Unfriendly RN's during clinicals

targa · Jul 9, 2005

I'm sorry... but there's no excuse for rudeness. Talk to your clinical instructor, who will talk to the unit manager, and to the DON if necessary. If the unit can't clean up its act and provide the clinical experience which they contractually agreed to provide, then the school should move its students to greener pastures. To make excuses for the grouchy nurse is nonsense. She needs an attitude readjustment.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Jul 9, 2005

I'm sorry... but there's no excuse for rudeness. Talk to your clinical instructor, who will talk to the unit manager, and to the DON if necessary. If the unit can't clean up its act and provide the clinical experience which they contractually agreed to provide, then the school should move its students to greener pastures. To make excuses for the grouchy nurse is nonsense. She needs an attitude readjustment.

How very morally superior of you. I'm not name calling, read me posts on this page.

let me paraphrase you for you: "I'm number one and when I arrive on the unit, all the real work should stop so that my academic career can take priority, and if I don't get my way, well look out, cause I'll just write everybody up".

Come chat about how nurses eat their young six months out of nursing school. Because, if your answer is to cross the 'blue line' and write up every nurse that hurts your little feelings, you will see what eating our young is about.

Grow up. Yes, a rude nurse isn't holding up her professional end - but how are you for being a baby about it?

"I'll write you up" WILL NOT get you very far in nursing. Or maybe it will, but to the extent it does, it will make you the exact nurse you think that you are complaining about.

~faith,

Timothy.

targa · Jul 9, 2005

How very morally superior of you. I'm not name calling, read me posts on this page.
let me paraphrase you for you: "I'm number one and when I arrive on the unit, all the real work should stop so that my academic career can take priority, and if I don't get my way, well look out, cause I'll just write everybody up".
Come chat about how nurses eat their young six months out of nursing school. Because, if your answer is to cross the 'blue line' and write up every nurse that hurts your little feelings, you will see what eating our young is about.
Grow up. Yes, a rude nurse isn't holding up her professional end - but how are you for being a baby about it?
"I'll write you up" WILL NOT get you very far in nursing. Or maybe it will, but to the extent it does, it will make you the exact nurse you think that you are complaining about.
~faith,
Timothy.

LOL... you need a career change, or a job change. Here's how adults handle things: you honor a commitment. If the unit can't honor its commitment to train, the commitment should be ended. And one individual shouldn't be allowed to alter the commitment, or jeopardize a unit's reputation or that of its other nurses.

As for me "being a baby", you know nothing about me. Suffice it to say that I've handled way worse matters than a grouchy unit nurse. No one is going to "eat me"... that person will be getting a very bad case of indigestion.

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Jul 9, 2005

As for me "being a baby", you know nothing about me. Suffice it to say that I've handled way worse matters than a grouchy unit nurse. No one is going to "eat me"... that person will be getting a very bad case of indigestion.

But this is my point exactly. You're right. I don't know you. But you don't know anything about all these 'rude' nurse that you feel absolutely comfortable making moral judgements about.

That's EXACTLY MY POINT!

And instead of trying to listen to a critique of your position, you've just become defensive. I'm not calling you names, I'm simply trying to provide you another point of view from which to evaluate the situation.

But you'll not have it.

Fine.

~faith,

Timothy.

Sheri257 · Jul 9, 2005

If the unit can't clean up its act and provide the clinical experience which they contractually agreed to provide, then the school should move its students to greener pastures.

I'm really curious about whether you've ever talked to school administrators about how hard it is to schedule and set up clinical sites. My guess is that you have no idea how difficult it is. At the last minute, two hospitals dropped out of clinicals for my class this year, and the school really have to scramble, only finding substitutes two hours away. It's not like the schools can set up these things at the drop of a hat. Not all the hospitals want students. And, even those hospitals who do want students can't take an unlimited number of them.

:coollook:

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Jul 9, 2005

I thought one of the points that I was making before was that there are no greener pastures.

Or to quote a friend: the grass might be greener on the other side, but what you don't see is the leaky septic tank.

There really is a connection there between the quality of green and the fertilizer that nourishes it.

But even if the hospital is extending a commitment instead of accepting one, that doesn't mean that the over-their-head floor nurses signed on to that commitment. It's not like admistrations have ever taken on obligations before without any idea of what that obligation entails to those in the trenches, eh?

~faith,

Timothy.

targa · Jul 9, 2005

Well, I don't know how they handle things in Texas (where everything is bigger, including egos)... instead of a discreet word with the offending grouch, perhaps there's a pistol-whipping in the parking garage... but I'm not making any CHARACTER judgments whatsoever. Just a simple point: rudeness at any time is unacceptable behavior for a professional, regardless of the circumstances, workload, stress of the day, PMS status, or blood-sugar level. If a staff nurse isn't up to the task of training a student, he/she should possess enough professionalism to handle the matter in a way other than that discussed here. Perhaps professionalism hasn't migrated to certain work environments... but at the school I attend, it's expected of everyone, from students right on up to the dean, and across the street to the staff nurses. I have never encountered bad behavior from a clinical instructor, nor have I heard of any problems, and the staff nurses across the street are some of the busiest in town, with extremely sick patients. I feel for people whose experience is different... but it isn't my intent to start a p**sing match about this. It's my opinion. And it's how I intend to practice.

#1rnstudent · Jul 9, 2005

I've had some nurses that were so student unfriendly that one threatened to kill the next student she saw... and then she saw me. What a way to make someone feel good about themselves. I didn't get killed, but it sure made me feel like sh$t to have to be there knowing I had done nothing wrong and that I was still unwanted. I work my butt off to please the patients, please the nurses and please my teacher. I've learned that one cannot please everyone and so long as my patient and my teacher are happy, everything is fine. One just hasta grin and bear it and then remember so that when one has graduated and gets a student of their own, one can be nicer. It all comes down to that "golden rule". ^_^

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Jul 9, 2005

If a staff nurse isn't up to the task of training a student, he/she should possess enough professionalism to handle the matter in a way other than that discussed here.

Targa, it's a debate: you are fully entitled to your opinion, as am I. I can have a detailed, prolong debate with you without it being a p%$^^&& match.

I wasn't calling you a baby before, and I apologize if you took it that way - I was trying to provide the other perspective from yours.

MY instructors made this perfectly clear to me when I was a student: as far as tasks go, training a student is the LOWEST priority task of a staff member - somebody who is not, in fact, a nursing teacher and somebody that already has a full plate.

We were taught to be very humble and unassuming: to know our place as students.

We were also given the instructor's pager number with the explicit instruction to call HER for questions unless it was very clear that the floor nurse had the time and inclination to lend an ear.

The way you phrase this quote above, it sounds like you think that the students are the nurse's job. NOT SO.

I had 'rude' RNs as a student, and because I did, I try my best not to be that.

But when I had 'rude' RNs, my instructors were very clear that it was MY obligations to back off and come get her. So she could take them on?! NO, so she could make sure that she spent more time with me, thereby taking up the slack.

I've never said it's right to be rude. What I said was that when you are drowning, niceties often aren't your priority. All I'm saying is that there has to be another perspective here or it wouldn't be such a common practice. And just maybe it would help to understand what is happening if you could empathize or put yourself in the other shoe.

I love my job and I love helping students be enthusiastic about it. But. Nursing does have a dirty side to it and it's unrealistic not to expect to see it or face it.

And how you face it is important. You can complain or suck it up. My experience is that, even if empathy isn't spared for you in the heat of a moment, if you maintain a smile and a friendly demeanor, most nurses are indeed human and will realize and compensate for that initial rudeness.

I guess what I'm saying is that there is a time and place for every battle and before I'd go to battle with someone that is clearly stressed out and not compensating well (or else they wouldn't be rude), I'd at least try to examine the situation from their perspective.

~faith,

Timothy.

targa · Jul 9, 2005

True enough. I understand your point of view. No offense meant or received.

regards,

targa

Luv2BAnurse · Jul 9, 2005

Generally speaking, I am "nice" to everyone, at least my opinion of nice. Nice and Rude are judgment calls.

Anyhow.....

One day I had a patient bring in her own narcotics from home, not a small bottle mind you, but a very LARGE bottle of vicodin. I had to count them, get another nurse to count them, then lock them in the narcotic drawer. I had counted, three times- due to numerous interruptions, and was getting another RN to count. Our counts did not equal, so we had to count again. We were not in an enclosed room, there was none or we would have been, so the distractions were awful. The fifth attempt on the other nurse to count, and three students yelled down the hall for her, I asked was it important- she was counting, and could I help. They were saying they needed HER and NOW. So, she closed up the bottle and went down the hall only to find an elderly lady still standing that "wouldn't walk". Like three students couldn't roll a chair over for her? I almost lost it, because I had already lost twenty five minutes dealing with a patient's medicine (not a patient, the MEDICINE) and I was already up to my eyes in work. I could not carry around the narcotic, it must be locked up. So this was important so that I could carry on with my work. I did roll my eyes at the end of the hall (half out of relief that it wasn't something serious and half out of annoyance of having to count yet again.). Not everything can be done by the charge nurse, not everything is a major catastrophe. Both sides had something they needed to do. The woman was standing! A chair not two feet away! That's the difference between being a nurse and a student, I suppose.

Anyway, my point was.....that was almost a half hour of lost time in which several things could have been done, not all students' fault, as we did have several distractions prior to the lady-and-chair incident. That's enough to give even a "nice" nurse a "rude" appearance.

cloudydrms · Jul 10, 2005

Fortunately, most of the RN's I came into contact with during my clinical rotations were really helpful, but my advice to you for the ones who are less than helpful is this: KISS HIS/HER BEHIND! I know that you shouldn't have to, but, believe me, as a nursing student you will learn so much more from that nurse if you follow that advice! I can remember several of my fellow nursing students having trouble with one nurse in particular...the more she was hostile, the more attitude and hostility they got towards her. It just escalated until there was no learning taking place at all. I always just took anything they dished out with a smile on my face and always asked their opinion like it was the most opinion I could ever come in contact with. I always ended up having a good relationship with these "testy" nurses AND I usually learned that they had a lot of good info to impart.

Just one recent graduates opinion,

Cindy