Nurses Eating Nursing Students

Nurses Relations

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It was our first day stepping foot on the floor.

We were lost.

We were scared.

We've all been there. If you haven't yet, you will. Some of us were sweating. Some of us were shaking. Some of us were quiet. The one thing that we did have in common is that we were all scared. Here we are, stepping on a floor, full of patients that we needed to take care of but we knew NOTHING. "Go find your nurse" is what our instructor told us. Slowly, we strolled to the different pods and introduced ourselves.

As I approached the nurse that I was to shadow the entire day, I became increasingly relaxed. She was an older nurse that looked mothering and I believed that I was going to learn a lot that day. "Ms. Martha? Hi. I'm Charlotte. I'll be your student nurse today" I widened my eyes and mustered the best smile possible, considering it is 6:30am. I was greeted with a blank stare, followed with an up and down glance that could make a dead man's veins run cold. She finally said, "Hmmmm. I already have a student nurse that is in her last semester. I need to focus on her and help her graduate. Where's your clinical instructor? Can you just be with her? If you have questions, you can ask. I just need to focus on my other student."

Let's fast forward this day. My patient went to dialysis, meaning I will not have anything to do for 4-6 hours of my 10 hour day. Because my patient was gone, I volunteered my services for her other patients. I volunteered to empty foley bags, change bedsheets or whatever other tasks or errands that needed to be done. I asked questions. After the attempts of basically begging her to let me help her were denied, I even asked if I could just watch her and shadow her without even being acknowledged. (Mind you this was my first day. I know I sounded like a sad puppy but I had no idea of what else to do). Unsurprisingly, she shot those requests down as well. This is only a small insight to how my first day went.

This is living proof that the advice that some nurses give about why nurses eat their young and all of things to do to avoid it is all FALSE!! "Make yourself available". Did that. "Ask questions and act interested". Did that. "Make sure to not come off as a know it all". Did that. "Sometimes, nurses are very busy and teaching a student will disrupt them blah blah blah!"

If you are a nurse and do not want a nursing student, JUST SAY IT! It is very unfortunate that there are some nurses out there that do not want to teach. The cornerstone of nursing is teaching. You must teach the family and patient constantly during their visit. Also, "each one, teach one" should be taken to heart. Think about when you first became a nurse. You were frightened and scared.

Fellow nursing comrades, if this has happened to you or if this ever happens to in the future, take it with stride. It is difficult to work with and hard to not take it personally. Just remember that day and vow to never EVER treat someone that is willing to learn and help with disgrace.

Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

In general:

I have never understood this NETY (I actually had to look that up) thing. It seems all too often (and not speaking to the OPs scenario) that "young" (read student/novice) nurses seem to expect that respect be given to them when they step on the floor. Respect is earned in this business. We are all adults and we should be able to, on a professional level, cope with a colleague being rude or short. Physicians are notoriously hard on their trainees. I have never seen medical students or residents or fellows talking about how doctors eat their young. So what is it about nursing? Is it a confidence issue that should be addressed in NS?

For the OP:

It sounds like you had a bad day and a bad clinical instructor, and perhaps, a nurse that wasn't overjoyed with teaching. It also sounds like you tried to keep busy and get involved as much as you can. You survived.

I think that once you are out working as an RN you might see the issue from the other side: nurses are not paid to have nursing students, often times they aren't even asked if they are willing. It slows them down and takes time out of their day, adds to their stress. Additionally, sometimes people either 1. aren't good teachers or 2. are having a bad day. Keep that in mind.

FWIW, nursing students are not "working under the nurse's license".

Come back to us once you have been assigned not one, but TWO nursing students in one shift! And keep in mind a)you weren't asked but TOLD, b)you have no official affiliation whatsoever with that school, and c)the person getting PAID to teach the student is nowhere to be found and not only that, the student has mentally assigned her responsibilities to you.

Nurses eating nursing students my rear.

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Come back to us once you have been assigned not one, but TWO nursing students in one shift!

I once had three students, and I was floating to that floor (for the first time)! Apparently every other nurse must have said that they didn't want a student that day :o

No, we have not all been there. That is to say, we've all been students but I pray most of us never had that sense of entitlement I hear in your post. And I never once felt put down or ignored or bullied or "eaten" as a student.

You will discover that, oddly, students are never the focus of either staff or patients. Frankly, until you are able to be more autonomous, you will not be that useful and therefore less of a factor in planning and decision making that is a constant in every nurse's work day.. And I say this as someone who is actually quite passionate about providing learning experiences to newbies, for the benefit of all.

Your backpedaling is ok c me because it indicates your changing attitude. Keep going.

I haven't noticed any backpedaling. :sniff:

Specializes in Vascular Access.

It's been years since I've had a student with me. There were times the patients were so busy, it was very difficult to teach and care at the same time. I like to be a good teacher and provide thoughtful explanations, instructions, and encourage critical thinking. Some days I was doing well to keep up with the demands of the floor.

I will say, I'm glad you offered to help in any way you could. It's been too many times I've observed a nursing student holding up the wall.

Some days, and situations.... just suck.

I remember my clinicals - I was assigned to 1 nurse who glared at me every time I offered to help make a bed, empty something. I spent 10 hrs with my mouth shut & watched, taking all the notes I could because I'd be writing care plans on those patients for my grade. Sometimes it is the luck of the draw who you are assigned to. Some are incredible teachers, some are not & some just don't want to teach you for whatever reason. I would had thought it would had been a perfect opportunity to have the last semester student doing teach back under supervision of RN & you learning.... But hey,,, maybe she was just having one of those crappy days & didn't have the decorum. You should have reported immediately to your Clinical Supervisor & ask for reassignment.

Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

Without explaining details, I'll just say that I was treated well by several nurses when I was a student, but somewhat shockingly badly by a couple of others. And like you, I've vowed to treat students and new nurses with nothing but a friendly, helpful attitude. So far I haven't had any students, but have helped new nurses with whatever they need or ask about.

Specializes in CVICU, MICU, Burn ICU.

Hi Cisabel and welcome to AN!

I think you got some really good feedback in this thread. I know you may not feel as validated as you would like... it sounds like you did have a hard day -- and that happens, but what many of the seasoned nurses are telling you is SO good for you to hear. And that's part of the growing process -- hearing and processing hard truth. I've been doing this a long time and I'm still learning and processing hard truth! :)

As for NETY .... I have to respectfully say, based on what you shared, this is not what was happening during your clinical shift. Maybe this particular nurse wasn't a peach, but it wasn't NETY. And it's important for you to know that.

I like precepting students and new nurses. I always try to come off as warm, friendly and nurturing. I try to remember my southern manners. BUT... it takes a great deal of grit to be a nurse. MUCH of the time our jobs are very stressful and we are laser focused, as we should be, on the needs of our patients. You will find this does not always coincide with great teaching opportunity.

I encourage you to assign positive intent all over the place in your new career and when you can't..... be like the duck. Let it roll off your back.

To address some of the questions, yes it was optional for her to say she didn't want a student because her coworker did. No, it was not optional for me to say that I wasn't going to be with her. I could not reassign myself and I do not believe she should've found me another assignement either. I appreciate the constructive point of views from those who have been seasoned and been in a position to point out some other ways to look at it. Again, I've read several posts that said to do this or that, so following those instructions on my very first day was imperative to me at that time. It is not discourage me to change it up when I got to my other assignments because I continued to do the same thing: made myself available to help with any of their other patients if they wanted. Would've it made a difference if the time was "My first clinical..."? Maybe so and maybe not. But this is how I felt during that day. Her reporting things to my clinical instructor things that weren't true and also seeing her doing it to my classmates in a later clinical is uncalled for. Anyway, I will make sure that when I am put in this position that I "update" whomever is interested. Thanks for the insight.

Specializes in mental health / psychiatic nursing.
Apparently, people missed the point of the entire post. I don't care about the nurse. ...I just want future nursing students or current students to know that there's no perfect way to avoid some things. I fell right into the trap of "this is what you do and don't do".

Not sure why if you don't care about this nurse you've spent so much time an energy trying to convince us how horrible she was and how demeaning she was to you.

Also, EVERYONE has positive and negative clinical experiences. It is part of the learning process. If it was clear you had a nurse who wasn't going to engage and the instructor wasn't going to reassign you - that's when you make the best of the situation. Perhaps it was a day to simply be quiet and shadow the nurse around and observe her training of her more senior student rather than a day to be super hands on and asking lots of questions.

As a student I can say I've had great days and days that weren't so great. Days when I've been super involved with my patients and nurse, and days when I've wandered around trying to see what I can learn with out getting in the way. Sometimes as much as I would love to jump in and help with a procedure, it works out better if I take out the patient's trash, fill up a water bottle, and bring in some snacks. Those are all things I can do completely unsupervised and the 5 minutes saved there are 5 minutes my nurse might be able to spend with my later in the shift. It's just part of the nursing school experience, and I think it is up to us as students to also read the environment and read the willingness of nurse and patient to gauge how involved we can be in a particular situation.

You are correct that if your intent with this thread was to spark discussion on how the clinical experience can be more positive for both students and nurses you've completely missed the mark. Perhaps starting with a less inflammatory tone and focusing your introduction on issues experiences and "how could this be made better?" would have gotten there much more than "I had this TERRIBLE clinical experience when I was a student, whoa is me! All new nursing students you shall suffer too!"

Until rereading your initial post and piecing together information from other posts I didn't realize that this wasn't a recent event, I genuinely thought you were a new student who recently had this happened and were venting about how wrong everything went and needing advice on how to prevent a future occurrence.

What I'm currently pulling out of this thread is that maybe you need to work on your communication skills. I am wondering how much of the initial clinical day problems were not understanding one another between you and nurse, and how much of your upset now is us reading this thread not pulling out of it what you thought you were clearly communicating.

It does sounds like you had a very difficult first day of clinical and I hope that with further experience and some of the suggestions in this thread you are able to move past that experience.

I will say this. Maybe using the term "NETY" is too harsh but I will not excuse her attitude and behavior. I am in no way bitter or upset as some are trying to "point out" or "decipher". I will just try to keep it in mind whenever I am or if I am put into the same position. I have had great days and not so good instructors. I've had some instructors that were pretty blatant about their day being awful but not once was it seemingly toward me. It's hard to not take something personally when you see the same person waving and smiling with everyone including the other student but snap at you with every word out your mouth. Or say you're going to lunch and she says (in so many words) that she doesn't care and turns to someone else and says "you heard what I said, right?" Or tells your clinical instructor that you don't know how to take vitals (with an automated machine). As I'm writing this, I can laugh about it. As a FIRST day on the floor, there was nothing comical about it. So, there's not a perfect way to treat clinical as I learned throughout my nursing school journey.

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