Nurses see us coming for clinical and RUN away from us. Irritating!

Nursing Students General Students

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I swear every week when we go to our floor for clinicals the nurses pratically run away from us. The charge nurse on the floor tell us to just get with someone and last week every nurse I went to said they didn't want a student. I ran out of people to ask and I went in the breakroom and sat down until finally a nurse who doesn't like students took me. It was horrible. I watched the clock all day. To me this is the worst part of nursing school to me.

Its as if no one remembers when they were in nursing school and the way nurses either made you feel welcomed or like crap. Last semester the charge nurses had us assigned and had reports printed for us. It was great but this semester.. negative. 1 more semester after this, Cant wait to be done!!!!

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Specializes in Telemetry, OB, NICU.

Where is your clinical instructor in this scenario? What is her/his role?

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Specializes in Neuroscience/Brain and Stroke.

In our clinical sites the nurses don't have a choice initially, I guess if they went to their charge and asked to be relieved of the student they could. We are assigned to a patient not a nurse basically, we ask them questions and get report but for the most part it's a light patient load for the nurse, our instructor helps us with things that have to be observed but we do it all, charting, meds, basic care, we even do the tech's job, like she literally crosses the patient's off of her list if they have a student. Now of course we report everything we do the nurse at the appropriate times and give a short report before lunch and our teacher signs off on all our charting but we are just set free for the most part, I really enjoy it! I'm sorry your clinical experience has been so bad this semester, hope you can make the best of it! I have one more semester as well, GO US!

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In my nursing program, back in the Dark Ages, and in the programs I've taught in over the years as faculty, the students have been supervised by the school's clinical instructor; the students worked alongside the staff nurses, and the staff nurses were welcome to become involved as much as they wanted to, but nobody expected them to take full responsibility for one or more students. The trend I have seen more and more in recent years is for a clinical instructor to drop off a group of students on a floor and the staff nurses are expected to provide all, or nearly all, of the clinical instruction/supervision for the students. Keep in mind (students), that nobody asked any of these nurses whether they wanted to do this, they get no additional compensation for it, having students typically slows them down getting their work done during the day (despite many students' belief that they somehow make things easier or quicker for the staff nurses), it adds significantly to their stress level for the day, and, frankly, if they wanted to be teaching students, they would have gotten a teaching job instead of their current job.

It's also not fair or helpful for the students; they end up feeling demoralized, as the OP notes, by the apparent lack of interest and willingness on the part of the staff nurses (which I agree makes no sense at all if you don't understand "the big picture" here, as most students don't), and they are not getting a consistently high (or at least adequate) level of instruction/supervision.

I see this as a significant deterioration in the caliber/quality of nursing education in general; IMO, it's unfair to the students, it's unfair to the staff nurses, and it's a bad idea all around. If I were a student paying tuition to attend a nursing program, I would find this approach completely unacceptable. I'm amazed that schools find it acceptable to just take their chances on what kind of instruction and supervision their students are getting in clinical, but it seems like many programs and instructors just want to take the easiest route these days.

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Where is your clinical instructor in this scenario? What is her/his role?

That was my first thought as well. We were assigned patients. We would report off to the nurse that was assigned to that patient, but she was not responsible for supervising us or for our learning. Our CI supervised us. Sometimes a nurse would pull us to see something we hadn't done but we turned to our CI for guidance for the most part. I don't think I would like it, if my school just sent us to clinicals hoping a nurse would be willing to take us on.

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Wow, I feel so bad for you! Our instructor is on the floor with us at all times. Our nurses are excited to see us because they know we can do everything they can except IV pushes! We help with all the patients when the nurses need it, and they know we are more than willing to do all IV's and such! I think I would cry everyday if our nurses ran away from us :(

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

In my facility I keep up with who has been thru our preceptor program. Those are the only nurses who can take a student and they get paid extra. If the instructor is on the floor then we do not precept. The instructor has that role.

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In my program we were assigned to nurses, they didn't have a chance to run away from us. Now that didn't mean that they had to take a great interest in helping us, but we did know at the beginning of the clinical day who was our preceptor for that day.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I'll tell you why I don't like being "partnered" with a random nursing student - even though I do enjoy teaching students.

1. We are not given any information about the student - weaknesses, strengths, experience. Just this is Jane. She is going to be partnered with you today.

2. We are not given any information about what the student can/cannot do. As this varies from college to college and university to university, it does not help me to say "1st year School A" because what School A lets their students do and what school B lets their students do is differet and I can't remember who can do what.

3. Students slow me down. I know this is not their fault, but I still have to get all my work done, student or not. If I let the student do a procedure it will take 3 times as long - and this takes time away from my other patients.

4. I am never asked for my feedback at the end of my time with the student. What is the point of me noticing that the student did not know the med I was supervising them giving if I can't pass this info along?

I also dislike it when I tell a student that I have a pt that needs a foley, enema whatever, and they are not interested because "I've done one" or "enemas are gross".

I think students should be assigned pts based on their educational needs, and the instuctor should supervise them.

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Specializes in L&D.

Wow that stinks:( We are assigned patients, not nurses. All of the nurses I have worked with have more than welcomed us...they are grateful for the help and all seem to really enjoy teaching the students.

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Specializes in L&D.

Oh and also based on what someone said, we remind the charge nurse when we come for our clinical paperwork the day before what class we are in, and that we can do xyz(for example, this quarter, we can start IV, give IVPB, IVPush, along with a host of other things), so they come and get us to do these things or to watch.

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Oh my clinical instructor must have said something, i texted her and told her what was up and she must have talked to charge because finally a nurse took me and I ended up missing report and I really wanted to pick a good patient because i needed to do a piggyback check off, at the end of the day i ended up getting to do my checkoff but with someone elses patient because mine didnt have any

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