Preceptorship

Ok. Thanks, that helps! I wasn't sure how much teaching/ mentoring was involved and how much of it was to show the preceptor how much you already knew. Seems that the preceptor is there if you need them, but you are expected to be the nurse.

A lot will depend on the type of unit you're precepting on as well as the style of your preceptor. Very few nurses will just allow a student with whom they are unfamiliar to perform skills unsupervised until they are able to observe their abilities. The nurse is still the primary person responsible for the patient's safety. It's also unlikely that the unit will expect you to manage a full patient assignment at the beginning of your rotation- although that will probably be the goal for you by the end of the semester.

I did my preceptorship on a med-surg/respiratory floor. It was a great experience- lots of post-op lung surgeries, chest tubes, trachs, pneumonia, COPD exacerbations, etc. Normal patient:nurse ration was 5:1. I started out just shadowing my preceptor the first shift or two in order to get a feel for the flow of the floor, the policies, where things were kept, etc. Then I started taking one patient myself and assisting with the others. Gradually I worked up to taking the entire assignment independently and relying on my preceptor only when I had questions about something. The preceptorship was 160 hours total, or roughly fourteen 12 hour shifts.