Question for those of you who precept NP students

[doctorwhofan]

It seems as though the trend these days is for schools to churn out NPs as fast as they can with little regard to how much (if any) experience the student has as a nurse. I know I can't change that. I've precepted students in the past without any issues. However, right now I have a student that has less than a year experience as a nurse and quite frankly, it shows. How do you handle having to teach your NP student basic nursing skills as well as the clinical aspect of becoming a well rounded NP? Is it inappropriate if I suggest working as a nurse for a bit longer? Thanks in advance guys.

[2015]

Chelly,

Thanks for your reply. I work with an NP that bridged over and had never been a nurse prior to becoming an NP. She is very smart and a great colleague. It's not something that I personally could've done as I learn by "hands on". I have great respect for her in her practice.

Having said that, I feel that everyone is different and some people learn at different speeds. I just find it frustrating to have to weed through what this particular student does and doesn't know already. I was just wondering how others have dealt with this issue as I know it has become more common recently for nurses (or random bachelor prepared students-lol) to jump on the NP bandwagon. Should I have to assign the student to look up the differences in a PICC line and a TLC? Is this something he should already know since he's been a nurse? Should I be the one to have to explain what it means when a phone number shows up on the pager? Didn't he call a doctor when he was a nurse? These are the little things that are getting in the way of the daily NP stuff.

The nurses I know don't carry pagers. We page the MDs/NPs instead. She might know how to page but doesn't know how to respond to one. Also based on her experience and the unit she worked, she may not have dealt with PICCS and TLCs. Medsurg is popular with peripheral lines.