Magnet hospital = nursing excellence, sooo.....

[ceecel.dee, MSN, RN]

One of our clinical sites is a magnet hospital. I thought this would be so wonderful for our students! The retention and continuing nursing practice excellence would make for great modeling, mentoring and learning!

I was wrong. The staff, by and large, do not even recognize the students as being present on the floor! I am right there with them, and thought that after the staff became accustomed to my style and comfortable with my competence, they would warm up just a bit, would happily hand off procedures (d/c IV's, straight cath, enema, d/c NG, check residuals and flush PEG's, etc.) or consider the students when learning experiences occur with their patients (observe wound care nurse at work, observe PT, OT, patient education, etc.), but this is just not happening as much as I'd like. These things do not require the nurse's time, just a few words, a smidge of eye contact. I do not expect them to teach....just communicate a bit. A bit of inclusion in the patient care team is like giving them a shot of confidence!

Not all the nurses or units are like this, but it is more common than not. We do well anyway...build confidence, learn alot (great learning floor), have some fun...

I spoke to the DON of this floor...just wondering if I could offer something else to the staff to be helpful, to encourage the incorporation of the students into the team, if we were unapproachable or incompetent in any way. We received rave reviews, much to my surprise. Our students are perceived as hard workers, great team players, big helpers, competent care givers, good communicators.

So...nursing excellence does not leak over into behavior modeling?

(sigh) Just puzzled by this...nothing new I suppose.

[dansamy]

I noticed that as a student, I had to actively seek learning opportunities or I would be left to idle at the nurse's station.