaccine, UA, etc? Tough situation to be in really because we are all grateful to even have a precepting spot at this current time. Other than that, if I was in your situation and it was always busy, I would probably just suck it up because I wouldn't want to jeopardize my clinical spot unfortunately. If your manager and/or preceptor is very open, you can simply just bring up the issue with them and how some of these tasks are interfering with your work.

JBMmom, MSN, NP · Mar 5, 2021

I never had a rotation where I was busy enough with NP stuff all shift, so I would have been very happy to have tasks to fill my time. On my ED rotation, I was an extra pair of hands for everyone. Helped the time pass for me, and helped out the nurses and techs that were always short. But, if it's limiting your own experience, you might need to set some boundaries.

JKL33 · Mar 5, 2021

3 hours ago, JBMmom said:

I never had a rotation where I was busy enough with NP stuff all shift

I sincerely can't imagine this.

Between medical decision-making (including the immense amount of assessment, patho and pharm info that is needed to make good decisions) and interacting with patients and conveying all of it accurately in the chart by documenting my assessments and plans (as a student) I have plenty to do, despite years of nursing experience. On the rare occasion where there is a small amount of downtime for whatever reason, I pick something from my mental file of things to review and spend my time reviewing it, such as the mechanisms of the medications now available for treatment of diabetes and the nuances of selection of one agent or another for patients. Same with blood pressure medications or birth control/hormonal treatments and innumerable other topics; there is just a seemingly endless number of topics on which I hope to improve my understanding.

10 hours ago, barcode120x said:

I mean technically, we are still "qualified" to do these tasks and being in a position of higher standing doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing these tasks.

I understand the spirit with which you say this, and it's important to not have a spirit of being unwilling to help the team. I agree with you 100% on that. Beyond that I would respectfully disagree with the above. I do have experience with those tasks mentioned by the OP and yes I am able to perform them proficiently. But I am there at the clinical rotation to learn things that future patients will deserve for me to have learned to the best of my novice-NP ability. They do not deserve a future NP who spent clinical time helping out with RN tasks I already knew how to do instead of learning what I don't already know. Again, I agree with your concept, but often see it twisted to meet people's emotional needs. This isn't a matter of whether the role I am learning is thought of as a higher standing, I don't even think in those terms. I think in terms of what my future patients deserve for me to have made darn sure that I learn. And when I become a new NP it would not be wise for me to spend much time at all performing nursing tasks at which I am proficient instead of thinking through my patients' situations and trying my very best not to have overlooked important stuff.

To the OP: You are definitely in a tough spot. But it begs the question: Does your preceptor have a clear outline and understanding of what you are supposed to be doing/learning? Has your program provided material to preceptors outlining the learning concepts the rotation is attempting to achieve?

Are you conveying (through actions, questions, discussions with your preceptor) your learning goals? For example, does your preceptor know that you need practice at xyz procedure or more experience managing xyz type of patient situation?

Are you sticking closely with your preceptor or just kind of floating "out there" at the clinical site being available for whatever? Are you assessing your patients and presenting them to your preceptor and coming up with plans and reviewing them together etc., etc., or just racking through patient interactions as quickly as possible as if they are tasks? Are you mostly shadowing (ugh, I hope not)...?

JBMmom, MSN, NP · Mar 5, 2021

55 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

I sincerely can't imagine this.

You're right, guess part of this was my own fault. The reason I had time, intermittently, was because how my clinical rotations were set up. I was with the hospitalist admitting service and then the ED service and where I sat for both of those rotations was in the middle of the ED nursing station because there was no room in the provider offices. Because of that, when I saw the nurses needed something I would get up and help. There were nights where I was done with my patient admission or ED evaluation and then I didn't have access to other charts while I was waiting for the next patient for admission. I always felt like if I was sitting there doing research, I could be more help if I got up and did things.

1 hour ago, JKL33 said:

Beyond that I would respectfully disagree with the above.

You laid out your reasoning very well, and I know that the transition from RN to NP is going to be a challenge to me for the exact reasons that you wrote about. I fall back into the "task based" mindset at times and that's going to be something that I need to work on as I transition into the role of new NP. Going from a "do-er" to a "think-er" is going to be hard, but I'm so excited to make that transition. Thank you for laying that out very well.