Other Side of Coin---Less than Humble New Grads

[Mystery5]

We hear a lot about 'eating our young', something which I personally experienced myself, btw, but what about the other side of the coin? How do we handle 'know it all' new grads who overstep their bounds? I've also run into this.

What about the new grad who is so full of her/him self, and who shows a lack of understanding and/or respect for the established members of the unit? Any thoughts???

[MNnurseMom]

Im a nursing student and just want to say...no know it all here! Im scared to death for my first clincals.....coming up in 3 weeks! I am so afraid I will come off looking like an idiot...Im very book smart, but I have never been to clinicals and I hope that im hands on smart too...things seem to go well in skills lab but, dummies really can't give you feedback...sigh...flipping back to the other side of the coin, I really hope that my clincal instructor doesnt "eat me"...there is only 1 hospital in the area in which I live that I know that prob would happen...with my luck i'll get assigned to that hospital...

just a q. for you guys..if you were in the hospital would you let a student nurse in clinicals take you on as a pt or would you refuse?

I don't know if I would allow a student to care for me. I think if I was alert enough to watch what was being done........I would watch carefully if they were caring for my children. There was a student nurse that helped care for my daughter, but I was there and all she ever gave her was Tylenol. I know we all have to care for patients as nursing students, but I am cautious as I know mistakes happen all the time.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

I posted this elsewhere but it's appropriate here, too:

I took a class at the Amer. Assoc of Critical Care Nurses' annual conference (NTI) in May about critical thinking skills and I thought this was cool:

Progression from new nurse to an experience nurse:

1. Unconsciously incompetent: You don't know what you're doing and don't know enough to know you don't know what you're doing.

2. Consciously incompetent: You don't know what you're doing but you know you don't know, and you know when to seek help.

3. Consciously competent: you know what you are doing and you know why you're doing it.

and finally,

4. Unconsciouly competent: you know what you are doing but don't always know why.

This last, most experienced nurse: you ever know nurses that can pick up on things hours before they show as symptoms: they know something's wrong even if they can't put their finger on it. I have a nurse friend, that when she looks at a patient and says, "she ain't right", it's time to start looking very hard for very subtle things, cause if you don't catch what's going on, it'll catch you!

I thought this was a very interesting class and it relates: as you become more experienced, the things you need to know will imprint on you. While both are important, Nursing is MORE about experience than it is book smarts.

And this is why your instructors tell you not to out-book smart the nurses on the units when you're in clinicals.

~faith,

Timothy.