Looking for advice!

[ktlaporta]

Hello everyone i would really like some advice.

I am currently in a situation i have never in, a little about me i am in an asn program and i am currently in my third semester taking med sur 2 and ob/peds. A little about the instructor she is very smart but sometimes all the lights are not on upstairs. she is fantastic at explainning topics discussed in class. well she is also my clinical instructor, when were in clinical she is complete disorganized and has no clue what is going on. we do total care and well all she cares that we do is bathe the patient and take vital signs she could care less about any actual nursing experiences. My whole group is feeling really unprepared for our last semester because she will not let us do anything. well this brings us to the situation on hand.

i met with my patient, his wife told me in the morning that she would give him the bath went along with vital signs and moved onto the next patient. well before this the tech that took me forever to find told me she dosent do double work and wanted to know what rooms we had as im telling her she walks away. well then i go on my way find the other tech and she was amazing! well about noon im going to get my patients chem sticks and vital signs and here comes the mean tech and she jumps me in the hall way yelling at me after it told her what was going on she just kept yelling well i go down to my patients room and as i start to talk to him again he has a seziure i get the nurse and heres this tech with a random nurse well after all this she comes in with the vital machine and bumps in the my should. i excused my self from the room to let them do there thing. well my instructor asked me what happened i explained to her how the tech was acting then she goes in there and calls me in to do the chem stick. well after this we go to lunch and come and she tells me to find this tech about the bath situation and to talk to my patient. well i go to see if my patients wife was still going to bath him and i knock open the door and there is 4 guest in there so i said oh excuse me and closed the door. went to search for the tech to talk to her about the situation and she is no where to be found. well during my search i am told we are leaving. so we leave, well now i have an email from my teacher who says we need to discuss this situation because she followed up with the tech and the family and then she saw the tech go in the room with linnens and a basin and that the tech complained about me.

so now i have to meet with her and i have no idea what she will do. in the past she has clinically failed people for this. i mean i have worked very hard to be in the program and stay in it i have never had any bad marks from my instructors they all enjoy me. this tech was no where to be found the whole day i had to have the other tech help me with other things with my patient. some of the tech on the floor think we are there to do there job only. we are there to help lighten there load and learn something from nurses. i just would like some adivice on what i should say to my instructor. thank you and have a great evening.

[mrsboots87]

I wasn't there, but what I gather is that you doesn't more time looking for help then actually providing care. I mean this sincerely and don't mean to be antagonistic, but it sounds like you need more work on prioritizing and managing your work load. You are in 3rd semester. You don't need a tech to help you provide basic care. If a patient needs a bath, don't just let the wife say they will do it and walk away. Go get the fresh linens, the bath blanket, the basin and soap. Let the wife know you will check in shortly to see if it was done or if she needs help. If it's not done in day and hour then offer for yourself to do it. I am sure you were taught bed baths in thirst semester. This is a task you can do without a tech. You can even do it with the wife in the room if there is concern since the patient was a male. Unless you are male too, then there isn't really an issue. When vitals need to get done, go get the vital cart and do them. Need an assessment, just go do it. The only things you can't do without a nurse are invasive procedures and med passes. As for the grumpy tech, they may have been having a bad day. They don't need to be rude about it, but you don't know if maybe a patient just ripped them a new one, or they are behind on their tasks already. Most techs know that when students are on the floor, they are responsible for their assigned patients basic care. It is not uncommon for them to ask who your patient is so they know they will be needed in that room less. She probably complained because she assumed you would get the vitals, basic care, and bath done and you did not get the bath done that she is now responsible for. It would irritate me as well. Time to start planning your day better. And when a task needs to be done, make time for it. I bet that patient would like to have been cleaned up before his visitors came. Also, when the patient had a seizure, don't leave the room when the nurse and tech come in. This is a good learning experience to see how the nurse handles the situation. Offer to help. If there is nothing you can help with then become a fly on the wall and just observe.

As as for your instructor, she is rightfully upset. We all have bad days. I have had a day or two in clinical where I didn't get all my tasks done because I didn't prioritize well and I was given warnings to do better next time and talked to about it. It happens. Just go in and be receptive to the instructor criticism and offer that you will be more proactive next time and explain what caused you to not complete your tasks. If you argue about the tech, or find blame in other people or blame the situation in general, things will not go well. When you are a nurse, "the tech was rude and didn't help me" won't suffice for an answer if care is not care is not completed as ALL care is ultimately the nurses responsibility to either complete or ensure is completed. GL

[ktlaporta]

I wasn't there, but what I gather is that you doesn't more time looking for help then actually providing care. I mean this sincerely and don't mean to be antagonistic, but it sounds like you need more work on prioritizing and managing your work load. You are in 3rd semester. You don't need a tech to help you provide basic care. If a patient needs a bath, don't just let the wife say they will do it and walk away. Go get the fresh linens, the bath blanket, the basin and soap. Let the wife know you will check in shortly to see if it was done or if she needs help. If it's not done in day and hour then offer for yourself to do it. I am sure you were taught bed baths in thirst semester. This is a task you can do without a tech. You can even do it with the wife in the room if there is concern since the patient was a male. Unless you are male too, then there isn't really an issue. When vitals need to get done, go get the vital cart and do them. Need an assessment, just go do it. The only things you can't do without a nurse are invasive procedures and med passes. As for the grumpy tech, they may have been having a bad day. They don't need to be rude about it, but you don't know if maybe a patient just ripped them a new one, or they are behind on their tasks already. Most techs know that when students are on the floor, they are responsible for their assigned patients basic care. It is not uncommon for them to ask who your patient is so they know they will be needed in that room less. She probably complained because she assumed you would get the vitals, basic care, and bath done and you did not get the bath done that she is now responsible for. It would irritate me as well. Time to start planning your day better. And when a task needs to be done, make time for it. I bet that patient would like to have been cleaned up before his visitors came. Also, when the patient had a seizure, don't leave the room when the nurse and tech come in. This is a good learning experience to see how the nurse handles the situation. Offer to help. If there is nothing you can help with then become a fly on the wall and just observe.

As as for your instructor, she is rightfully upset. We all have bad days. I have had a day or two in clinical where I didn't get all my tasks done because I didn't prioritize well and I was given warnings to do better next time and talked to about it. It happens. Just go in and be receptive to the instructor criticism and offer that you will be more proactive next time and explain what caused you to not complete your tasks. If you argue about the tech, or find blame in other people or blame the situation in general, things will not go well. When you are a nurse, "the tech was rude and didn't help me" won't suffice for an answer if care is not care is not completed as ALL care is ultimately the nurses responsibility to either complete or ensure is completed. GL

Thank you for your advice I know I need to improve on my time management but I did get all the vital signs and chem sticks and everything else done on all my patients. This tech just started to yell at me when I told her what was going on. I know I could have brought in clean linens and all the materials which I should have done. The other patients I had that day were more priority then he was. I was almost learning new procedures the entire morning. I know this tech jumped down my throat for other reasons. When the I excuses my self from the room was bc there were 3 nurses and 4 visitors and me and the tech so I thought it was necessary to get out of The way since they are very small rooms.

Thank you for responding I plan on telling my instructor that I am sorry for any communication errors that happened between me and tech and I have never had this happen before. I also will tell her where I can improve. I just dont appreciate the tech who yelled at me Infront of everyone and when I tried to talk to her in a calm manner continued to be nasty. I have no problem do anything my patient needs and checking on them but. But at the same time I'm there to learn and if we get busy with learning something on our other patients it would be nice for the tech to realize this as well.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

another choice is to let family know what needs to be done and ask them to go get coffee and visit while you take care of the patient. If you make your request patient-centered, it goes over better.

[ktlaporta]

an update, i spoke to my instructor and all is well. i started telling her where i went wrong and what i could change and she said that was fine and do it next time. The real issue she wanted to talk about was why the tech said things about me and if we had a disagreement or something of the sort, because the tech went to the family saying i had falsified documentation on the patient and some other comments about me in general. My instructor soon came to the conclusion of what was going on and asked the family who then said that the tech did say this and that about me. My adivice from her was to keep my head down and if i see the tech to just turn around and that she did inform the floor manager of what the tech was trying to do. which in turn did make my clinical day a lot harder when no one wanted to answer my questions, but i got through it and only one more day and were off to a new place.

so thank you for the advice and ways i can improve in, which i think my instructor was very pleased when i admitted what i could have done better. I guess it just came down to the tech not being happy with me and she went the wrong way about things and my instructor wanted me to be informed.