What Do You Expect of A Preceptor?

[Ruby Vee]

i've seen an awful lot of posts lately knocking preceptors. and a few posts that seem genuinely to be asking for advice on how to get the most out of your orientation.

so new grads, what do you expect of a preceptor? and do you think your expectations are realistic? what have you learned about the orientation process that you didn't expect?

[shoegalRN, RN]

I'd like to just defend all preceptors who watch what you're doing, especially while in a critical care environment. Despite the growing confidence a preceptor may have in a newly minted nurse, that preceptor, if s/he is worth their salt, will watch you like a HAWK, and for good reason. Those patients take a turn for the worse at the smallest unnoticed change. Learn to live with it, until you are almost ready to fly on your own.

It's one thing to be very aware and keep a watchful eye out on the orientee and the pt. However, it's another thing to LITERALLY be standing in the doorway, with arms folded, LITERALLY watching the orientee do something as basic as take vital signs or check urine output in a foley. I mean, really?

I wouldnt and didnt mind my preceptor to come in the room with me and assess me doing an IV or inserting a NG tube, because I wasnt comfortable with that skill at the time. However, to literally be there watching me take vital signs or empty a foley with arms folded was just too overbearing.

I agree any good preceptor would keep a watchful eye, but also knows how to do so without letting on that's what you are doing. How about talking to the orientee in the room while she is doing an assessment, maybe bouncing off questions while also watching the orientee and the pt? That would be alot better than literally being silent with arms folded in the doorway.