I'm an OLD nurse, graduated from a BSN program 25 years ago. I see these posts about "my teacher did this" or "I want to be a nurse but....I don't want to do L&D etc", or "I got a new job but I will be charge nurse can I do it?" or "Why do nurses eat their young?" or "Am I being discriminated against?" on and on and on.....
I went to a 4 year college. My first year I did general classes that would lead me to nursing school, math, biology, chemistry, nutrition, psyc and human development etc...then the spring of my freshman year I applied to nursing school 72 were chosen out of 400.
My sophomore year in college it was game on, anatomy, physiology, microbiology, pharmacology, nursing 101, 102 (or whatever they were called) and some nursing clinical. We started out in a lab learning vital signs, making beds, general stuff I'd call CNA stuff..then quickly moved to a nursing home where we did those skills on real patients.
By the end of that year we were taking care of 1-2 hospital patients on a general medicine or med-surg or ortho floor during clinical hours. This was the days before computers. Our instructor would go on to the floor the day before and assign us 1-2 patients and that evening before clinical we would have to go to the floor and pour through the meds, the chart, the kardex and go home and prepare (pre-planning..we called it)...we had to have care plans ready, med cards ready (no cell phones to look up meds we had to look them up in a book and write them down on index cards) We had to have a plan and know how we were going to care for that patient, and we had to have in depth nursing care plans ready to go by 7am the next morning.
When we gave meds we had to have our instructor present, or sometimes the nurse overseeing the patient could watch, we had to chart, we had to do it. If you came to clinical without a starched white ironed uniform you were sent home. If you came unprepared you were sent home. If you had dirt under your fingernails you were sent home. If your shoes were not white enough you were sent home.. By junior year we were seeing 3-4 patients on a regular floor and less of course in specialty rotations.
We asked to do new things we had never done... If I had never inserted a foley I'd say to the nurses during morning conference, "If anyone has a foley/injection etc today could you let me know, I need the practice". It was a teaching hospital, they were good to help out. I practiced starting my first IVs and IM/SQ injections on each other in class and then got a little more practice in anatomy lab (we had human corpses in anatomy lab)...
We rotated through peds, psch, L&D, Ortho, OR, and ICUs that year. Our senior year was more to get us prepared; first semester I had to work with a nurse in the community for 24 hours a week, keep a journal and meet with her and my instructor weekly. I chose home health. Since she worked 8-5 I had to work 24 hours a week with her 8-5 that semester and work my other classes around that. Of course it was like with any other job in the beginning she did, I observed but by the end of the semester I was expected to be able to see her caseload, do all the necessary documentation and do what she did.
My second semester I had to pick something in the hospital, I chose peds. I worked with a nurse on the floor, again in the beginning I watched, then gradually she piled them on. I remember one day coming across a new med and I stopped to look it up, she asked me what I was doing and I told her...she told me "You have to become more efficient at this business because you can't be wasting all my time like this"...I was scared of her, but I learned so much, she taught me how to chart, how to give meds, carry a patient caseload.. I worked 8 hour nights with her again 24 hours a week was the assignment...I had to keep that journal and have weekly meetings with her and my instructor. OH and by the way in the last month of clinical if she was in charge...I was in charge...Of course she was always there to back me up for everything and she had to watch me get meds ready to give, I had to tell her how I was going to give them, and if it were IV meds or IVP meds she had to be present.
I guess what I'm saying is I don't know how nursing schools operate these days, but I hear so much whining and complaining on these nursing threads...and nurses are afraid of the new grads because they don't know anything...when I graduated after a 2 week orientation at my new hospital (I started out in peds) I was ready to take on my own assignment of 6 patients. After 6-8 months I was confident as a charge nurse. What's happening to our nursing schools and how nurses are educated?
Is it that there are so many more meds and technology has advanced so much after 25 years that it's not possible any more? Don't get me wrong...nursing school was 4 years of HELL..we didn't have computers, I had to type my papers on a old electric typewriter, I had to spend lots of time with my nose in books researching and learning...but it seems we have a different caliber of nurses coming out of nursing schools these days..Or do we?? Am I missing the mark? I'm just curious...
Your description of what happened with the student reminded me so much of a patient I saw recently in the ER. She had tripped over an uneven spot of pavement and sprained her ankle. X-rays of her ankle, foot and tib-fib all negative. But from the moment she arrived (by ambulance) she was dramatic, morose way out of proportion to what had occurred, and outright abusive. All of my attempts to reassure her that the injury was minor and could be managed with a week or so of pain control, use of crutches and rest were met with tears, yelling, and anger. And then the kicker: she said (and yes, this is a direct quote), "YOU ACT LIKE THIS IS JUST SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED AND I SHOULD JUST DEAL WITH IT. YOU HAVE A REALLY BAD ATTITUDE" And she threw the cup of ice I had given her across the room, as an exclamation point. (presumably to demonstrate MY bad attitude )
Whatever happened to people being happy that things aren't as serious as they might have been? If I thought I had a broken ankle, I would be jumping for joy (figuratively, of course) that it was just a sprain. Good grief.
I can vouch for the sentiment that not all modern nursing programs are NCLEX mills. My program does a decent job of balancing old school and new school. Much of what you described in your nursing education has been echoed in mine - so much so that for a moment I had a difficult time understanding why you perceived such a difference.
I agree with some of the nurses and nursing students on here about laziness and sense of entitlement is not pertained just to "our" generation, there will always be people like that of all ages. Yeah, I would agree there is probably more in this generation of new grads, but where does this stem from? It came from parents who grew up after the Great Depression and did not know the meaning of "having" nothing. Believe me, my grandma told me all about it (she was a child during this and would go days without food and had to drop of school to help with making money for the family, she was also in grade school!). And she told me I think the parents of my generation screwed it up by wanting our kids to have everything, because we grew up having nothing and I don't want my kid to go through what I had to. If you want to know where these "attitudes" come from, look at these parents demanding their kids get straight A's with them putting no effort in them, spoiling them rotten and then being surprised the act like rotten brats or demanding that Jimmy get a trophy just as glamorous for his 255th place, compared to the kid who worked his butt off who got 1st (These parents are in their 30's and 40's!). What is this telling the kids in my generation and future? There are still hardworking individuals part of "my" generation that were not given everything and still played outside as kids with sticks and rocks (oh yeah I did that!). The student who got stuck with that needle was a mistake, but don't act like you have never made a mistake. Were human, we make mistakes, it happens. I wish you were more worried about her future health when she stuck herself then filling out paperwork.
dudette10, MSN, RN
3,530 Posts
Whatever happened to people being happy that things aren't as serious as they might have been? If I thought I had a broken ankle, I would be jumping for joy (figuratively, of course) that it was just a sprain. Good grief.