LAZY?!

[chinacatSN]

At the end of every week, we have to post what we did, what we learned, and how we felt about the clinical experience from that week. Then, the instructor replies back and tells us how she thinks we did.

Last week, I had 2 patients assigned to me on Monday (med-surg). I prelabbed and finished my careplan except for the nursing diagnoses because I like to spend some time with my patients to make sure they fit. Get to clinical site Tuesday @ 0600 and both of my patients were dismissed the night before. So, my instructor gives me one of the other student's patients so we each have one patient and everyone else has two. Went home Tuesday night and did as much of the careplan for my new patient as I could (all except 2 nursing diagnoses and interventions for them). Came to clinical next day, received a new admission. New admission was young, independent, and only had IV meds so I couldn't really do much with that. I did all of my tasks - bath, linen change, med pass, assessment, VS, everything I could possibly do and then I went to finish my careplan. None of the other students needed help, nothing was going on, so I wasn't missing out on anything and my instructor has never said anything to anyone about working on our careplans in our downtime.

When she replied to my weekly post, she said that I need to "Keep on displaying a positive attitude toward learning & make it your personal challenge to seek out opportunities and not be complacent to just sit in the breakroom."

I replied back and explained that I hope she wasn't thinking I was lazy by being in the breakroom - I had finished all my tasks, asked other nurses/student nurses/CNAs if they needed any help or had any procedures that needed done, etc. so I felt that I could work on my careplan for a few minutes during my downtime. I look at the time frequently whenever I'm in the breakroom (which isn't often!) and I was only in there for 7 minutes. That's it. I also only had one (very easy) patient on the first day and two (very easy) patients on the second day - compared to the other students who had 2 patients both days and had a lot of things going on. It was actually a little depressing and disappointing to me because I'm usually the one who is very busy and never sitting down - which I like - and the one time I'm NOT busy and try to work on my careplan, I get snipped at for it. I just don't understand it at all. I'm known in my class as the student who goes above and beyond the call of duty. I guess it feels like - as students - we're expected to be perfect, which is upsetting when the nurses we're working with aren't perfect. They're sitting on their butts while we're running around and getting quizzed q5mins, but then we get reprimanded for the tiniest little things. I just don't understand. My instructor wonders why we're all burnt out - I think most of us are just to the point of "Why bother?" because nothing we do is good enough.

Was I being lazy? Any suggestions?

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

I think the instructor worded her reply to you very nicely and wasn't snippy at all. :) There is nothing in her response that implies she thinks you are lazy. In fact, I read it the exact opposite. I think she knows you are a hard worker, but maybe she's seen you and other students start to lose excitement and energy in clinicals, and she's giving you guys a little boot to the tush to make sure that you stay on your toes.

You already sent her an email about it, but I wouldn't have. What's done is done. Every clinical instructor I've ever had identified areas of strength and areas of weakness in responses. Don't become defensive about them because it can change the instructor/student relationship. Even if you don't agree that a weakness pointed out to you was truly a weakness, just reflect on it, and see where you might be able to improve.

If you were in a toxic program, maybe I would think of things differently. But, just through the wording of her reply to you, it sounds like a supportive program, or at least a supportive instructor.

Good luck to you.