McClain

Wow! What a nasty, mean-spirited condemnation of ALL nurses! I can only conclude that you haven't known very many, because while I have worked with a few mean ones, the majority were either just there to do there job, or sincerely cared about their patients and their coworkers. There is no denying that the majority of nurses are women, and they talk about their "female problems" because they have that in common, and that some of them aren't intersted in helping new nurses, for a variety of reasons, but if Anastasias is a nurse, I hope she understands that she must include herself in that blanket statement unless she hasn't met herself! Way to give nurses a really bad name from inside! How does that kind of statement ameliorate anything?

I was referring to the post that said, "I don't care about your BSN or ADN...."

Show a little respect, you say, Ittibittinurse? Have a little patience, do what you know how to do, do it well and you'll get the respect you earn. No need to be so defensive and disdainful. It sounds mean.

I have been doing that myself for OB health histories, but it's really not possible to be the "patient" for all my SIMS clinical students at once. But that might be possible for demonstration of some other skills.

Wow, cool! I don't think ours will be that elaborate, but that's fantastic!

So far I have illicitly asked for volunteer models when I teach Leapold's maneuvers for my class, and really no harm could come from it done the way it is supposed to be done (there would have to be violence for there to be any harm done and I wouldn't permit that), but I'm sure the business folks would be very uncomfortable if they knew I was doing that without some kind of legal liability waiver. I'm working on that right now, but your responses give me more rationale to promote this idea.

That is one of the suggestions I will be making, but I still really want people who would be willing to let the students put their hands on them. That contact is where the liability comes in.

Yes, but not as realistic and serious as with a stranger.

Those of you who had live people to practice or do your exam with, do you know how they got there? Did they volunteer to the school, did you find them and bring them with you or did the school hire them? As an instuctor I want to give my students the most realistic experience possible and I will be submitting a proposal to the school I work at to get them to consider soliciting volunteers or hiring models for this purpose, but my concern is how they'll deal with the potential liability. It's hard to imagine that performing the type of physical assessment nurses perform could result in any harm, but given the litigous climate in California, I think the school will balk at getting live people for physical assessment practice. I'm not even going to suggest that they submit to practice for injections, catheters or anything invasive!

I am trying to develop a proposal for the for-profit school I teach at to get live people, either volunteers or paid models, to allow the students to practice physical assessment (nothing invasive) and clinical interviewing. Does anyone know of this being done at other schools, and how is it administered? When I was in school we practiced on each other and were required to solicit volunteers to demonstrate our ability for the practical exam. I don't remember any liability waivers for this purpose, but it's been a long time so I could have forgotten that part, and I'm thinking that since this school is a for-pofit business, they will want something like that. We are currently using manikins, but the students don't take that as seriously as when they have a live person they're required to touch and talk to.

I have to say that having worked in a number of places and seen many new nurses coming in to their first jobs, there is plenty of criticism and too-high expectation, especially in specialty areas in hospitals. I have worked for many years with nursery nurses who openly called other nurses idiots, new or not, because they didn't have the depth of experience or knowledge in the nursery. I have seen the same behavior in labor and delivery nurses everywhere, and especially there, the "old" nurses all seem to think that if the "new" nurse makes any mistake, they're the one that takes the fall for it, even though the "new" nurse has a license and even may have experience. I have had orientees complain that my coworkers and I were "mean" for intervening in a situation where urgent action was required and they were either too inexperienced or too dense to notice that something needed doing right then. And I have been mistrusted just because I was new, and it was expected, always, that I prove myself before anyone would trust me with my own patients, much less theirs while they were on break. I have had very few collegues actually show me something to help me gain a skill or learn something without a tone of voice that didn't communicate that they thought I was stupid because I didn't know what they were showing me. Nobody knows everything and learning is ongoing. Very little of that behavior had anything to do with whether their kids were giving them trouble, they had marriage problems or car trouble. It almost always was a professional thing. Enough of those orientees were older than me that blaming youth and beauty for their perceived persecution would be completely invalid. There were plenty of times when I was older and more experienced than my orienter, and still got the mistrust. I'm an excellent clinical nurse by my own and others' measure and I still have seen and received plenty of clinical criticism, aside from the interpersonal nit-picking and back-biting that goes on. There have always been cliques and good-old-girls clubs in every hospital I've worked at. Some of that crap had to do with ethnicity. Yes, we go to work to earn a living while performing a service that fulfills needs and satisfies both us and our patients, and we usually have no choice about who we work with. It isn't realistic to expect that everyone we work with will be astute, fast, efficient, kind and selfless every minute regardless of what's going on in their personal life, nor that work is a place to socialize. It is realistic to expect that everyone will do their job, pull their weight, and practice safely. If we hold the same, realistic expectations of ourselves and our coworkers and treat each other fairly, always, that would go a long way toward changing the perception that nurses are "mean."