loveflowers

I am a nursing student and I am doing clinicals- all in acute hospital settings. I will admit that I don't enjoy it and look forward to when it is over. The students don't do much...are just expected to watch the nurse and speak with the patient and get their entire health history and spend the entire time in the patients room for most part. No meds, IVs, foley, etc. Recently, I found that there have been various patients and mostly nurses complaining about me, my work ethic and comments I made to the patients. This comes as a surprise since i can sense I have established a good rapport with the patients. I got good feedback from my instructors. Could it be that I am the type of personality that is very caring and is too open with others? That the nurses think lowly of me because I am in their way too much, since I would love to help as much as I can and learn? There isn't much of a way of finding out, however this whole issue does make me wonder.

So helpful!!

Thanks for your responses. I myself am not giving away the school I am in. It may not neccesarily be Columbia (I asked how easy it was to get in on behalf of a friend who was going to apply.) So Been There RN, I must say that I really appreciate you standing up for my behalf. That is really special. As for the story, the preceptor was my clinical instructor, not a nurse, who was assigned the whole semester. As for her behavior, my entire group found her intimidating, harsh and unfair and wanted to portray herself as tough and efficient but left is feeling unsupported and judged. Her evaluations of us were absolutely awful, mostly blown out of proportion. This was when I went to the "higher ups" to report this on the behalf of my group who were afraid to speak up to anyone, that I got blasted. Either way, the past is the past and I learned lots of lessons from this, some mentioned in this thread. Thanks for your support :)

I don't mean the clinical nurse. I meant my clinical preceptor. When I spoke about what was going on to the higher ups in my school, like the director of the nursing program, etc, that is where I felt attacked, misunderstood and that everything I was saying was misinterpreted negatively.

Hi, I am in a prestigious nursing school, and had a very bad experience with a preceptor. I found her harsh, uninterested in the student's progress and very critical and inflexible. All of my other preceptors were fantastic. I tried speaking with the 2 directors of the program and clinical, and was completely put down by them and attacked personally, with every fault of mine they can think of, being bought up, as opposed to getting any support, encouragement or being listened to. This was a very bad surprise, as the school itself seemed very focused on the student's best interests. Does anyone have advice? It was not at all my intention for any of this to happen, and I am now eve questioning this field.

Thanks! I am a current Columbia nursing student and that is my GPA so far.

I am in Columbia for nursing. Would you say that a 3.7 GPA is considered competitive for jobs, grad school, etc?

TraumaJunkie, what do you consider a high GPA? 3.7? 3.8? 3.9?

How much does a GPA matter woth job search? Does having a really GPA help? Or do employers look at other aspects as well?

I am in school now for my BSN and I am drawn to working with infants, labor and delivery and those related areas. I see that I can specialize in Pediatric nurse practitioner with a subspecialty in Woman's health. Do you think that is feasible? What are my working options?

I am in a well known nursing school in NYC and one of the teachers mentioned that the NNP programs are all phasing out right now. Is that accurate? Also, can a PNP work in the NICU or in well baby's nurseries?

Any other program=any other school.

I am applying to Columbia EtP program and the impression I get is that you cannot go elsewhere for the Masters portion. That once you start, you must continue into a specialty. I just heard from a friend though, that once you get your Bachelors after the year long accelerated program, you can go on to any other program to get a Masters and specialize in NP, etc. Is that true, that the program is not mandatory to be taken all the way through?

I hear from many people that nursing school, especially an ABSN program can be brutal and a life outside of school can be seriously compromised. Right now I am taking pre reqs and enjoy it very much. I am doing well, but still have lots of time for everything. I enjoy learning, studying and synthesizing info and have a strong foundation in A&P, pathology and science. How did you find the course load? Was it really super grueling, or was it enjoyable? TIA!

All depends on how deep the bond and friendship runs. If your friendship solely depends on having an externally good time together, that is different than if your friendship runs deeper than that, or deeper than your diverging career choices. Some of my closest friends and I see each other once or twice a year but when we do, we pick right up where we left off.