New grad orienting a new grad?

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Specializes in Spinal Cord and TBI rehabilitation.

Hi! This week my unit manager called me into his office and told me that he wants me to precept our floor's new hire. I was thrilled because education is a passion of mine! However, here is a little of my background...I graduated May 2013 and I have not even hit the one year mark as an RN! I have worked in patient care (PCT/CNA) for about 5 years. I feel this tremendous about of responsibility and pressure to ensure our new staff member has a remarkable orientation. I would like to hear from new grads/preceptors so I can give some advice and perspective on this situation. I personally had a mediocre orientation and I want to be a more proactive preceptor. How can I ensure this employee feels secure, successful, and empowered when I am still so new myself? Any and all feedback is appreciated!

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I really don't think it's a good idea. Not saying your not a great teacher and don't know what your doing, but your still new and learning things for yourself, it's not fair on you or the new hire.

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.

Actually, there is a school of thought where a portion of the training is done by a relatively inexperienced nurse. The theory behind it is, who better knows what a new grad needs to know than someone who remembers what it was like to be a total novice.

maybe someone else has a greater knowledge of this & can provide a deeper answer

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

First of all - your picture is adorable, but if that is actually you, please change it. It is very important to maintain anonymity on any social networking site, but it's absolutely critical to do so on AN due to the professional issues involved.

Long-term nurse educator here -- New employee orientation is actually intended to focus on 3 different areas: 1) Administrative processes such as time and attendance, operational policies & procedures, familiarization with the layout & location of important areas, important 'hunting and gathering' information (where to find what), etc. 2) Socialization - getting to know everyone and becoming a part of the team, coaching and encouraging, acting as a friendly confidant and 3) Validation of clinical competencies.

As a relatively new employee, you can absolutely fulfill the first two objectives.... a more experienced staff member operates more from 'internal' know-how, so they may not be able to articulate all the important information as well as you can. As for the last part - I'm sure you can call upon your more experienced colleagues to help with any clinical skills that you have not yet mastered.

Just one caveat. It is also important to be able to provide critical feedback - ensuring that your orientee is clearly aware of any performance deficiencies even though it may cause some hard feelings. If you lack the confidence to be the 'bad cop' when it is needed, you may not be ready to be a preceptor.

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Specializes in Spinal Cord and TBI rehabilitation.

All very good feedback! I think it will be an excellent learning experience for both of us. I have many resources within my interdisciplinary team and I will take full advantage of them during this process. When I do not have all the answers, we will discover them together. I do think I will struggle with giving him critical feedback, but we have an external orientation manager that will be on this journey with us. His role is to make sure our new grad is meeting the appropriate goals of our organization. Everything at my hospital is a team effort and I expect this to be no different. Again, thank you for the thoughtful insight!

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Specializes in ICU / PCU / Telemetry / Oncology.

Nurses should have at least one year under their belt before precepting (or being charge nurse for that matter). The first year is hard enough without worrying about teaching someone else.

Sent from my iPad using allnurses

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.
First of all - your picture is adorable, but if that is actually you, please change it. It is very important to maintain anonymity on any social networking site, but it's absolutely critical to do so on AN due to the professional issues involved.

Long-term nurse educator here -- New employee orientation is actually intended to focus on 3 different areas: 1) Administrative processes such as time and attendance, operational policies & procedures, familiarization with the layout & location of important areas, important 'hunting and gathering' information (where to find what), etc. 2) Socialization - getting to know everyone and becoming a part of the team, coaching and encouraging, acting as a friendly confidant and 3) Validation of clinical competencies.

As a relatively new employee, you can absolutely fulfill the first two objectives.... a more experienced staff member operates more from 'internal' know-how, so they may not be able to articulate all the important information as well as you can. As for the last part - I'm sure you can call upon your more experienced colleagues to help with any clinical skills that you have not yet mastered.

Just one caveat. It is also important to be able to provide critical feedback - ensuring that your orientee is clearly aware of any performance deficiencies even though it may cause some hard feelings. If you lack the confidence to be the 'bad cop' when it is needed, you may not be ready to be a preceptor.

EXCELLENT post! Few academic programs in Nursing Education focus on the Clinical Educator role. (Mine was primarily an academic focus.) This succinct post is very helpful to me. Thank you

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