Nurses Eating Nursing Students

[Cisabel]

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.

[SmilingBluEyes]

The whole notion that it's all about the student really irritates me. And the fact that some don't get that it's NOT on the floor nurse to have to either take TWO students or deal with the situation by contacting the clinical instructor is beyond ridiculous. It's the CLINICAL INSTRUCTOR'S responsibility to ensure appropriate assignments, not the floor staff's problem. That floor nurse had EVERY right (And responsibility) to refuse the 2nd student, period. The 2nd student, then, being an ADULT (presumably), should go back to her clinical instructor, who is being paid and is responsible for her learning experiences, and be re-assigned to another staff nurse. That is IT, end of story.

Quit laying this at the feet of the floor nurse. It's not her responsibility, not her fault, and not up to her to fix this mess. ONE student is plenty of work and the senior nursing student ALREADY assigned took priority, rightfully. Period. It's not all about the OP. OP needs to realize that.

[NurseLauraM]

Yes I read the posts and there were many times that I had multiple students following me. It isn't that big of a problem to get them helping and explain things to them. It actually would be a lot of fun, even if a little more complicated. And indeed is is joyful, if your attitude is right.

When I was a senior BSN student in my final semester, it was expected that we work individually with the nurse we were assigned to (with the nurse's agreement of course). I never shared my preceptor with anyone else. During the earlier semesters, a group of students were assigned to a floor and some of us would inevitably share a nurse. In those days, we also had a clinical instructor, who was paid by the school to teach and coordinate the group. I believe this was the scenario the OP was in.

A senior student relies only on his or her nurse preceptor to guide them. As such, it is standard that a senior nursing student is the nurse's only student on any particular day. In fact, I believe the senior student in the OP would have been justifiably frustrated with the nurse, if that nurse had taken the OP on as well.

The nurse knew what she could/should handle that day and, from what I can tell, she communicated that pretty clearly to the OP. I just can't imagine any scenario in which the nurse was in the wrong. Just because you would have taken the second student doesn't mean everyone should.

[Susie2310]

The person responsible for the student's clinical experience/instruction is the student's Clinical Instructor, and in my opinion students who are not receiving adequate clinical supervision from their Clinical Instructor should take the matter up with their nursing school's administration/their college's administration. The student is paying their college fees/nursing school fees for their nursing education, which includes their clinical training. Nurses employed at the facility are not responsible for the student's learning experience. If a student is taking part in a preceptorship at the end of their course that is overseen by their Clinical Instructor and is assigned to a nurse preceptor, that nurse has the full responsibility for their patient load in addition to mentoring/supervising the student, which is a huge responsibility. For a student to think that nurses with full patient loads can easily accept one (or more!) students is extremely naive; the nurse's duty is to their patients NOT to providing student/s with their clinical experience. Patients are very sick with multiple medical problems and providing competent safe care requires a nurse's full attention.

It is unfortunate if as a student you are not receiving the clinical experience and training from your nursing school that you are paying for, but it is not the fault of the nursing staff of the facility.

[preemiepoweredRN]

Definitely not excusing the nurses actions, but the instructor should have paired you with another nurse. Period.

Speaking from experience, it is difficult (but not impossible) when you are already "stretched thin" pouring into a new nurse who has some experience being on the floor, but not quite ready to be alone and then to take on a student nurse who is seeking every experience and wants every question answered and explained- Don't get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with seeking every experience and having your questions answered. The demand on the bedside nurse is insurmountable at times, even with no students or preceptees; then you add in double checking documentation, fielding orders from doctor, family interactions, troubleshooting problems etc etc.. The instructor usually arrives early to the unit before the students to determine the best assignment pair ups, and had the instructor done this you would have not had such a rough first day. NOW it maybe that there were not enough nurses for each nursing student, but even then, your instructor could have stepped in or placed you with a nurse not already assigned to a new nurse.

I'm sorry for your bad experience, however what I can say is perspective is everything and one day you may be at work and find yourself in a similar situation. Just hopefully you will take the higher road and advocate for your student nurse to have better experience and not let it change your demeanor like the nurse you followed. I'm sure she is a good nurse, just didn't respond to the situation constructively.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Definitely not excusing the nurses actions,

I'm sorry for your bad experience, however what I can say is perspective is everything and one day you may be at work and find yourself in a similar situation. Just hopefully you will take the higher road and advocate for your student nurse to have better experience and not let it change your demeanor like the nurse you followed. I'm sure she is a good nurse, just didn't respond to the situation constructively.

The nurse doesn't need her actions excused. We have Cisobel's word for it that the nurse told her right up front that she could not accommodate Cisobel because she already had a nursing student. As far as whether or not the nurse was rude, we have only Cisobel's word on that, and Cisobel does not seem to be an entirely accurate or unbiased reporter.

[Wuzzie]

I'm sorry for your bad experience, however what I can say is perspective is everything and one day you may be at work and find yourself in a similar situation. Just hopefully you will take the higher road and advocate for your student nurse to have better experience and not let it change your demeanor like the nurse you followed. I'm sure she is a good nurse, just didn't respond to the situation constructively.

I kind of think she actually WAS advocating for both of the students. And I'm laying bets she had no idea that they were going to assign her a second one or she would have told the intructor "no" in the first place. I'm pretty sure I would have probably had a hard time maintaining a neutral face if I got blind-sided the way that nurse did. I would have stumbled verbally for sure.

[TriciaJ, RN]

This sounds a lot like most of my clinicals. The difference was that we as students had to sign a form that stated we were not allowed to change assignments no matter what. So if we were assigned a nurse that hated students (and there were more of these than nurses who liked to have students or even tolerated them) we were stuck with the assignment and often left floating around bringing water to patients because we were told to stay out of the way and don't touch anything (especially in Peds...I think I did direct care once on a CPS case because my nurse didn't want to be bothered with staying in the room to feed the baby and put him back under the bili light). Anyway, I got good at circumventing the don't change assignments rule and "helping" my fellow students who had nurses who were more tolerant of teaching or at least letting us observe procedures. Still when I took my first nursing job I felt rather behind in skills because there were many things (PEG tube feedings, Foley insertion, and even IV starts) that I had either never seen or done or just barely had a chance to try for myself. However thanks to my own efforts I did get to change the dressing on a chest tube, assist in a code (compressions), and see 3 births during L&D clinical. So the OP isn't entirely to blame but could have worked around the situation better and the nurse perhaps shouldn't be on the rotation for having students without a discussion of some kind with the CI.

Kudos to you for being self-directed. But you should still demand a tuition refund from your school because they're the ones who took your money and didn't provide what you'd paid them for. Same for OP. Her school let her down, not the hospital staff nurse.

[wannabeny]

Believe it or not, in some hospitals, PCT's are not allowed to check blood sugars or vital signs. I have noticed that many nurses do not know how to take a proper blood pressure and trouble shoot abnormal results, so taking vitals signs is part of a nursing student's training. I am a stickler for proper bed-making at work and at home. Although many tasks can be delegated, the supervising nurse should be an expert. No task should be determined to be mundane. Instead, they are all essential. There is too much skipping of important knowledge.

No, I did not know that. Even things that seem so simple to do in theory..turning a patient to change them, is in reality much harder than it seems when you don't have the experience to know how to do it quickly & efficiently.

[AvaRose]

I wish I could be entirely self-sufficient since delegating often leads to things not getting done on time. However, we just hit "maximum" capacity at work for our current staffing levels (though I'll bet they try to sneak in a few more patients despite saying 12 per nurse was our max). That means with 5 and sometimes 6 med passes, wound care, and inputting orders from the 3 doctors who round on patients, I have to delegate to the CNAs for Vitals, Weights, and Toileting. Tonight I ended up stuck at work until 930pm when my shift was due to end at 630pm...and my DON wants me to come in tomorrow to work an extra shift. I said NO but we have a mandatory meeting so I can guess she'll somehow make me stay and work. Half the nurses and CNAs are sick or calling in and saying they are sick anyway. I felt so stupid tonight...Almost nothing was on time and I still feel scattered from trying to prioritize my actions all night and having to threaten to write-up the CNAs for not helping when I asked them for something even when a patient almost fell for the 3rd time this week because they left her in her wheelchair with no chair alarm with a brief full of BM for over an hour despite 4 requests from me to clean her up and put her in her bed. AH the not glamorous side of nursing they forgot to tell us about in school. 4 months of this so far...going on 5 and I feel like an utter idiot all over again (I had things down with up to 8 patients it is just the addition of the last 4 that messed me up completely).

[smith.slm2007, CNA]

smh, this is discouraging. If she's too busy, I too would rather another nurse, especially one with a better attitude, nursing isnt a "deal with it" experience

Perhaps your instructor should have just assigned you another patient.

Rather then placing blame on a nurse who is already busy with a student plus whole full assignment you should place blame on the person who is being PAID to educate yo

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

smh, this is discouraging. If she's too busy, I too would rather another nurse, especially one with a better attitude, nursing isnt a "deal with it" experience

Why would the nurse need a better attitude? She was honest with the OP that she had a senior student who needed to be priority. I'd rather have a nurse with an honest attitude than one who tries to take on too much.

[TriciaJ, RN]

smh, this is discouraging. If she's too busy, I too would rather another nurse, especially one with a better attitude, nursing isnt a "deal with it" experience

Yes, actually it is.