We're not here for that

[happynurse49]

Today while in clinicals I saw a fellow nursing student standing in the hallway outside a patient's room. I asked her what was up and she said, "This patient had an accident and is a mess. The NAC said she would be here in 10 minutes and it's been 15 minutes." I told her that we were allowed to provide that kind of care to any patient on the floor and it didn't have to be our patient. Her response, "We are nursing students, we are not here for that." I was taken aback. I didn't say anything to her and just went into the room, introduced myself, and asked the patient if it would be ok for me to help her. The fellow student came in the room and asked if I wanted some help. I just don't understand. We are students. We are there to learn how to become RN's but we are also there to provide any care that a patient needs that is within our scope of practice. I am wondering if other students feel this way and think they are just at clinicals to do "nursing" things.

[Michele Funk]

am not sure what college this student was from, but I do know one thing for sure, I would not want to be attending there. I am proud to say that I started at the bottom as a nurses aide, then I became a state tested nurse aide, I later graduated from my first college as a L.P.N., now I am soon to graduate as a RN, BSN. I have never heard that it was not our job. EVER! As a nurse, all of the patients are my responsibility. I sure hope that I never end up with a refusal nurse when I get to "the home", cause all I can say, is I will eat plenty of beans and cabbage and ask for Milk of Magnesium every day. I will paint the walls Brown if I have to! I have to agree that if you are a nurse, you can't always give a shower or change a soiled brief, but you can if you are caught up. It is part of being in the healthcare system, but as a student that is horribly wrong to say that or to even think that it is ok to leave someones needs unattended to.

[Carpediem1012, BSN, RN]

I guess I have a different take on "messes" and "dirty work" thanks to our professor. She says she prefers to care completely for her patients whenever possible and expects us to do the same. Her logic: to be a good nurse, one needs to know their patient as much as possible. She says cleaning a patient is an OPPORTUNITY (not yelling, just adding emphasis) for further assessment. When cleaning, you are assessing skin integrity. You are establishing trust. It is just one more way to care for your patient and is no less important than any of our other "jobs".

[flying_ace2]

There's a girl exactly like that in my class - she's been an LPN for however many years, and the first thing she said to one of our instructors this semester was something along the line of "we've been doing this CNA crap the whole time we've been in school, if you want me to be an RN then you need to give me RN type work to do". It was exceptionally rude and most of the others in the class were pretty taken aback by her attitude. She's always had this chip on her shoulder, I'm God's gift to nursing because I'm an LPN attitude, and I think the reality of being an RN is going to smack her in the face........

[Krzysztof]

... and I think the reality of being an RN is going to smack her in the face........

Something should.

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

I worked as an aide while I was getting my ADN. One of my classmates made a comment like that to me one day after clinicals. So when we were doing our psych rotation ( I worked geri) I helped make out the assignments for the class since I knew the patients. I made sure he got the most care intensive patient we had on the unit, as we were required to do anything the patient needed.

[BundokSaint]

That WOULD NOT FLY AT ALL at my nursing school. That student would have gotten a serious talking to by any and all of the clinical instructors I had from first semester to last, and a few of them probably would have unsat'd a student who knowingly left their patient in filth. That's pretty much what Basics/Fundamentals/1st semester clinicals is all about - total patient care. In the real world, a CNA or LPN won't be around all the time at a moment's notice or at all. What will that student do them? As we moved on in school, other things became more of a focus, but we were still expected to clean and bathe our patients as necessary. I was lucky in that in all of my clinical groups through school we shared a sense of teamwork and would not hesitate to help each other out if we weren't busy with our own patients.

I have to agree with nekozuki above - your clinical instructor should have made it clear from the get-go that you all, as nursing students, are not above doing the "dirty" work. Did he/she do this, or is the instructor lax or weak and let's y'all do whatever?

[lifelearningrn, BSN, RN]

Some people have to be taught a strong work ethic. The fact that she came in and asked to help is a positive sign.. you showed her what the right thing to do is, maybe next time she will do the right thing..

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

I saw a lot of this attitude from a group of LPN-to RN students on my floor, honestly. More than one of them said something to the effect that they weren't here to do any of those menial things.

[rr8ch66]

I think there's a difference between refusing the aide's duties because you want to and refusing because you want to learn nursing skills when the opportunity presents. As students, we are supposed to learn how to do a nurse's aide level of care because when we are nurses we will be expected to know how to give a bed bath, how to put a patient on a bedpan, how to empty a foley. It's essentially the basics of nursing care. But also as students, we are also expected to learn how to do the traditional "nursing duties" like giving medications, changing dressings, etc. Last semester in clinical I primarily did the "aides" work of taking vitals, ambulating patients to the bathroom, putting them on bedpans, etc. This semester our instructor told us that she wants us to learn our nursing duties since that's why we're becoming nurses. Leave the aides work for the aides. So we're doing more foleys, NG tubes, giving tube feedings, etc. I'm glad to have a strong knowledge of the traditional aide duties as I now feel comfortable doing this type of work without a second glance. But I'm also glad to be doing the work that we'll be expected to know when we graduate. As a nursing student, you are there to learn whether that be the aide's duties or the nurse's duties. I can't imagine graduating without knowing how or without experience putting a patient on a bedpan!

[Saifudin]

Let me take a broader view of this since the story is brief. Perhaps this student has not encountered a patient in this condition before. It can take some time to get use to the more unsavory aspects of nursing care, so perhaps we can go a little easier on this student. In fact, she may never get use to it and eventually seek to work in nursing in an area that does not have to provide this very personal care. What this poster did by taking control and going to the patient is far more instructional than any class room discussion or lecture on culture, etc., could ever provide. There are little things I was taught back in the 70's (1970's that is) that are still with me today. I had a phlebotomy nurse teach me that you can draw blood, and even give blood through a 23g butter-fly. Later, when I was in NP practice, in both the ED and OPD I used 23g butter-flies for nearly all blood draws except trauma cases. 'Back in the day' when I trained in a hospital program, after the the first semester we were allowed to work as aids and orderlies, in fact we provided important staffing and living next to the hospital, they always had enough aid staff. Training and working in the same hospital, you learned all the basics of care and by the time we graduated and went to work as professional nurses, we did it all without question, including what I always felt was one of the worst things we could do to a patient, and that was manual dis-impaction. I suggest patience, compassion and as Tramore35 did, teach by example.

[BundokSaint]

I was willing to give the OP's classmate the benefit of the doubt as an inexperienced nursing student right up until the point the OP said the student stated, "We are nursing students, we are not here for that." As if the aides' duties are beneath her.

If she would have said something like, "I've never done anything like this before, and I'm waiting for the aide to show me how," then I would have given her a little bit more slack.

[Java_Wench]

That's insane. A student acting like that in my clinical group would have been bounced out on her butt and given a fail for the day, at least. Our entire first semester was in a nursing home doing basic patient care. That's part of the job! What's this student going to do someday when she's an RN and finds herself on a floor with no aides? Or has the poor aides running ragged? Cmon, it's a team. Noone likes to clean up poop. But it goes with the territory. Wow.......just sad.