Sorry for the long post, but I really need some advice on my situation here..
I'm a new graduate and I've been on orientation on a surgical floor since for 5 weeks. I was hired for the night shift but they decided to have me on orientation on the day shift for the first 5 weeks because that's where I'd get lots of practice. I was a little worried from the get go when I first met my preceptor. I could tell from my first day that she is a moody type of person. She also would rarely even talk to me, so I would always have to initiate any type of discussion. She would just do her charting and go about her day without even talking to me, so I had to ask questions constantly. It was bad enough that CNAs sitting next to us ended up showing me how to do charting. She didn't introduce me to any of the other nurses, and when she talked to them acted as if I wasn't even there. Not the best way to make a new employee feel welcome who doesn't know anyone on the floor.
Things got a little better after the first day once I was given the responsibility of doing meds, assessments, and charting. The only reason it got better was because I had less time around her and more time with patients. Around 2-3 weeks into my orientation I noticed she started to get more annoyed with my many questions, however keep in mind this is my first job since graduating nursing school so obviously I have lots of questions. By week 4 she was having me do all the meds, assessments, and charting, and she wouldn't help me with any of it even if I got behind. For example, one day I had to get fitted for an N95 mask and I was gone for around an hour being fitted. I was assuming she would help me out while I was gone and do some charting so we could stay on track. Come to find out she hadn't done anything, and was surprised and not happy when I told her I thought she would help since I was off the floor for an hour. Right after I told her this, she got on my case and she asked why I hadn't done the vaccination protocol that we do for new admits. I told her she had never shown me how to do that, and she said in an annoyed voice, "Fine, I'll just do it myself." She then got upset at me for being behind on giving a pt his coumadin. Obviously at this point I'm behind, after having to do 2 sets of charting on 5 patients! This was about the time that she started acting really weird when I ask her questions. She would just stand there for a while and look at me funny while I ask questions. This led me to feel nervous everytime I ask her a question as it seemed she would scrutinize my every thought. I started simply asking other nurses questions I wasn't sure about, as they would just answer the question kindly and not make me feel stupid like my preceptor.
Yesterday was the last day with my preceptor and the end of the 5th week of orientation, and it was my worst day of all. I had a bunch of patients with total knee surgeries which required dressing changes, and they needed to be put in CPM machines. And of course I had that one patient who had tons of IV antibiotics, morphine pushes, and phenergan that required me to be in her room constantly. I had everything done, except for 3 dressing changes and the patients hadn't been put in CPM machines. I was told the CNAs always put the patients in their CPMs so I didn't worry about that. Around 2 PM my preceptor comes to find me in one of my pt's rooms and says that the Dr. is ****** at us, and has asked her around 3 times why the dressing changes haven't been done yet and why they aren't in their CPMs. She asks me what has been taking me so long to get everything done and when I tell her about the demanding patient, she just says, "You need to get a routine down so you can get stuff done." So I say alright, get my dressing supplies and get to the first dressing change as fast as I can. I then had to go out to the nursing station to ask her whether or not I should take out his hemovac and I see her complaining to the charge nurse (I'm sure about me).
Eventually I get them all done and the day is over. My preceptor finally comes and sees if my charting is all in and says she is heading out. Apparently she didn't want to give me any feedback even though this was our last day together! I am so tired, upset, and confused at this point but I still asked her to give me feedback on how I'm doing. She proceeds to tell me that I'm not getting stuff done quick enough, and at this point i should be progressing ahead of where I'm at currently. My heart sinks.. Keep in mind she's telling me this near another nurse so I ask if we can go into a private room! We get into the room and she says, "How do I say this without hurting your feelings? It seems like things just aren't clicking with you, I don't understand your thinking process. You don't understand lots of things that should be common sense to a new nurse. I can tell you didn't get much practice with nursing skills during your clinicals, how many days were you in the hospital before now?" She then goes onto say that I need to learn how to prioritize things, and she says that I am too slow and methodical about how I do things and I need to get a better routine down. At this point I don't even know what to say, and I tell her, "You know, to be honest with you, for the last 2 weeks it seems like you don't like me at all. Whenever I ask a question you just stand there and look at me funny. I'm not exactly sure what happened but it's pretty obvious. It has caused me to not even want to ask you any questions at all." She seemed really surprised that I called her out on this and she apologized. She then went on to say that the night nurse I'll be orienting with is very anal about how she does things so specifically and she doesn't think our personalities will mesh. I am 90% positive she has told the rest of the nurses and CNAs that I'm a complete idiot who doesn't know what the hell I'm doing. They were very nice to me, but the last couple weeks none of them will really talk to me anymore. My preceptor is very catty and I've heard her calling other night nurses stupid around me. She speaks her mind and if she doesn't like someone she makes it known to everyone. She has also worked this unit over 5 years and is respected and buddy/buddy with most other nurses. She treats everyone great minus the one person she is working with 12 hours per day, me. She even told me that the clinical nurse educator asked how my orienting was going, and she told her that it's not going so great because I'm slow at picking things up. My educator is best friends with the nurse manager on my unit, so no doubt she also thinks I'm an idiot.
This was one of the things she said was common sense and I shouldn't have been confused about. One of my patients at the start of my shift was getting a bag of D5 1/2 w/ 20meq K and to be honest I'd never had a patient get that before so I assumed that the K bag was a one time dose and when her IV antibiotics were due, I was supposed to give them with a NS bag, and not just spike a new D5 1/2 K bag. I didn't think you could give K with antibiotics. So I went and asked my preceptor, she misunderstood my question and said to just keep giving it with D5 1/2 but she didn't say anything about the potassium, so I went ahead and gave the antibiotics with regular D5 1/2 without potassium. She was not happy about this mistake and told me it was common sense and I should have already known what to do.
I left work not knowing what the hell I should do. I want so much to quit this job because I know she has spread it around that i'm slow and suck at this job. I've seen her talking to other nurses in corners after I ask her a question and she just looks at me funny. My reputation is tarnished on this unit and I've only been here 5 weeks. I drove home humiliated, ashamed, angry, sad, and confused. I can honestly say that when my wife asked how my day was, I started to cry. I have never cried in front of her before but I'm just so torn up about this. I feel like I went into the wrong field. I should have known as I disliked most of my clinical rotations during school. When I think about quitting and doing something else, I feel a sense of freedom. However, getting my BSN was such a chore that I don't want this one person to ruin this for me. If you're still reading, please, offer any support or opinions.
Sorry your preceptor is less than helpful. Remember that you are moving on to someone else and it is time to start fresh and make a new first impression. I would give it more time before you decide if you want to stay in nursing, though. Don't let another nurse decide it for you. Do you enjoy the work? Passing meds? Changing dressings? Working with and teaching patients and families? Etc? That should be what you look at when deciding if you want to continue with nursing. Any career you choose has the potential of having sorry co-workers.
The one thing that stuck out to me is you are afraid that anytime she is talking to someone, it is about you. This may not be the case. If you don't hear her say something specifically, don't let it get out of control in your mind and assume it is about you. She may be talking about someone else or the weather or a patient or what she did last night. If she is a gossip hound, others will know this and take what she says with a grain of salt. Give yourself some credit, relax and move on to the next preceptor. And best of luck to you!!!
I almost cried reading your post. It took me back to my new grad orientation, roughly 20 months ago. I graduated in 2006 and due to some immigration issues, moving oversees (married to a soldier) and pregnancy; I did not get my 1st "new grad" job until mid 2008. So in I walk, on my first day of orientation. The only one from an out of state school that did not emphasis clinical skill as much as they did passing the nclex. I had not had much adult conversation in months being a stay at home mom to 6 month old, so my brain was already “mush”, I was a foreigner in a new state with no friends and unfriendly neighbors.
My preceptor was also the moody type. No one on the floor liked or talked to her. She ate her lunch alone, spoke, very little. Like you I had to initiate most of the conversations we had. She had been in that position (RN) for 30 years. She had seen managers and staff come and go and she pretty much did her own thing. She was probably a preceptor because of the extra money they get or something, not because she loved to teach. Anyway the program I came into was also fairly new; very disorganized No one knew I was even around for 2 weeks until I started racking up massive overtime, then they pain attention. I was ignored most of the time, passed on from preceptor to preceptor when my original preceptor was charge. When she was not charge she spent the day tormenting me, hiding from me, no feedback except for criticism. Other nurse where helping me most of the time. She said stuff like "what kind of school did you go to?", "use your brain!" She once yanked a f/C out of my hand during my attempt at insertion, iodine spilling everywhere!!! because I was too”slow", lucky the patient was semi unconscious! . I cried every night I went home. I wanted to quit every day but I stuck in there. I finally broke down, told the unit manger what was going on, other staff members saw it too but did not want to get on her wrong side. I was finally transferred to a different unit. It was too late though. My self esteem and confidence as a nurse was destroyed. She robbed me of my new grad experience. You can only be a new grad once
Anyway, my advice to you; 1. Don’t put up with it silently, voice your concern to someone, manager, supervisor, education office etc
2. be proactive. What she doesn’t want to or did not show you, find out yourself. Do research: books, ask other nurse from a different floor, docs, etc. Come in on your day off and shadow someone else ….form another hospital if necessary, Google stuff, old text books etc. When you teach yourself something, you retain most of it than if someone else teaches you the same thing
DONT GIVE UP. This happens to a lot of people as you will find out. The phrase "nurses eat their young” didn’t come from nowhere.
I'm not sure what it is, but there seems to be a trend. I just started a new job on NOCs in a TCU, and I've been a TCU nurse for almost two years. The medical director of this facility is the gerontologist at the facility I currently work with, I'm familiar with the clinic MD's and the orthos (I was a pt. for two of the ortho surgeons at that clinic as well) so I'm pretty comfortable with the ins and outs with the medical staff. The CNP that's in house 3x a week did her final clinical at my old facility...anyway...not a lot of orientation required, as far as I was concerned.
First night on the unit, I walk in and am ignored. The PM nurses completely ignorned me until the NOC nurse who was orienting with me arrived. So, before she arrived I introduced myself, they sort of acknowledged me, didn't introduce themselves and went back to work. The NOC nurse arrives, I tell her who I am and she said "Well, I've got to get report now..." Um, don't you think I need report too? It ended up that we got along well that night, but the AM nurses were quite rude as well.
Second night, different person doing my orientation...same drill with AM's and PM's, the person I was orienting with kind and helpful. The night supervisor kind and helpful. The rest, it's like I need a secret code or need to learn the secret handshake...
It reminds me of my very first job, same drill. People were RUDE. I still think they are rude there too when we have new people, and I'm doing my best to call them on that crap. It's just not nice.
The moral of the story here? Well, nurses can be quite territorial, and I htink that's what's going on...hang in there, there was a reason you wanted to be a nurse in the first place. Try and remember that and keep plugging away, cuz it will get better.
Specializes in critical care; community health; psych.
Wow, I hear your pain. A note about preceptors: they get burnt out. This one sounds like she was at that point. Try not to take it personally. One day you may be a preceptor. Eventually we all deal with students. Remember what it is that you may have benefited by and extend that to the newbie who is looking at you shaking in new white shoes.
Developing relationships is pretty important on any unit. That will be your biggest challenge. We don't do it all ourselves. We rely on each other. You will learn who has your back. Offer to give a hand to a fellow nurse when you have an extra minute. It may be a small thing you can accomplish easily even as a brand new nurse. It will be remembered. You will learn who will return the favor. I'm a firm believer in team building. Make yourself part of the team.
You've learned a lesson about communication. Don't assume. Your preceptor should have had taken some kind of a report from you before you left for your fitting. Her bad but your problem because... you're the newbie. There are two times in a nurses career when stuff flies, when you're the new arrival or the one that's leaving. It's hard. It's like the army. They tear you down before you get built up. I have no earthly idea why but that seems to be the trend.
How approachable are the other nurses? If questions come up and your preceptor is not helpful or receptive, ask another nurse. Do it discretely, however. I am just 8 months in on my first job and my preceptor was helpful, but left me completely on my own with my own patients from day one. I could not always find her when I had questions (she functioned simultaneously as charge and clinical coordinator most days) and I had to find other people to help me out. Managing your time well is something that can only come with more experience. I think night shift will give you a better opportunity to prioritze, though. Each shift has its problems, but I think night shift has the advantage of giving you a little more breathing room. Also, when questions come up, read your hospital's policies and procedures, check whatever medication/clinical pharmacology resource you have, and check your patient's chart. If the question still cannot be answered after doing this, then go to your preceptor or another member of the staff that you can trust. Granted, you probably don't have time to read much, but it is worth it to know whether you are doing the right thing, the right way.
A good preceptor wants to precept, loves to teach, has tons of patience. Not all preceptors are good: some are assigned the role because they are experienced clinicians, some do better with orienting experienced nurses who are new to a particular unit, some have limited patience for those who don't learn quickly and who need to see something more than once. Hard to say what's going on with your preceptor. Based on what you've told us, I'd guess she doesn't want to precept but has been made to because she's experienced and a good clinician.
There is a wide range of knowledge and experience newbies bring to the field. Depending on your school and what was available to your class you may have had either extensive or minimal clinical experience. Did you have work experience as a tech, unit secretary as well as school clinicals? That can make a world of difference. If this preceptor is used to working with folks who worked their way through school in a unit similar to yours you may indeed seem stupid and disorganized to her. This does NOT mean you can't get up to speed and be a fine nurse. It means you have to work harder and you will need more time to do that than someone who came in able to hit the ground running.
I don't think you can make an informed decision about whether or not you're cut out for nursing based on 5 weeks with someone who was less than enthusiastic about having an orientee. See how you do on nights, with a different mentor. I've seen so-called "idiot" orientees pick up and become excellent nurses. Also, a different unit may make a difference. I remember one new grad who was asked to leave our unit who became "nurse of the year" after a couple of years on a different unit.
Show up with a positive attitude, keep asking questions, keep studying, be on the watch for those nurses who LIKE to teach, whether or not they are official preceptors.
Your preceptor doesn't hate YOU, she hates precepting. And shouldn't do it.
There are so many things that are not going to be "common sense" until you are around the medical field for awhile. I was told at least a year.
I've been very fortunate for the most part in my preceptors but I'll never forget my first one on my first day. She asked to get go get a Saline Lock for a patient's IV and I went to the med room obviously looking for the kind I trained with in another hospital and couldn't find it. When I came back without one, she said "are you an idiot?". Yeah . . nice. The SL at this hospital was a completely different color and shape.
You should give an honest appraisal of your preceptor's attempts to teach you . . .or lack thereof.
Don't give up. Don't assume. Ask questions regardless. Common sense will come with time.
See? Aren't you glad you posted on here :) look how many of us know EXACTLY where you're coming from. I agree with Spidey's Mom, of course most things won't be common sense right away. It's one thing to learn something in a textbook, but it is quite another to carry it out on a patient I must say. It's kind of like re-learning in a way. Let's hope that some of these not-so-nice preceptors catch a glance of these threads and reconsider their choices to do so.
There are good preceptors out there---if you're one of them. Thanks for doing your part, you're honestly making a difference in someones life...as you can see.
i hate to see posts like this....they seem pretty popular though, and i think its because a lot of nurses can relate to either the bad preceptor, or nurse work mates who seem to like to pick at you just for giggles.
while i certainly dont condone this behavior at all, i think the longer youre a nurse, the easier it becomes to take your peers' insensitivity.
ive been a nurse for about ten years and have worked in different fields, but have found that the large hospital setting/ small community hospital setting, to be the worst for this kind of behavior.
i have always thought that each place should have their own preceptor whos not neccessarily working the floor and who has the specific job of just precepting new employees.
half the time the nurse who gets chosen to precept has no idea that the day/ night they go in to work, they are going to be precepting.
i dont think thats right for either party.
some nurses like to precept, and most dont.
there are very good educators among us, the tricky part is just to be able to spot them.
most of the time you can get a different preceptor if you ask. or maybe you find yourself going to a certain nurse more than your preceptor? go ahead and ask if you can change!
i have changed preceptors before and it worked out well.
its easy to say to not let this person get to you, but......dont let her get to you!
one bad apple is not worth the hard work youve put in to get this far.
I am so sorry this has happened to you. How could a nurse like this be chosen to precept?? Does management just not care? I know this is after the fact, but I wish you could have said something before 5 weeks of this torture continued on. Well, now that you will go to nights, please realize that if your new preceptor is not meeting your needs, there should be someone you can go to and discuss this. If you run into the same problems, and don't say anything about it, you may end up getting a poor evaluation, which would be unwarranted, but this might lead to your not keeping this position. Take care of yourself and speak up for yourself if you feel that you are not getting the experience that a good orientation program owes you! Best of luck.:heartbeat
ugh, reading your post makes me so sad! Im about to be a new grad (next month) and can really feel for you. Just keep your head up, I can tell your a great person, and your coworkers will soon realize this.. prove this woman wrong and shine with your next preceptor. Explain to your new preceptor that you want her to be honest and upfront with you regarding anything you need to work on... Good luck, and go relax and try not to think of this for a little while... (i realize easier said than done) :)
As with many other posters, I'm sorry to hear about your experience, your preceptor has clearly stayed past her expiration date... It is the preceptor's job to help you be a successful nurse. Your preceptor should have addressed time management with you in the beginning, not hung you out to dry and let you continue on a path that she knew wasn't working. Sounds like she assumed a lot about you too versus assessing where you were at the beginning of your preceptorship.
You have a new chance with a different preceptor. Ask the new preceptor for help, ask them how the organize their time, ask him/her for feedback at the end of the day or on lunch if you take breaks together. You will get faster, lots of people were slow when they first started out, some people just forget that they were new once. While you get through this first year, cut yourself some slack as someone else said--the first year of nursing is the hardest. Re-evaluate after the first year--you can move to a new unit, a new hospital or start prepping to go back for a master's degree.
Keep in mind she's telling me this near another nurse so I ask if we can go into a private room! We get into the room and she says, "How do I say this without hurting your feelings? It seems like things just aren't clicking with you, I don't understand your thinking process. You don't understand lots of things that should be common sense to a new nurse. I can tell you didn't get much practice with nursing skills during your clinicals, how many days were you in the hospital before now?" She then goes onto say that I need to learn how to prioritize things, and she says that I am too slow and methodical about how I do things and I need to get a better routine down. At this point I don't even know what to say, and I tell her, "You know, to be honest with you, for the last 2 weeks it seems like you don't like me at all. Whenever I ask a question you just stand there and look at me funny. I'm not exactly sure what happened but it's pretty obvious. It has caused me to not even want to ask you any questions at all." She seemed really surprised that I called her out on this and she apologized. She then went on to say that the night nurse I'll be orienting with is very anal about how she does things so specifically and she doesn't think our personalities will mesh. I am 90% positive she has told the rest of the nurses and CNAs that I'm a complete idiot who doesn't know what the hell I'm doing. They were very nice to me, but the last couple weeks none of them will really talk to me anymore. My preceptor is very catty and I've heard her calling other night nurses stupid around me. She speaks her mind and if she doesn't like someone she makes it known to everyone. She has also worked this unit over 5 years and is respected and buddy/buddy with most other nurses. She treats everyone great minus the one person she is working with 12 hours per day, me. She even told me that the clinical nurse educator asked how my orienting was going, and she told her that it's not going so great because I'm slow at picking things up. My educator is best friends with the nurse manager on my unit, so no doubt she also thinks I'm an idiot. 
L8RRN
188 Posts
Sorry your preceptor is less than helpful. Remember that you are moving on to someone else and it is time to start fresh and make a new first impression. I would give it more time before you decide if you want to stay in nursing, though. Don't let another nurse decide it for you. Do you enjoy the work? Passing meds? Changing dressings? Working with and teaching patients and families? Etc? That should be what you look at when deciding if you want to continue with nursing. Any career you choose has the potential of having sorry co-workers.
The one thing that stuck out to me is you are afraid that anytime she is talking to someone, it is about you. This may not be the case. If you don't hear her say something specifically, don't let it get out of control in your mind and assume it is about you. She may be talking about someone else or the weather or a patient or what she did last night. If she is a gossip hound, others will know this and take what she says with a grain of salt. Give yourself some credit, relax and move on to the next preceptor. And best of luck to you!!!