Precepting A New Grad, While Being A New Nurse Myself

[Newtons]

So I haven't even hit my year mark and i was told, not even by my manager, but another nurse, that i will be precepting a new grad, i go to check my email and lo and behold my manager sent me a email a few days ago saying i've been "selected" to precept. Thanks for asking me btw. I have wanted to eventually precept a new hire but only when i got to the point where i feel confident in my own abilities. I've been an nurse about 11 months now (including the months i was being precepted) and I still ask lots of questions and need sometimes help with my own patients.

There's quite a bit of turnover on my floor. A lot....most except a couple...of the nightshift staff are all new nurses with less than 2 years of experience, everyone more senior than me will be precepting, hence why I am gonna teach a new nurse too.

With that out of the way, are there any tips or tricks or advice i can get in order to be a decent preceptor? Like i mentioned earlier, I still ask a lot of questions myself, i feel like this gonna end up as a let's learn together moment most of the time, which may not totally be bad, but i'd like to at least instill some confidence in her that she'll have someone who kinda knows what they're doing showing her the ropes. I know if i was in her situation, i'd be a little bummed and frustrated that the nurse i was supposed to learn from doesn't have any real experience. I just want to give my preceptee the most that i can and try to make sure she's gets something good out of my sh*tty teaching. ?

[Nunya, BSN]

If you don't feel ready to precept then tell them no.

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

The only advantage of being a "new" preceptor that I can think of is that you might have more empathy for a newbie as it wasn't that long ago for you. I agree that a "let's learn together" attitude will be helpful and maybe you can come out of this experience stronger and more confident clinically.

That being said...I think it's a foolish and unfair move on management's part. You'd think they'd realize that if they have to assign new grads to new nurses that there's a problem with retention.

[Nunya, BSN]

I'd be really upset if I were a new nurse and I got a preceptor with a "let's learn together" attitude. No. A preceptor should know their stuff. Not saying they have to know EVERYTHING, but they should know 95+% of things that come up.

[Davey Do]

On the other side of things, Richard Bach wrote, "We teach best what we most need to learn".

I really can get behind that philosophy when it comes to life's lessons and such, but, as a nurse, I think I would have answered Mr. Bach's quote with,

"Yeah, man. But it really cramps my style."

[LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM]

18 hours ago, Jedrnurse said:

The only advantage of being a "new" preceptor that I can think of is that you might have more empathy for a newbie as it wasn't that long ago for you. I agree that a "let's learn together" attitude will be helpful and maybe you can come out of this experience stronger and more confident clinically.

That being said...I think it's a foolish and unfair move on management's part. You'd think they'd realize that if they have to assign new grads to new nurses that there's a problem with retention.

I'm guessing if the turnover is that bad on the OP's unit then management probably sucks in general.