This has been bothering me since Tuesday, so I finally decided to start a thread. At my clinical site a student is working on the oncology floor. A woman had cancer that had spread everywhere, and she was 17 weeks pregnant. She and her husband decided to terminate the pregnancy (I don't know the reason why), and they would not release the fetus to the funeral home, so it was frozen in the morgue. This student was assigned to her for the clinical time, and the parents of the fetus decided that they would release the fetus, but they wanted someone to go down and get it and bring it up to them so they could get some closure. The instructor told the student "Well, you don't HAVE to go, but you really should do it since you're the one taking care of her." This is our first clinical, and I know that nurses have to see and do all kinds of things that are difficult to handle, but this seems to me to be asking too much of a student. Am I way off base? I guess the instructor gave the student an out, but it was implied that she would be doing a bad job if she didn't go to get the baby, and the instructor is grading the student......I might really be off here, but I wondered what others thought.
IF (I said IF), the instructor was sure the student could handle it, AND the student agreed to it, AND the instructor went with the student; then I think could be a good learning experience. I think facing death for the first time in NS with your instructor present to help you through could be a very good learning experience.
Personally, I saw my first death as an EMT student, and was so thankful that I had seen it as a student in an environment where everybody knew that this was my first time and they could help me through it. I think that if I had seen my first death after I got my license, it would have been harder without the support. I had the opportunity to see two deaths close up and visit the morgue several times before I even got my EMT license, which I think really helped me. Now, I know what to expect and what my reactions are to death/dying/morgues/family members. It was understood that if at any time I found it to stressful I could leave and be supported in doing so. I wasn't pressure into being there, I wasn't forced to do anything that I wasn't comfortable in doing, and my grade wouldn't have gone down if I had had to leave. I did in fact turn down one situation (would have been my first exposure to a death), it was a body removal call, for a homicide victom that police hadn't released until then. The medics warned me that this was a messy body removal, and were not at all disappointed when I turned down the "opportunity" to go with them to pick it up.
So, I do think it would be appropriate to learn these things in NS. However, for a first semester student? Maybe for a second or third semester student who is more confident, but first semester is a stretch. As well as a baby, older adults are hard enough to deal with, much less a baby.
I just have to jump in here with a thought. Many posts have focused on the effect this request would have on the student. I mentioned this before and I think it bears repeating. This isn't just a matter of how the student might handle the situation. It is also a question of how her reaction might affect the parents.
I do NOT think it is appropriate or fair to anyone involved to use the "sink or swim" approach when you could very possibly take others (the parents) down with you. Imagine the student freaking out or saying something well-meaning but insensitive or bursting into tears and running from the room. The parents don't need to have that scenario added to their burden.
If I were an instructor, I would accompany the student down to get the body and talk to her about what to expect, both physically as far as the baby is concerned, and emotionally from everyone involved, including herself. I would want her to tell me what she was thinking and feeling and I'd assess her ability to deal with her own emotions and keep them somewhat in check. Then I'd have her go in and observe the staff nurse working with the parents and participate in a limited fashion.
She (and I'm speaking hypothetically here as I don't know what actually happened) shouldn't be "spared" the entire experience, nor should she have to carry the whole burden her first time out. And to tell you the truth, if I were the staff nurse, I wouldn't want a student taking the lead in a situation like this unless I was darn sure she knew what she was doing. My first obligation would be to my patient and the student second.
The down side of "sink or swim" is that some are going to sink who might have been okay with a bit of direction. That's not a tragic loss if we're talking about collecting a stool sample. But helping parents view and say goodbye to their deceased infant is far too important to treat in this fashion. The student needs to watch another nurse handle this well so she will have a model to follow when it's her turn to go it alone.
EMTandNurse2B
114 Posts
IF (I said IF), the instructor was sure the student could handle it, AND the student agreed to it, AND the instructor went with the student; then I think could be a good learning experience. I think facing death for the first time in NS with your instructor present to help you through could be a very good learning experience.
Personally, I saw my first death as an EMT student, and was so thankful that I had seen it as a student in an environment where everybody knew that this was my first time and they could help me through it. I think that if I had seen my first death after I got my license, it would have been harder without the support. I had the opportunity to see two deaths close up and visit the morgue several times before I even got my EMT license, which I think really helped me. Now, I know what to expect and what my reactions are to death/dying/morgues/family members. It was understood that if at any time I found it to stressful I could leave and be supported in doing so. I wasn't pressure into being there, I wasn't forced to do anything that I wasn't comfortable in doing, and my grade wouldn't have gone down if I had had to leave. I did in fact turn down one situation (would have been my first exposure to a death), it was a body removal call, for a homicide victom that police hadn't released until then. The medics warned me that this was a messy body removal, and were not at all disappointed when I turned down the "opportunity" to go with them to pick it up.
So, I do think it would be appropriate to learn these things in NS. However, for a first semester student? Maybe for a second or third semester student who is more confident, but first semester is a stretch. As well as a baby, older adults are hard enough to deal with, much less a baby.
Just my