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.
I appreciate your response and honesty. I guess it's hard for me to understand because I love to teach people and be a mentor others. Thanks!
To teach and mentor is why one has a clinical instructor. If a nurse has a heavy and high acuity patient load, everything (yes, everything) needs to be timed to perfection. The nurse gets "dinged" if the meds are late. The nurse gets "dinged" if call bells are not answered within a time frame. The nurse gets "dinged" for any number of things, most of which involve timing.
Be mindful when you hear some sort of heart issue (or any issue) in front of the patient. It sets the patient up for increased anxiety. This is something that you can bring up to the MD, or that the primary nurse can. And because the main focus is on customer service, it also can degrade the "therapeutic" (ie: we are so awesomely excited to be your nurse) vibe. Also, many practitioners want to assess themselves and discuss with the patient findings themselves.
If you have questions, comments, concerns, be sure that you keep notes to discuss with your clinical instructor. When you obtain employment, you will have a preceptor that you can then discuss specific patient concerns with, follow up, and the like.
Go into clinicals with a positive attitude to observe, if you have a question go to your instructor or look it up and research what is being done and why--remember how "seasoned" nurses do their thing, so that you can incorporate it in your own practice going forward.
And don't take things personally. Nurses have a tremendous amount of things to do in a short period of time. All with a smile on their face. That they seemed rushed, it is because they are. Because when students go home for the day, the nurse is still at work trying to be a nurse in a business model world.
This is the tone that i got from most responses. Whats interesting to me almost all the responses complained of being busy as the reason to why they didnt want a student. Makes me wonder if nurses had less pt load and/or were compensated for the time they were shadowed if they would be more willing to teach without becoming annoyed or seeing it as a bother.
Gee, ya think?
I notice that you also completely neglected to acknowledge that part about clinical instructors either not doing the job that they were specifically hired to do, or not being able to do the job they are hired to because the school likes taking tuition but doesn't want to give the students what they have paid for.
My clinical instructor would have been appalled to hear that we students expected the staff nurses to be our teachers. She wanted us to be as unobtrusive as possible. ALL questions were to be directed to her unless the dialogue was initiated by the staff nurse. And the student with the snarky "How about a decent report" or whatever would have found herself explaining those actions to the dean.
Or when I assess the patient and find a S3 gallop and tell my nurse and she just looks at me like I'm insane and does nothing about it, even though it's never been charted on.
Ok, so it hasn't been charted on, but what was/were the patients diagnosis/diagnoses? Depending on the patient's condition (say, longstanding CHF), it could easily have been expected that an S3 gallop would be present and therefore may not have been notated in the chart.
If the nurse truly reacted in the way you describe, I suspect this was likely the case.
It's much easier to create an account, click "I agree" and start posting! It's much easier to have someone else do the searching for you, as a very kind poster did for this student!
The fact that MANY nurses here have commented about your tone and attitude is telling. It's troublesome that to each one you deny that you are being rude with an attitude. Maybe you should re-read your posts and see if you can't pick up what it is people are commenting on.
How is it that I have a superiority complex as a student? I don't believe that I am better than anyone, just as I don't believe a nurse is any better than I am. I believe in equality. Also, I can't help that my instructor is unreliable and is a poor instructor. I don't expect the nurses to owe me anything, I would just appreciate if I weren't looked at as a burden when I stick to myself mostly or when I ask a question about something that I've been taught is concerning.
I believe in equality. Also, I can't help that my instructor is unreliable and is a poor instructor. I don't expect the nurses to owe me anything, I would just appreciate if I weren't looked at as a burden when I stick to myself mostly or when I ask a question about something that I've been taught is concerning.
With all due respect, and I really mean that, what you need to understand is that, likely through no fault of your own, you ARE A BURDEN. Whether it's because your CI is inept or has been given too many students, or the nurse has too many patients (see a pattern here?), your presence, contrary to what many nursing students believe, just adds another BIG responsibility to the nurse. No matter how great of a student nurse you are, the staff nurse must still go over your charting/interventions, etc. because she is still ultimately responsible for making sure the patient gets everything he needs. It's SO MUCH EASIER to do something yourself than to have stop and explain it, or watch someone do it so much slower than the experienced nurse would do it. It puts the nurse behind from the word go. The whole day is spent trying to catch up, suppress the inner panic attack, and get through the day. We have absolutely no affiliation whatsoever with your school, yet there is this expectation that we owe it to them and to you to work for them, AND YOU, in spite of the fact that no adjustment has been made in our patient assignment to allow us to do this adequately.
You (and you are not alone, trust me, we've heard this countless times from students) are asking for all this patience, tolerance, and understanding, without giving one hint that you've even considered it from the nurse's perspective. In fact, some students have even come here complaining about this and finishing with "and we take SO much off the load of these nurses, they should be THANKING us!" I kid you not.
As long as nursing schools continue to assign too many students to their instructors, or as long as instructors consider their role to simply be peripheral rather than primary, these conversations will continue to take place.
Which is they are busy and students are not their responsiblity. Only a few of the comments said the CI is neglecting to do their job, and those comments stemmed from one poster asking where the CI was during all of this. The OP responded saying the CI was always late and never around. That comment received about 3-5 responses. (I could be wrong on those comments and that number because as i said i read MOST of the comments not ALL)
Even if we were not busy, students are still NOT our "responsibility." Do you understand that? We have no affiliation with your school. Many of us have no experience whatsoever with instructing students, unlike (presumably) university professors. For the most part, staff nurses receive no guidance for dealing with students, no protocols, no training whatsoever. When a nurse gives time and attention to a student, he is going above and beyond what he should be expected to do, whether he has one patient or ten. The student is not and never has been his "responsibility." Guess who is? THE PATIENT.
An exception to this would be hospitals who have some kind of official joint affiliation with a school, and nurses are not only paid for their participation, but are given at least minimal training, guidelines, and policies to refer to. Additionally, their assignment might be altered to allow for better teaching. This expectation is made clear from the beginning, and often, nurses are consulted in advance as to whether they are willing to take part. This isn't the norm from what I gather.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Excuse me, but I'm not sure where I have been out of tone at all. Furthermore, I am far from being an idiot. You don't know me at all, and I've done nothing but ask a simple question. I apologize you took my post the wrong way. I show respect for everyone, no matter who it is.
The tone of this post -- as all of your posts -- lacks respect for the poster you're quoting. I'm sure if they blew rainbows up your skirt, your tone would be more respectful, but anyone who knows anything about actually being a nurse tasked with answering a student's questions while handling a busy assignment without have been asked if they WANT a student isn't going to be answering your question in the manner in which you seem to feel you deserve. (You expected a round of "Ain't it terrible!" About the nurse who "mistreated" you followed by affirming your notion that you're right -- nurses should drop everything to answer your questions. At least, that's how this thread reads.)
I don't know you at all. You may not actually be an idiot. Despite how you come across on these threads, you may not actually have a nasty, entitled attitude, either. I don't know you. You have, however, done worse than "ask a simple question," and I (and many other posters) have not taken your post the wrong way.
I was chuckling when I read this. I know exactly what you mean. When an educator/clinical instructor shows up on the floor, it may not be on your radar as a nurse. It's not like they announce to all the nurses who will be teaching and when so you know what to expect. Also, they don't really ever introduce nurses to students so nurses on the floor have no actual "ownership" of the process that is happening in your education.
To take a nurse out of her change of shift briefing to pair her up with a student or tell her a student will be working with her on a patient can be a cause for both JOY and WORRY. There's joy, depending on the unit, b/c the nursing students can take tedious tasks off your plate since they are working on their fundamentals (assessment, vital signs, running back and forth for incidentals like water refills and ADL's). There's WORRY to various degrees depending on the type of patients served, that an assessment won't be performed properly, documentation won't happen properly, or that there will be an issue with the patient that the student will fail to alert the nurse to that should actually receive immediate attention.
On my unit, the instructor would approach the charge nurse, ask which patients might be good for students, and the charge nurse would help identify those with straightforward care plans, as well as those who might provide an interesting discussion experience for the unusual, but manageable issues they are dealing with. Then the primary nurse would allow the students and teacher to provide patient care, still checking with the patient as appropriate (some patients benefit from fewer rest interruptions, and cluster care is imperative), and following behind to ensure key tasks and key documentation were happening. And that takes energy but not as much as doing all the work for that patient yourself.
If a nurse is charged with taking you under her wing, this might be an unwelcome "surprise" at the beginning of a shift when nurses like to manage their work with their "process, flow, routine." Also, the nurse you work with or around may not particularly enjoy investing her time in your learning experience. Like I said, they usually don't even know who students are or when they are coming.
YES. Nurses have "been there." ALL nurses have been there. Some remember, some do not. Not everyone becomes a nurse for the same reasons. Not every nurse has a pat "nursing personality." It may not be helpful when you're a student to feel welcome in a shared space in someone else's turf. But in those cases, don't take it personally, keep a sense of humor, and consider it part of your nursing education. If you have Disney experiences all thru nursing school then you're not getting your money's worth!
Now. What will YOU do when YOU'RE a nurse and new students come around? Will you mimmic what you have experienced or will you become an inspiration to some future nurse who will remember you for years?
I know exactly what you mean. When an educator/clinical instructor shows up on the floor, it may not be on your radar as a nurse. It's not like they announce to all the nurses who will be teaching and when so you know what to expect. Also, they don't really ever introduce nurses to students so nurses on the floor have no actual "ownership" of the process that is happening in your education.
jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B
9 Articles; 4,800 Posts
To teach and mentor is why one has a clinical instructor. If a nurse has a heavy and high acuity patient load, everything (yes, everything) needs to be timed to perfection. The nurse gets "dinged" if the meds are late. The nurse gets "dinged" if call bells are not answered within a time frame. The nurse gets "dinged" for any number of things, most of which involve timing.
Be mindful when you hear some sort of heart issue (or any issue) in front of the patient. It sets the patient up for increased anxiety. This is something that you can bring up to the MD, or that the primary nurse can. And because the main focus is on customer service, it also can degrade the "therapeutic" (ie: we are so awesomely excited to be your nurse) vibe. Also, many practitioners want to assess themselves and discuss with the patient findings themselves.
If you have questions, comments, concerns, be sure that you keep notes to discuss with your clinical instructor. When you obtain employment, you will have a preceptor that you can then discuss specific patient concerns with, follow up, and the like.
Go into clinicals with a positive attitude to observe, if you have a question go to your instructor or look it up and research what is being done and why--remember how "seasoned" nurses do their thing, so that you can incorporate it in your own practice going forward.
And don't take things personally. Nurses have a tremendous amount of things to do in a short period of time. All with a smile on their face. That they seemed rushed, it is because they are. Because when students go home for the day, the nurse is still at work trying to be a nurse in a business model world.