I'm currently in the clinical portion of my nursing program and I have a question for the nurses. We're there to help them and learn and 90% of the time we get brushed off. I've had several experiences with this as have other students in my class. At a LTC facility we were told by the Nursing Manager that the staff loved having nurses and when we got on the floor they treated us like garbage. For example there was an aide that needed help getting a patient into bed and I offered because there was no one else around and she tells me that she doesn't want to break her back for me to get experience. Mind you I had worked in a hospital previously and had lift training so I know how to properly lift a patient. I tell her that I know how so she reluctantly lets me help her. Well when we lift the patient she does nothing so I'm strugling to keep the patient up as she tells me what to do. This patient weighed over 200 lbs. When I set the patient in the bed she grabs her legs an throws them up on the bed and says to me that's why I wanted someone who knew what they were doing. I thought to myself you let go and you're the one who didn't to break your back but I guess getting my back broke is ok because I'm just a student.
Right now we are currently in a hospital annd it's the same thing. The Nurse Manager comes in during orientation and tells us how the staff loves the students. We get on the floor and they won't let us do things that were allowed to even when we ask, if we tell them a patient needs something they look at us like we're from another planet, and we've asked them to let us do procedures that we need for check-offs and they do them anyways. We've been yelled at by the unit coordinator on several occasions for talking by her when we were getting our room assignments of the grease board and several nurses have told us not to bother the patients because we've gone to them to tell them that the patients need something. The only time they love us is when there short staffed and they need vital signs on their patients or someone needs to be cleaned up which we don't mind doing but if they have an accucheck or a IV d/c then they have no time for us. The floor we're currently on now has 4 out of 12 nurses that actually treat us like equals and are willing to show us things. It just seems to me that these nurses have forgotten what it's like to be in school and the things that are required of you in the clinical setting to pass. They also have forgotten that these nursing students that they are treating so badly could possibly be co-workers in a few months.
So the question is why do nurses treat students this way? We are there to help and I know that not every nurse is this way but it gives not only a bad impression of how the profession is but also how these facilities are representd.
Somehow this turned into a rant. If you read this far thanks.
Specializes in CCRN-CMC-CSC: CTICU, MICU, SICU, TRAUMA.
If a baby girl has a member cross out the "girl", write "boy", and don't make a speech about how you just saved the world. The family would have figured it out at the first diaper change anyway.
If you do paperwork and affix fall risk bracelets while your patient struggles to breathe we WILL crab at you about tunnel vision.
BUT, it doesn't mean you won't grow into an excellent nurse, so long as we let you live through the "perfection because I followed the book" stage.
Actually, I assess and reasess and rechart on my patients IN ADDITION to treating shortness of breath, if you can imagine that...and actually, believe it or not, taking care of details does not interfere with the holistic treatment nor the prioritization...at least not in my case.
As far as the fall risk... it's not that I took care of it (this is a common example) where another nurse did not, during a code (as you may suggest). It is that I rescored the assessment which is not subjective, after a nurse the day before did actually complete it. You are either polypharmacy or you are not. You are either over 65 or you are not. You are either attached to equipment (IV pole, monitoring, etc. or you are not). Some nurses (BY NO MEANS ALL NURSES...I admit it is a minority for sure) often don't want to be bothered to do things... so they under-score the assessment so they don't have to bother with the high risk protocol. Mind you anyone familiar with the scale can score, chart, sign-off, bracelet and sock a patient in under three minutes flat... about the same time it takes to trade recipes at the nurse's station... but that's another issue. If you thought through this and played the tape through to the end, so to speak, you may realize that, although a seemingly minor thing, when the patient is rescored correctly three days later in an ICU by a thorough nurse and the bracelet does go on his/her wrist...he/she is then left to wonder why he/she is a fall risk now rather than on admission. Now the patient can figure he/she is deteriorating and wonder what it is he/she is not being told. That's just great psychosocially, don't you think? But then if the patient is assured that nothing's changed regarding this issue and they should have had the bracelet on at admission it leaves the patient to wonder what else is being missed...that they haven't been throughly evaluated, etc. That's great too... don't you think? You're right... perfectly harmless!!!
As far as the baby's gender mistake... no, I am not bragging about saving the world. When the dad passes the window and sees his son with a card stating "Baby Girl So-and-So" he has legitimate reason to question the care his infant is receiving. That was a BAD mistake. Sure it happens... as innocently as wrong-sided surgery. Things like this are why we have "time-outs" before wrong-sided surgeries occur...to prevent them... and guess what?... wrong-sided surgeries still occur (and lots of them) because staff aren't doing them as they should be done as per protocol... they're just checking off the paperwork... often after the procedure... just like getting consent from patients while they are on versed or doing MRSA swabs deliberately lightly in such as way as to ensure a negative result so as not to "have to gown up every friggen time" the nurse has to go into a positive patient's room. Play that tape through to the end... if the nurse that doesn't want to "gown up every friggin time" does the first swab to ensure a negative... and then the thorough "goodie-two-shoes" nurse comes on shift on the day of weekly MRSA screening... guess what... the positive that should have been picked up on admission, the actual community acquired MRSA, is now a... guess what... nosocomial infection. HMOs are ramping up to not cover the cost of stay after nosocomial infections. JCAHO is all over this. So then you have one nurse potentially costing the hospital tens of thousands of dollars in non-reimbursed care... but that's worth it because the nurses didn't have to gown, right?
Back to the baby gender mistake... studies clearly show that patient's that feel they have been treated thoroughly and carefully are less likely to sue regardless of malpractice issues or honest mistakes. Nurses are on the front line of prevention here because they spend the most time interfacing with the patient. Patients do not have the ability to accurately assess the level of care they received. But they do know when they baby boy is thought by staff to be a girl... so... in that instance... if this particular baby went "bad" in the neonatal unit... there would be a much greater likelihood of legal recourse given dad knew his baby was gender-misidentified. That mistake could be the deciding factor of whether he would pursue legal action. Harmless mistake? ... Maybe not so simple...
Yes, if a new nurse is not prioritizing or getting his/her stuff done in order of importance... that's surely a problem. But often the real problem is senior nurses who cut corners get ticked off by younger nurses who come in and do things the right way because it illuminates how sloppy they have become...so they get defensive and transfer that right back onto the other nurse.
Excellence is a habit. When corners are cut in one area, they are cut in another. You are either meticulous or not. People aren't usually meticulous in one aspect of care and sloppy in another. It's habitual. I think nurses set their own standards... and if I may be brazen enough to say in my inexperience... I bet these individual standarads have a heckuvalot to do with outcomes.
Nurses are stressed to the max and students add to the stress. What is really amazing is my former students now treat current students that way!!! People are people I guess.
Actually, I assess and reasess and rechart on my patients IN ADDITION to treating shortness of breath, if you can imagine that...and actually, believe it or not, taking care of details does not interfere with the holistic treatment nor the prioritization...at least not in my case.
As far as the fall risk... it's not that I took care of it (this is a common example) where another nurse did not, during a code (as you may suggest). It is that I rescored the assessment which is not subjective, after a nurse the day before did actually complete it. You are either polypharmacy or you are not. You are either over 65 or you are not. You are either attached to equipment (IV pole, monitoring, etc. or you are not). Some nurses (BY NO MEANS ALL NURSES...I admit it is a minority for sure) often don't want to be bothered to do things... so they under-score the assessment so they don't have to bother with the high risk protocol. Mind you anyone familiar with the scale can score, chart, sign-off, bracelet and sock a patient in under three minutes flat... about the same time it takes to trade recipes at the nurse's station... but that's another issue. If you thought through this and played the tape through to the end, so to speak, you may realize that, although a seemingly minor thing, when the patient is rescored correctly three days later in an ICU by a thorough nurse and the bracelet does go on his/her wrist...he/she is then left to wonder why he/she is a fall risk now rather than on admission. Now the patient can figure he/she is deteriorating and wonder what it is he/she is not being told. That's just great psychosocially, don't you think? But then if the patient is assured that nothing's changed regarding this issue and they should have had the bracelet on at admission it leaves the patient to wonder what else is being missed...that they haven't been throughly evaluated, etc. That's great too... don't you think? You're right... perfectly harmless!!!
As far as the baby's gender mistake... no, I am not bragging about saving the world. When the dad passes the window and sees his son with a card stating "Baby Girl So-and-So" he has legitimate reason to question the care his infant is receiving. That was a BAD mistake. Sure it happens... as innocently as wrong-sided surgery. Things like this are why we have "time-outs" before wrong-sided surgeries occur...to prevent them... and guess what?... wrong-sided surgeries still occur (and lots of them) because staff aren't doing them as they should be done as per protocol... they're just checking off the paperwork... often after the procedure... just like getting consent from patients while they are on versed or doing MRSA swabs deliberately lightly in such as way as to ensure a negative result so as not to "have to gown up every friggen time" the nurse has to go into a positive patient's room. Play that tape through to the end... if the nurse that doesn't want to "gown up every friggin time" does the first swab to ensure a negative... and then the thorough "goodie-two-shoes" nurse comes on shift on the day of weekly MRSA screening... guess what... the positive that should have been picked up on admission, the actual community acquired MRSA, is now a... guess what... nosocomial infection. HMOs are ramping up to not cover the cost of stay after nosocomial infections. JCAHO is all over this. So then you have one nurse potentially costing the hospital tens of thousands of dollars in non-reimbursed care... but that's worth it because the nurses didn't have to gown, right?
Back to the baby gender mistake... studies clearly show that patient's that feel they have been treated thoroughly and carefully are less likely to sue regardless of malpractice issues or honest mistakes. Nurses are on the front line of prevention here because they spend the most time interfacing with the patient. Patients do not have the ability to accurately assess the level of care they received. But they do know when they baby boy is thought by staff to be a girl... so... in that instance... if this particular baby went "bad" in the neonatal unit... there would be a much greater likelihood of legal recourse given dad knew his baby was gender-misidentified. That mistake could be the deciding factor of whether he would pursue legal action. Harmless mistake? ... Maybe not so simple...
Yes, if a new nurse is not prioritizing or getting his/her stuff done in order of importance... that's surely a problem. But often the real problem is senior nurses who cut corners get ticked off by younger nurses who come in and do things the right way because it illuminates how sloppy they have become...so they get defensive and transfer that right back onto the other nurse.
Excellence is a habit. When corners are cut in one area, they are cut in another. You are either meticulous or not. People aren't usually meticulous in one aspect of care and sloppy in another. It's habitual. I think nurses set their own standards... and if I may be brazen enough to say in my inexperience... I bet these individual standarads have a heckuvalot to do with outcomes.
WOW,WOW,,,,,,what more can be said!
May I say that I hope the anger that shows here is short lived. I can relate to your feelings but may I say that if this is how u feel in ur "inexperience" how soon will u feel when u r experienced?
I may not know much but what I can tell u is that change comes one step at a time. Try being a advocate for change and this may be the venue for ur frustration and help the situations u so vividly detailed improve!
yeah, when i was in nursing school we had clinical in a med-surg unit! 2 of the nurses had attitudes and one of the two was really out of line, just to ask her a simple question she gave attitude, i think when they see student nurses they like to show off, as if you're below them, but hello! we're the ones who will be taking their postions when they're retiring lol!! don't worry about it, i had rude staff nurses, instructors and fellow students! i just laugh it off, cause its so unnecessary and childlike!!
Specializes in CCRN-CMC-CSC: CTICU, MICU, SICU, TRAUMA.
WOW,WOW,,,,,,what more can be said!
May I say that I hope the anger that shows here is short lived. I can relate to your feelings but may I say that if this is how u feel in ur "inexperience" how soon will u feel when u r experienced?
I may not know much but what I can tell u is that change comes one step at a time. Try being a advocate for change and this may be the venue for ur frustration and help the situations u so vividly detailed improve!
I do agree with you... and I do believe if anyone isn't part of the solution then they are part of the problem. Baby steps make big change... and being a change agent is imperative... so your suggestions are well accepted. I know the onus of change is incumbent on me as well. And I also acknowledge, as said in other responses, that this is all a symptom of a poor system. I do also acknowlege that some students have horrendous attitudes and shouldn't be in nursing from how they behave either. So, it certainly goes both ways. I haven't complained about my issues at work because I try to be positive when at work and leave my personal issues behind and do the best with the situation at hand. So I am glad to have found allnurses.com so I can anonymously vent and not add fuel to the fire on my unit. Management is hoping to change the culture on my unit and has told me it is the new group of nurses that are going to help with that. We'll see how it goes... but everyone, including management, and me, is aware that this is going to be a long process. As mentioned previously, my unit is known as the pit by other units, which is why they have so many openings and half the unit, at least, is agency. I'm going to stick it out, for a while at least, hold my standard, and try to work with rather than against the problems. But thanks for the reminder...it is much appreciated.
I know that we shouldn't think that the nurses are greatful that we are there. Everytime we've had a problem with staff we tell the instructor and she says that she'll take care of it. They have also seen this happen to us and have come to our defense when this happens. The way I see it though is that even if we were a co worker and this happened we shouldn't run to the higher ups to complain about every single thing. I'm more than willing to stand up for myself and have but it's a double edge sword you stand up for yourself they're even nastier and then they turn around and report you to their manager about how the students are being rude to the staff (this has happened in the past to several students).
As for the clinical sites in Tampa yes there are alot but I'm currently in a LPN program so the RN programs have first pick then us and several hospials won't allow us to do clinicals because "there's no need to allow them to train at our facility if we don't hire them when they're licensed" (at least that's what we've been told). I'll just be glad when I can start my RN program and go to different facilities.
Of course you shouldn't report every single thing. But if you are being "yelled at" and "treated like garbage". That's a problem.
I'm not that far out of nursing school myself (May 07' grad). I actually just got my license about a month ago.
That being said, I did clinicals at hospitals all over my area. I had good experiences with the staff for the most part, and very few bad ones. The bad ones actually played into my decision to not accept a job offer on the offender's unit (the manager offered me a job, but I declined). I won't go into the details, but my leadership experience sucked thanks to the LPNs that I was working with! I actually posted about it a while back and got reamed here on the forums...in retrospect I stand by my feelings at the time.
Right now I'm working at a teaching hospital. It's a cool gig and we get clinical groups every other week or so. I work midnights so my experience with them is limited. However there is an evening group of students (from my old school too!). They come in and stays until 11pm or midnight. I don't really mind have students with my patients, and it is actually kind of fun to let them know tips and the tricks of the trade. Like I said, I'm fresh out of school and I definitely remember what it is like, especially because we went to the same school.
However I have had a few incidents that I find mildly annoying. I was trying to get this patient's pre-op checklist done and their paperwork in order to go to a surgery. The pre-op unit had called and said, "hey is So-and-so ready for surgery?" This was at 7:15, about 15 minutes into my shift, and the nurse giving me report forgot to mention that the patient was going to surgery. No big deal, but I was running around trying to get everything in order because the transporter was standing there waiting while I was dicking around with the chart, checking the patient's wristbands, etc.
Right in the middle of all that, this student came up to me and said, "Patient X in room 555 is asking for something for pain." I said, "Okay, thanks."
I got the paperwork finished and got the patient loaded up for transport in 2 minutes flat. Then I heard the tele alarm going off and noticed that this patient on tele had a heartrate of 135 and it looked A-Fibbish. I was heading for that room when the student caught me again (this was literally 2 minutes later), "I don't know if you heard me, but Patient X said his pain is at a 3 out of 5 and he wants something." I affirmed that I had indeed heard her. I took care of the tele thing really quick and speed walked into the med-room.
I decided that while I was getting this patient his pain med, I'd go ahead and give his 8 o clock meds as well, since my night was already getting off to a busy start, better get as much done as possible. As I was getting everything together, the student nurse popped her head into the room...
Student-"I just wanted to let you know Patient X didn't get that pain med yet, and he's not the type to wait!"
Me-(biting my lip hard, taking a deep breath, then saying as calmly as possibly)"Okay, I know, I'm getting it. This is the third time you've told me."
It really took several ounces of self control not to say something nasty.
The other incident involved this 300 lb lady I was helping this student ambulate. The 300 lb lady decided that she wasn't going to be able to make it to the chair, too weak. The nursing student looked like a deer caught in headlights, she was obviously unsure of how to proceed. So I started coaching the patient, "Left foot forward, good...now your right foot...good...keep your hands on the walker and hang on..." The student decided that this would be a good time to start arguing the finer points of the three point gait/four point gait. Meanwhile, this 300 lb lady is getting out of breath with about 2 steps left to be able to make it to her chair. I wanted to kill that student for picking that moment to argue with me about which foot should be going forward first when ambulating with a walker!! We were about 5 seconds from being crushed and having a patient on the floor.
I admit, I can't imagine why anyone would be sharp with newbies now that you've explained it all.
Excellence is a habit. When corners are cut in one area, they are cut in another. You are either meticulous or not. People aren't usually meticulous in one aspect of care and sloppy in another. It's habitual. I think nurses set their own standards... and if I may be brazen enough to say in my inexperience... I bet these individual standarads have a heckuvalot to do with outcomes.
Whew! I feel like we've been reprimanded by the Miss Manners of Nursing .
Teach your students properly while they are supernumery or you will have to teach them when you don't have extra staff on hand. I know which I'd prefer.
My hospital is not truly a "teaching hospital" in that we're not associated with a medical school and we don't have any residents or interns. Occasionally an individual doctor decides to take on a fellow in his/her practice, but that is not the norm at my hospital. Yet, we still get nursing students. So sometimes it's not a matter of knowing that you'll have students because you've chosen to work at a teaching hospital.
I personally really enjoy having nursing students most of the time. I like the company, which seems ridiculous, but it's true. I also like to have help with things like ADLs because sometimes I feel like I"m really too busy with the patient that's crashing next door to help the other patient brush his teeth and comb is hair. I appreciate having a student to help me with these details. I also love having students when I have more interesting things to do, like changing out a trach or putting in foleys or stuff like that. I remember feeling like I never got to do anything in nursing school except bed baths (and god that got old) so I like to find stuff for students to do.
That being said, I really resent it when nursing instructors drop their students off in my unit and say, "Oh your nurse will supervise you all day." Helping a student out with procedures and things like that is one thing, but supervising all aspects of their performance and care for the whole day is too much. I'm much too busy to do something like that, and it's not my job. It's the nursing instructor's job to supervise her students. I especially hate it when the instructor drops off her students, leaves the unit, and then swings by at the end of the day for an evaluation of the student's performance.
The issue I have with nursing students stems more from their instructors assuming that I am going to take the place of the instructor, rather than the students themselves.
I've noticed as a patient, volunteer, student, mother to sick child and visitor... a lot of the staff are short with just about EVERYONE (myself included)... not just student nurses. I've been treated like crap as a patient... I've been undervalued as a volunteer....I've been underestimated as a student, and I've been in the way as a visitor and mom.
Whether this is the case... or it's my perception of things, I guess I don't know. It just seems that everyone could take a step back and re-evaluate things from a new perspective. Maybe cut each other some slack and treat each other with respect.
I don't think it's nurses vs. students. I think it's people vs. people. Overworked, overtired, underpaid, and truly needing a change - PEOPLE in general.
.
NoviceToExpert
103 Posts
Actually, I assess and reasess and rechart on my patients IN ADDITION to treating shortness of breath, if you can imagine that...and actually, believe it or not, taking care of details does not interfere with the holistic treatment nor the prioritization...at least not in my case.
As far as the fall risk... it's not that I took care of it (this is a common example) where another nurse did not, during a code (as you may suggest). It is that I rescored the assessment which is not subjective, after a nurse the day before did actually complete it. You are either polypharmacy or you are not. You are either over 65 or you are not. You are either attached to equipment (IV pole, monitoring, etc. or you are not). Some nurses (BY NO MEANS ALL NURSES...I admit it is a minority for sure) often don't want to be bothered to do things... so they under-score the assessment so they don't have to bother with the high risk protocol. Mind you anyone familiar with the scale can score, chart, sign-off, bracelet and sock a patient in under three minutes flat... about the same time it takes to trade recipes at the nurse's station... but that's another issue. If you thought through this and played the tape through to the end, so to speak, you may realize that, although a seemingly minor thing, when the patient is rescored correctly three days later in an ICU by a thorough nurse and the bracelet does go on his/her wrist...he/she is then left to wonder why he/she is a fall risk now rather than on admission. Now the patient can figure he/she is deteriorating and wonder what it is he/she is not being told. That's just great psychosocially, don't you think? But then if the patient is assured that nothing's changed regarding this issue and they should have had the bracelet on at admission it leaves the patient to wonder what else is being missed...that they haven't been throughly evaluated, etc. That's great too... don't you think? You're right... perfectly harmless!!!
As far as the baby's gender mistake... no, I am not bragging about saving the world. When the dad passes the window and sees his son with a card stating "Baby Girl So-and-So" he has legitimate reason to question the care his infant is receiving. That was a BAD mistake. Sure it happens... as innocently as wrong-sided surgery. Things like this are why we have "time-outs" before wrong-sided surgeries occur...to prevent them... and guess what?... wrong-sided surgeries still occur (and lots of them) because staff aren't doing them as they should be done as per protocol... they're just checking off the paperwork... often after the procedure... just like getting consent from patients while they are on versed or doing MRSA swabs deliberately lightly in such as way as to ensure a negative result so as not to "have to gown up every friggen time" the nurse has to go into a positive patient's room. Play that tape through to the end... if the nurse that doesn't want to "gown up every friggin time" does the first swab to ensure a negative... and then the thorough "goodie-two-shoes" nurse comes on shift on the day of weekly MRSA screening... guess what... the positive that should have been picked up on admission, the actual community acquired MRSA, is now a... guess what... nosocomial infection. HMOs are ramping up to not cover the cost of stay after nosocomial infections. JCAHO is all over this. So then you have one nurse potentially costing the hospital tens of thousands of dollars in non-reimbursed care... but that's worth it because the nurses didn't have to gown, right?
Back to the baby gender mistake... studies clearly show that patient's that feel they have been treated thoroughly and carefully are less likely to sue regardless of malpractice issues or honest mistakes. Nurses are on the front line of prevention here because they spend the most time interfacing with the patient. Patients do not have the ability to accurately assess the level of care they received. But they do know when they baby boy is thought by staff to be a girl... so... in that instance... if this particular baby went "bad" in the neonatal unit... there would be a much greater likelihood of legal recourse given dad knew his baby was gender-misidentified. That mistake could be the deciding factor of whether he would pursue legal action. Harmless mistake? ... Maybe not so simple...
Yes, if a new nurse is not prioritizing or getting his/her stuff done in order of importance... that's surely a problem. But often the real problem is senior nurses who cut corners get ticked off by younger nurses who come in and do things the right way because it illuminates how sloppy they have become...so they get defensive and transfer that right back onto the other nurse.
Excellence is a habit. When corners are cut in one area, they are cut in another. You are either meticulous or not. People aren't usually meticulous in one aspect of care and sloppy in another. It's habitual. I think nurses set their own standards... and if I may be brazen enough to say in my inexperience... I bet these individual standarads have a heckuvalot to do with outcomes.