So as a third semester nursing student, myself and many of my fellow colleagues often wonder the same thing. Why is it that when we go to clinical, about 75% of the nurses act snobby and like it's some huge ordeal that we are there in "their space"? They were all nursing students at some point as well, students who wanted to learn skills and gain experience while at their clinicals. I often dread clinical due to feeling as I am in the way or that I am annoying a "seasoned" nurse. One would think, that as a nurse you'd want future nurses to gain as much experience and knowledge as they can while they're in school. So the point of this post, I would like to and I'm sure many other nursing students would like to know; why is it necessary to be rude and someone who doesn't want to help students learn or why is it necessary to not explain stuff to the student when they ask? I'm not trying to be conniving, I honestly just want to know, so that maybe I can understand.
P.S. I'm not saying this is true for ALL nurse's, as there are some that are amazing and share their knowledge and expertise.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I have, and I disagree. I don't see anywhere in this post where I've been disrespectful. What I do see is, a lot of people being disrespectful towards me, and towards nursing students in general. I believe people took my post the wrong way and assumed that I was disrespecting nurse's, which I wasn't. Maybe I exaggerated when I said the percentage of nurses whom are snobby and bitter, but I didn't say anything out of line. It's troublesome so many of the responses here are so negative about students being on their units. That's perfectly fine. When I graduate in a few months, I will NOT be that nurse who gets ill and takes my stressful day out on a student who is there because that's where they got placed for their rotation.
Many people have commented about your disrespect of nurses. You and one other person fail to see the problem. Perhaps you don't see a problem, but you might modify your behavior to be more respectful -- if not here, where there are no consequences, then out in the real world where there ARE consequences. Assuming that you're able to make it through nursing school without offending someone at your clinical site to the point where they go to your school about you, you will have senior nurses on your first job. If you talk to them the way you've "talked" to us, you will have problems getting along with your colleagues. That can make a job miserable, and will probably end with you coming here to complain about how they're "bullying" you.
I don't think it's necessarily a special snowflake or generational thing. I think it's telling how so many new grads are terribly overwhelmed once they hit the floors after previously wondering why the floor nurses didn't think they owed it or wanted to help the next generation of nurses.
How many times have we heard, "well you all were students once.."?
Working conditions have changed so much and instead of nursing students looking at the floor nurses' avoidance as a symptom of what they'll be facing soon and appropriately asking themselves, "what the heck am I getting myself into?", they question why the seasoned nurses don't want the help the next up and coming nurses.
Student nurses, this is real. Our home health patients are sicker than anything we ever saw on the floor in previous years. Not as sick, but sicker. Ratios haven't changed and expectations by both insurers and employers have gone way up. Staff nurses and resources have been stretched again and again. That's what you're signing up for. The fact that the staff nurses cringe when they see you coming down the hall should be a compelling red flag, the reason for it is right in front of you.
There have have been several threads on this & comments on other threads I've read and if this has been said somewhere else...oh well, it bears repeating!
Attending nursing school or being able to add letters after your name that indicate you are a nurse does not suddenly transform you into some angelic, all compassionate person! These people are still humans and some humans are mean, petty people!! Sometimes they are having a bad day but sometimes that it just who they are- and always have been! Being able to add LPN, RN or even NP after their name doesn't change that. And some are good nurses, but lousy co-workers. Or not particularly good with students. The world is full of different kind of people- when you start your 1st nursing job you will encounter nurses, doctors & patients that will challenge you every day, so just chalk this up as part of your real-world nursing education as clinicals are meant to be.
I'm not so far out of RN school that I don't remember clinicals clearly. I had an instructor that was excellent but strict and I had an instructor that kind of let us run wild: we selected our own pts & she stayed in the cafeteria on a different floor the whole time. And yes, we reported it on evaluations (she was sloppy about all areas of instruction not just clinicals)
After graduation, I went to work on one of the floors where we did clinicals- where many of local schools do clinicals- and generally speaking, the quality of the CI makes all the difference.
We (the ones that have been through school 1 to 40 years ago) and are now working on the floor (or have worked bedside) can tell you why we do or do not like to have students, how much it adds to our workload/ stress but you will not be able to truly understand until you are the one responsible for those 5-6 (more/less) patients and everything that happens to them. It is an enormous responsibility, a stressful responsibility and when you are there, in the middle of it you will see that priorities change constantly and that superfluous things get irritating.
If that was actually the case across the board, the conflicts being discussed this thread wouldn't be an issue.
Perhaps nursing programs that spew out students by the hundreds without hiring enough clinical instructors are to blame for that? But to be realistic: I have seen groups of students with one instructor who goes around and practices specific tasks with students like giving meds or whatnot.
In times of complex healthcare with constant chaos and change nurses' role has changed plus patients are much sicker (and get older). While everything changes, the bedside nurses often struggle to keep up with "productivity", checklists, outcome measurements and the requirements for customer service as it affects reimbursement...
I know that aspiring nursing students do not "see" all of this - I go to career days in the local High School to talk about nursing as a profession. Their motivation to become nurses is often based in the the idea of "caring" without a good understanding to the role of a nurse today and romanticism. Of course job opportunities and money also play a role. The media continue to create an illusion of a nursing shortage that I do not see in my area.
Perhaps nursing programs that spew out students by the hundreds without hiring enough clinical instructors are to blame for that? But to be realistic: I have seen groups of students with one instructor who goes around and practices specific tasks with students like giving meds or whatnot.
State BONs set limits on how many nursing students a school is allowed to enroll and set standards for faculty to students ratios. In my experience, there's no limit on how many students can be in a lecture class, but the BON has a standard for the maximum number of students allowed in a clinical group with an instructor. Schools that "spew out students by the hundreds" have documented to the BON that they have sufficient qualified clinical faculty and clinical settings to accommodate that many students.
State BONs set limits on how many nursing students a school is allowed to enroll and set standards for faculty to students ratios. In my experience, there's no limit on how many students can be in a lecture class, but the BON has a standard for the maximum number of students allowed in a clinical group with an instructor. Schools that "spew out students by the hundreds" have documented to the BON that they have sufficient qualified clinical faculty and clinical settings to accommodate that many students.
Very interesting - I am glad that the BON requires schools to provide enough clinical instructors.
Are they concerned about the quality of the clinical instructors?
In Australia, our registering body requires that RN's maintain the following competency in order to hold a registration, and maintain it.
If you are unwilling or unable to display this competency, you could and should be de-registered. Teaching students is not optional. It is a part of being a professional, and contributing to the ongoing professionalism of our industry.
4.3 Contributes to the professional development of others:
demonstrates an increasing responsibility to shareknowledge with colleagues
supports health care students to meet theirlearning objectives in cooperation with othermembers of the health care team
facilitates mutual sharing of knowledge andexperience with colleagues relating to individual/group/unit problems
contributes to orientation and ongoing educationprograms
acts as a role model to other members of the healthcare team
participates where possible in preceptorship,coaching and mentoring to assist and developcolleagues
participates where appropriate in teaching othersincluding students of nursing and other healthdisciplines, and inexperienced nurses, and contributes to formal and informal professionaldevelopment.
Very interesting - I am glad that the BON requires schools to provide enough clinical instructors.
Are they concerned about the quality of the clinical instructors?
No. They are concerned with whether nursing instructors meet the minimum objective requirements (established by the BON) for being considered qualified instructors. I would imagine it is obvious that the BON cannot individually, personally evaluate the "quality" of every nursing faculty member of every nursing school in the state. The "quality" of individual instructors is up to the schools that employ them (yet another reason why there is a lot more to whether a nursing program is any good or not than whether it has BON approval, and nursing schools are not all the same, contrary to what some regulars on this site would have people believe).
You know this reminds me of an incident that just happened during my RN clinicals. A young expecting couple in L&D was finally agreeing hours later to an emergency c-section on 23/24 seeker twins. As they roll into the OR a fellow student, my instructor and myself are standing at the doors. My classmate very loudly complains "they need to realize we are here to learn and it is our right to see this!" To my absolute horror the instructor states agreeing with her all while I am trying to politely as possibly get her and my CIvto understand NO YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO WATCH SOMEONE'S BABIES DIE!!!!!! This is the same student that frequently used the phrase that she has a right to do _____ and etc. Students do not have a RIGHT to anything, they have a privilege and that's it. I've had a student snarky at me that I told her not to go into a specific patient's room. Before she even let me tell why she was complaining that she had a right. No you do not have a right to go into a gang rape viticm's room who is currently barely emotionally hanging on while being borderline suicidal.
I think I need a drink after reading this post. And I really only drink 1-2 with dinner while on vacation.
So glad to hear someone like you is willing to protect vulnerable people from these attitudes. They border on sounding narcissistic, to be honest.
When I was first in nursing school (PN), the hospital staff loved having us there. The big difference that our school had was that we were NEVER assigned to work with a nurse. Our instructor assigned us to 4 patients each that she researched before the shift, notified the nurses who we would be assigned to, and we did everything for those patients (except meds if it was not our med day-not all 12 students gave meds with their instructor on the same day, that would be nuts-48 pts meds with one instructor-not happening). Our INSTUCTOR did nursing tasks with us and other students assisted each other with care that didn't require a license. We were never assigned to a nurse and the nurse never supervised our care, that was the responsibility of our instructor..
Same here, PN program. (Just graduated) We were asked not to bother the nurses, and mostly didn't. As they got to know us (we were there twice a week for 8 weeks at a time) they'd take our feedback more seriously and show us fun things.
My very last clinical instructor actually went around and check all of our patients at the end, ohhhh boy were my classmates in trouble!
Ruby Vee, BSN
17 Articles; 14,051 Posts
Many people have commented about your disrespect of nurses. You and one other person fail to see the problem. Perhaps you don't see a problem, but you might modify your behavior to be more respectful -- if not here, where there are no consequences, then out in the real world where there ARE consequences. Assuming that you're able to make it through nursing school without offending someone at your clinical site to the point where they go to your school about you, you will have senior nurses on your first job. If you talk to them the way you've "talked" to us, you will have problems getting along with your colleagues. That can make a job miserable, and will probably end with you coming here to complain about how they're "bullying" you.