Hello, I am starting my final semester of my ADN program. During my first rotation (5 weeks) I will be precepting. As an assignment we were asked to join a nursing network site and ask two questions. I have decided to ask two that I really want to know to help me improve and motivate me as a nursing student and hopefully transition into the role of a professional nurse. Our teacher has suggested we go to our preceptor with goals for the day. I know I will have goals such as time management, prioritization, working on skills, etc. I am looking for other ideas of goals that will help me show my preceptor that I am motivated and that nursing is something I am compassionate about. I want to keep good communication and professional relationship with my preceptor. I will be precepting at a hospital I am hoping to be hired at following the completion of my NCLEX exam.
In short my question is...
What type of goals can I set for myself so that I will be able to have an optimal learning experience during my preceptorship (working one-on-one with a nurse) of 108 hours?
Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you!
Question 2:
I am very involved in my student nurses association. I have been a class rep for 3 of my four semesters. I am also the the state chair for breakthrough to nursing. I focus first on my school work, but if I am not doing that, I am putting hours in planning, organizing, fundraising and volunteering at events. Myself and 3 others were co-authors of a resolution passed at the NSNA convention. Our instructors have started putting a weight on our involvement outside the classroom. In my first semester it was required to do at least one volunteer activity and attend one meeting. They dropped those requirements because they had heard employers were looking for what students did outside of their regular program requirements. I have gone beyond my school organization and am now working on becoming a member of the Red Cross DAT team. Over the summer I attended an ethics training and suicide preventions course where I recieved 6 CEU's and a certificate. Nursing is my passion and I enjoy all the activities I have been involved in. Our program has put a hype on what we do outside the classroom. Will volunteering my time and being involved with the community help to stand out to future employers? Are employers looking for people that will represent their hospital (or other agency) for professional organizations? Are there other organizations we can become a part of as students to help us stand out to future employers now that they are looking more toward BSN degrees and also hiring less often?
In general...
Are employers taking interest in the organizations nursing students are involved in when considering hiring new graduates?
@ Preceptsky - rn/writer (the staff who commented earlier re: correct use of this terminology) is correct. You're using it incorrectly. It looks like your instructor hadn't clearly explained it. You are precepting with a preceptor - think of the preceptor as a "mentor" (so you're not the mentor, you're working with a mentor). Make sense?
To clear up any confusion, when you are being mentored by someone with more experience, you are not precepting. You are being precepted. The other nurse is precepting. This is an important distinction.
You can say that you are working with a preceptor or working under a preceptor. That is okay. But this is not the same as saying you are doing the precepting.
I hope that clarifies the terminology.
I do understand that the nurse is the one mentoring and I am being mentored. I am not confused as to what I am suppose to be doing. I am being precepted by a preceptor, in our program, the class is specifically called precepting. I posted these questions for an assignment and combined them in the general nurses foum for my own interest and personal growth. In the original post I put in parentheses that I would be working one-on-one with a nurse. I know the program in the state I am doing my preceptorship, (being mentored one on one with a nurse without direct supervision of a clinical instuctor) calls it something different. I will take my discussion to another site where the focus is not taken away from my specific questions. I did not ask anyone what the difference betwen precepting, preceptor, preceptee, preceptorship, precepted or any other form of precept was. My question dealt with ideas for goals that professional nurses come to work with and about being apart of school and community organizations. Thanks to those that had serious replies. This assignement was to teach us how to network with other nurses and nursing students, not to be criticized on differing terminology.
No one was trying to belittle or criticize you. We were trying to help you so that you are saying it correctly when you get to the clinical site.
Now I have some insight on a possible goal for you though, which was one of your questions...don't get defensive when someone is offering you feedback or a suggestion.
i am not defensive, i simply stated that this is what my program calls this part of our rotations. in the post before my last i even included a quote from my instructor. here is another.
"please use this discussion forum to ask questions to myself or fellow students in the course, place announcements, etc. [color=#33cc00]enjoy your precepting! robyn"
I do understand that the nurse is the one mentoring and I am being mentored. I am not confused as to what I am suppose to be doing. I am being precepted by a preceptor, in our program, the class is specifically called precepting. I posted these questions for an assignment and combined them in the general nurses foum for my own interest and personal growth. In the original post I put in parentheses that I would be working one-on-one with a nurse. I know the program in the state I am doing my preceptorship, (being mentored one on one with a nurse without direct supervision of a clinical instuctor) calls it something different. I will take my discussion to another site where the focus is not taken away from my specific questions. I did not ask anyone what the difference betwen precepting, preceptor, preceptee, preceptorship, precepted or any other form of precept was. My question dealt with ideas for goals that professional nurses come to work with and about being apart of school and community organizations. Thanks to those that had serious replies. This assignement was to teach us how to network with other nurses and nursing students, not to be criticized on differing terminology.
Please, understand that while you are the one who posted the questions, we have many other members, students among them, who read and learn from the messages here at AN. We are normally very careful about visits from the grammar and usage police and generally limit these topics to threads where they are the main focus.
That said, when there is something that can be confusing, especially when it involves students, clarifying a matter can become important. Clearly, your instructor is using a, shall we say, unusual definition for precepting. That's hardly your fault. I just didn't want you to be unpleasantly surprised if someone in the real world should be taken aback and give you a hard time over something that you were told. And, as mentioned, we have the other students to think of.
Please, don't take offense where none was intended.
You must be very excited to be starting your last semester of nursing school. One thing that you might ask your mentor is what she struggled with when starting out. Most people have a hard time with time management, so that's probably a universal goal.
Some struggle with "taking charge" of what will happen with their patients and fall into the trap of asking permission too much. "Is it okay if we do your shower in fifteen minutes" "Would you like to walk in the hallway after lunch?" I'm not saying that you shouldn't be giving choices--when real choices exist. But sometimes you have to be more assertive. "After lunch, I'll get you ready to walk in the hall--unless you'd prefer to do that now."
Others still have a hard time with the emotional aspects of patient care. They feel things so strongly that they really have to learn inner discipline to keep things about the patient and not about themselves. Or they struggle with bodily fluids. That's a fun one.
Still others need to bone up on lab values and procedures so that know what's going on and so they can answer questions when the patients ask.
This final semester is when you are supposed to be integrating the many different skills and concepts you have acquired into "the big picture." You don't end up with all the answers, but something finally clicks and the puzzle pieces come together. That's a great feeling.
As for the volunteer activities, you never know what will attract an employer's attention. Every little bit can help in this tight economy. I would encourage you to consider including some non-nursing activities in your life--in part because it can help you to look more well rounded, and also because most of us need something fun like softball or camping or jewelry making to give us a break and help us feel human.
If I had two evenly matched candidates and one had only nursing activities and the other had those and volleyball or needlepoint besides, I'd pick the one who showed that she had an outlet for stress and knew how to kick up her heels a little.
I am going to talk with my instructor about the terminology that you stated. Many of the other students have not posted questions in "nursing forums" yet and I have advised them about our terminology. We have three to choose from and this one of those three.
We are taught in our program to communicate with our patients the way you stated. I had not thought of that to include on my goals. Sometimes patients do not want to get out of bed to walk and we must use ways to encourage them to do so to prevent other issues they may have from staying in bed during their stay such as pneumonia or instead of doing therapy they are nervous to move affected limbs, etc. That is an aspect of nursing that I will continue to work on. Certain criteria at our hospital, especially when a patient is on medicaid, is to make sure they are meeting certain qualifications for discharge. This helps with cost efficient nursing, better care, and patient well being. I will definately keep this in mind during my last semester and career so that I am able to provide the best care possible to patients.
As for the the nursing organizations and community service, I feel that the part we take as nursing students make a difference. The city I am currenty living in has over 70,000 people. I know many other cities have more but on the west coast there are not too many that do. We had a hostage situation at the beginning of the summer and ony 3 red cross volunteers showed up to assisted those that were escorted from the premisis. During this semester we are encouraging more people to become involved. I have those outlets you suggested. I played volleyball and softball throughout high school. I graduated in 2008 and am not sure how far back the experience they want with those types of activities on a resume. I still play community softball and our season just ended, but they do not offer volleyball in the area I am in currently. We have our week of welcome this week and today myself and other students manned our booth. We took turns going around to the other booths and realized it is dufficult to become a part of other school organizations and activities because of class and clinical. We have started 12 hour clinicals this semester and during out preceptorship we may have to work weekends and holidays that other organizations have activites for. But I see where you are talking about a stress outlet and will keep that in mind.
Also, I was just having a coversation with my husband about how nurses have to be open minded and respect other peoples values, opinions, culture and background. I think I will add this to the list of goals to share with my preceptor. Everyone comes from a different background and while caring for them it is no one's right to judge. :)
Amanda.RN
199 Posts
@ Preceptsky - rn/writer (the staff who commented earlier re: correct use of this terminology) is correct. You're using it incorrectly. It looks like your instructor hadn't clearly explained it. You are precepting with a preceptor - think of the preceptor as a "mentor" (so you're not the mentor, you're working with a mentor). Make sense?