unwelcoming clinical sites

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In my past two years of nursing school, I have had 2 clinical sites where the nurses on the floor were not friendly nor really welcomed the students to the floor. As soon as our clinical group would walk on to the floor, they woud look away and stick their nose in the air and appear to be busy. Our clinical instructor even made us bring in breakfast for them at the beginning and the end of the clinical rotation. You would think after bringing in breakfast the first time, things would change. Our instructor made us take vitals for the floor, even for patients we weren't assigned to. No one appreciated us at all. It doesn't really bother me, I just think its pretty funny and laugh it off. We never did anything to them, but we still get no respect or attention just because we are "just nursing students who will bother them and keep them from doing what they have to do".

Has anyone else ever experienced this?

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Yes, I have had this problem in one of our clinical facilities. We were doing our psych rotation. The nurses there and the staff too, made it clear that we were not welcome there!! On our first day of clinical, our instructor had us meet her in the lobby at 630 am. This place didnt open to the public until after 8. Well, the receptionist told us we were not allowed to sit in the lobby chairs, they are for pts family. ONCE AGAIN... It was 630am!! No one was there!! This continued in various forms. You had to have a key to get onto the elevator or get out of a unit....they kept refusing the give us keys. Previous semesters before us would get the keys.. We had to have our instructor paged in order to let us on elevator, etc. The worst thing of all..... a 300 lb schizophrenic women cornered us in the hallway. We knocked (banged) on the window so the staff could unlock and let us out!! They looked at us and smiiled and continued doing their work!! It's easy to tell that we are students...our uniforms are all white, we have nametags and a large patch on our arm identifying our school!! I will NEVER work at this facility!!

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Wow, what a motley crew that works there. It's a shame to be treated like that.

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Yes, it was a horrible experience, but didnt kill my desire to finish nursing school!! Luckily I work at one of the best hospitals in California as a nursing assistant. Last nite I was offered a job as an RN as soon as I graduate. I will be working on the floor I am already working on !! I am soooooooo excited! Those nurses/staff members at the psych hospital made a horrible impression on my entire clinical group! Usually at the end of our semesters we send the departments we got to have clinical in, a card signed by us and some goodies, this time no one even offered to head that idea up!

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

I just keep in mind that i won't be the way they are when i get out.

And remind myself to try not to apply on the floor.

Tonight we had one nurse (a recent graduate) barking out orders (YOU need to go do this, YOU need to go do that, uh EXCUSE YOU i am TALKING to YOU, and then saying to another nurse "all students think they're the sh*t, i'll be d*mned if they'll be thinking THIS when i'm here"). This was her attitude the minute we walked on the floor.

A mutual human respect is all i ask for. I don't feel that people should have to be grateful and appreciative that we're there, but some people (like that one) we're encountering are going out of their ways to be nasty, it's almost like a hazing. No one has the right to treat others' like dirt ever, let alone think they're entitled to it.

grrrrrrrrrrrrr

:mad:

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I think 90% of my clinicals were like that. I thought it was pretty sad. I just smiled and chatted with them like they were the greatest people in the world when I had time. And I never asked any of them to help me with anything. Actually, I think my being nice to them frustrated them more than it would have if I had just took their crap. This, in turn, made ALL of my clinical days better! :D

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Specializes in Oncology RN.

One of my clinical instructors once told me that the reason some nurses hate being followed or paired with nursing students is that they are not very good nurses...and they don't want you to find out.

I don't know if this is true or not, but it helps me endure when a nurse is being a hag on site. I just tell myself, "That's okay...she's so dumb, she couldn't find her butt with two hands."

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

But if they're so insecure, making an orifice of themselves will make them LOOK insecure as well.

I used the therapeutic communication guidelines to 'communicate' with taht nurse tonight. "You seem very upset. Would you like to talk about it?" It was a calm way to handle the aggitating situation, plus she had no replies for the same thing she had learned in school just months ago.

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Our group has dealt with several staff members with attitudes when we do our clinicals, but I always remain pleasant and professional despite it all. I refuse to feed into it, they're trying to see what kind of reaction they can get out of you and it just feeds the fire. I'm there to learn this profession and perform the task at hand. I ignore the rest of the sandbox bickering. Besides, when I come across a difficult personality, I chalk it up to more experience in dealing with people, heaven knows we'll run across many different types in our careers. I don't know if some see the students as easy prey or if they're threatened by our presence, whatever the reason, ignore it. Do what you have to do, do it with a smile, and step over the garbage.

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Please don't misunderstand my post - I am sure that there are some nurses out there who are not very nice to students but, it has been my experience that often times, it is a misunderstanding or a fear of assuming responsibility for the student's actions. In Ontario, an RN is responsible for any actions a student takes if they are informed of them, or instruct them to do them. It is a vast grey area where an instruction could be misconstrued and the RN is ultimately the one responsible for whatever happens. That can be SCARY for a nurse - his/her license on the line EVERY time they give you advice. I would assume it would be much more scary for a new nurse who just got their license. In Ontario, an RN is not supposed to precept students until they have two years of experience as an RN. So, it's understandable if a new nurse doesn't want to give any advice to students - if this was her fear, she certainly could have communicated it in a much more positive way.

I have seen many misunderstandings of communication as well. Nurses who communicate aggressively perhaps, but whose intentions are good. One nurse wanted a student to understand very well that documentation by exception does not mean, don't document anything at all on your shift. She wanted the student to understand just how important it is to CYA. Her intention was to communicate that if even there were no exceptions, you need to document something, anything, to prove that you did provide care should it ever be called into question in the future. Her demeanour was very aggressive and the student responded in kind. Things escalated quickly. Both of them had to be stopped, and had to think about what the other person was trying to say rather than HOW they were saying it. In the end, it worked out fine, but at the time, it was very stressful for ALL of the students and ALL of the RNs, and our poor instructor stuck in the middle!

I have noticed that nurses and students alike are very good at practicing therapeutic communication skills with patients, but we often leave them at the bedside when communicating with other members of the healthcare team (all members, not just nurses and other students). It is an excellent suggestion by one of the other posters to utilize these skills in our interactions with the nurses that we perceive to be anti-student.

I also know two nurses, women that I knew years before entering nursing school. All of the students perceived these women to be anti-student because of their initial impressions. Both of these women are tall, deep-voiced, intensely professional and dedicated nurses. They race around from patient to patient, getting their work done ASAP and then assist all of the other nurses with their patients. They are high energy, quick-paced ladies. This was misinterpreted as standoffish, anti-student behaviour. I explained this to the other students and that these nurses actually loved students but, you have to keep up with them if you want their advice or help... you have to keep up and put out the same intense energy that they have. These two ladies are now favourites of all of the students, and one of them is my preceptor.

I am sorry for the individuals who have experienced bad situations in clinicals with nurses (that psych placement sounded truly awful) but it has been my experience that a constantly pleasant demeanour and helpful attitude smooths the acceptance of each group of students. I have not had a truly negative experience yet - a brief moment or two, yes, but not the entire experience of the placement. I feel very badly for those of you who have not had the same pleasantness and team atmosphere in your placements. I love nursing more than I did when I began nursing school, I cannot imagine the negative impact that a terrible placement would have had on that feeling.

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sorry that you had to go through this...unfortunately most of us did at one point or another as well.....i know i did as a student...it is part of that "eating our young" syndrome...they likely feel threatened, like you are a threat to their future "position" availabilities....just keep you head up, know your stuff, and be determined that when you are in that position later in your career you will be a better example

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I have had experiences sort of like this, but not as outright mean.

The floor I had clinical on last semester, about half of the nurses were awesome! They were very open about telling us what we needed to know, appreciative of our efforts, open to our questions and also gave us valuable feed back on how we did while we were there. If they were doing something interesting to a patient that wasn't even ours they would call us to come on down and take a look.

The other half of the nurses weren't as open or personable and didn't make us feel welcome and made us feel like we were bothering them or getting in their way. We treated them nicely and professionally and tried to stay out of their way. We did try to see it from their point of view, why they might not be very nice nor helpful. Most of these nurses were new grads and/or recently came to America from another country. So, we figured that they may be more concerned about just beginning to work at the facility, make a mistake, etc. which is completely understandable.

There was one nurse though, that really didn't seem to have any excuse for being so miserable. But, it turned out that she wasn't just like that with the students but also the other nurses on the floor. She was some what of a drama queen - her patient load was always the heaviest, she couldn't possibly take care of everything on her own, (I say sarcastically), she also didn't handle bad situations well, like if her patient started to have problems or something went wrong, she would get all worked up and not try to fix the problem just freak out. The other nurses on the floor really resented her for it and told us that that was NOT the way to act as a nurse.

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