Things you'll never forget from your nursing instructors?

[NurseCalamity]

I was just thinking back to nursing school and I honestly had a hilarious instructor. She wasn't all tough, like beat you to the ground, she integrated humor into a lot of discussions which made her lectures very interesting. She considered herself "old school" and joked about how much she missed restraints (LOL) so anyways, here's a couple of things I'll never forget from her....

"Become friends with the housekeepers, you will need them."

My goodness, isn't this the honest to God truth. When a PT has explosive diarrhea all over the bathroom, they have no problem helping you clean it up.

"Calcium equals constipation, Magnesium equals Diarrhea."

There was a question about this on my NCLEX! I don't know why it stuck with me, but it did.

"Stay out of the way, stay out of gossip, steer clear of the politics and your job will be easier."

Very true. Being too involved gossiping and being worried about what is going on in the facility takes way too much energy. All of your energy is needed to focus on patient care.

"Make one good friend and you're golden."

A job is not a popularity contest, do your best, take care of your PTs, and go home. One good friend is enough.

What did your nursing instructors tell you that you'll never forget?

[vandiola]

I assume by instructor you mean lecturer and not nursing mentor? I have genuinely never learnt anything from my lecturers, not even in my lectures. There are about 500 of us in each year, so it's very difficult for our teachers to get to know us on a personal level. I think the most profound thing a lecturer has ever said to us was when we had a mental health learners day (most of us are adult nurses), that when a pt in a mental health hospital attacks you, you call security to restrain them, but as adult nurses we don't really work in the same capacity of mental health so we can't restrain patients who hit us, and she replied with 'oh, well that doesn't matter to me, I'm a mental health nurse and we can restrain patients'. Thaaanks teach!

[Farawyn]

My L&D instructor was quite up front when she said " I don't think men should be Nurses, I don't want them in my class or my clinical rotation, but since the university insists you guys (two of us) have to complete this , lets just make the best of it." I have felt more loved before, but it was nice to have some in-your-face honesty, even if it was a sexist rant and a gross abuse of authority- I'm sure other instructors felt the same, they were just too politicaly correct to say it. I serious when I say I appriciated this instructor more than some others. At least we knew where we stood.

This sucks. I hope she's your patient one day and you rock it. IN YOUR FACE, Nurse Ratched!

[Aliareza, BSN]

I had one professor in particular who kept it very real and shared some very good advice with us.

"We all mess up and put our foot in our mouths sometimes. If you ever do that at work, you go tell on yourself as soon as you possibly can. Never let your boss hear bad news about you from somebody else first."

"If you get pregnant during nursing school, you aren't studying hard enough!"

"NEVER give potassium IV push! Think "K for KILL", because that's what you'll do if you give it IVP!"

"When you have conflict with your fellow nurses, find common ground. Remember that you all have the same goal, which is to help the patient, and mostly the same morals. It's just that your morals and methods are prioritized in a different order. Find that common ground, and you can make most conflicts okay."

[Farawyn]

I had one professor in particular who kept it very real and shared some very good advice with us.

"We all mess up and put our foot in our mouths sometimes. If you ever do that at work, you go tell on yourself as soon as you possibly can. Never let your boss hear bad news about you from somebody else first."

"If you get pregnant during nursing school, you aren't studying hard enough!"

"NEVER give potassium IV push! Think "K for KILL", because that's what you'll do if you give it IVP!"

"When you have conflict with your fellow nurses, find common ground. Remember that you all have the same goal, which is to help the patient, and mostly the same morals. It's just that your morals and methods are prioritized in a different order. Find that common ground, and you can make most conflicts okay."

I love your instructor on #2 alone.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

Always know the medications you are giving and if you don't look it up. Also when giving digoxin know the most recent digoxin level and k level. Know the k level before giving Lasix.

[CelticGoddess, BSN, RN]

We had a clinical instructor who would remove a draw or just swipe your meds if you turned your back on them. She would just pick them up and put them in her pocket (Or take the entire drawer from the med cart to the med room). You only ever did it one time.

I had another instructor (my CI, actually) who told us that even though we would have RN (Or LPN) after our name, that didn't mean we couldn't do CNA work. And if she found out we thought ourselves to big to CNA work, we should expect her to pay us a visit. Because CNA work was RN (Or LPN work)

One clinical instructor taught me the value of silence. I had a patient who was dying and her son was very distraught. My CI just held his hand. She was a COB, but she cried that day. She was one of my favorites.

Always make sure you unplug the crash cart before you run to a room with it.

And make sure you check your patient to make sure his sudden run of v-fib is actually v-fib because having the entire code team run into the room of man who is using his new electric shaver is not fun for anyone.

Make sure you go INTO the room and actually see the patient breath. Don't document patient is breathing when they aren't. Rigor does't set in for a couple of hours. (Really happened to one of my CI"s co-workers. She documented that patient was "sleeping" for 6 hours. He'd been dead for some time at shift change. Rigor had set in. thank goodness he was a DNR)

And from my least favorite CI: Dates do matter on paperwork, if you end up in court. (She dinged me on my paperwork. The only thing she could find was the date was off. This was my pre-clinical paperwork) At the time I thought she was being overbearing about the paperwork. Now I realize she was just overbearing but accurate about the date.