***DING***DING***DING***DING***
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?
