I've been in two different hospitals in both my first and second semesters and come up against some ROUGH nurses who would rather do everything themselves than let me touch a thing.
I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that they are BUSY, they have a TO-DO list, they have patients that NEED meds, help, EVERYTHING. But, I'm here to help. I'm wearing these bright purple scrubs not because I like the color, but because I want to learn, I NEED to learn. I will take them to the bathroom, I will bathe them, I will take their vitals, just PLEASE let me.
When I say 80% of the nurses I've followed have done NOTHING with me I am not exaggerating. Why is this? Last week the nurse I was following wouldn't even let me take vitals, VITALS!! I am in my second semester of nursing school, I think I can handle that.
Anyway, I wanted to know whats up with that! I recognize that they are busy. I also recognize the few nurses that have taken me under their wing and shown me SO MUCH. I'm thankful for that, and grateful.
Specializes in Tele, Interventional Pain Management, OR.
I lovedlovedloved being a CI. I also was a real hard-ass, as some of you might guess; the students hated me for a week or two or three but then began to realize, as they talked with their classmates who had other CIs, that they were learning way more than the others, that I was working harder than the other CIs to advocate for them, get them experiences, and fill in the gaps in their lectures. I also realized, when I attended faculty meetings, that none of the other CIs were the least bit concerned that their third semester (of four) students were only getting to give meds to one patient once or twice a semester (mine did all, every day, and yes, I watched them prepare them and quizzed them on every one), only took one patient per week (two for my kids), and didn't know med math at all ("They all passed pharmacology," was what they told me, dismissively.) We did 5-question med-math quizzes every day before postconference-- 5 questions, 5 minutes while I wolfed down my sandwich (they got lunch breaks). They each had an opportunity to prepare a 10-15 minute presentation on a topic of their choice, thus becoming the go-to folks on those topics for their peers and learning something about patient teaching in the bargain. Oh, I was a meany, I was.
And you know what? I never once had a clinical group that didn't embarrass me by taking me out to lunch in the last day and giving me a nice giftie of some sort-- a homemade lap quilt they all made a square for, a nifty sweatshirt, half a dozen pair of fancy socks :), nothing expensive, but sweet, and except for the socks which eventually wore out, I have a lot of them still. I got cards from some for a few years, and asked to write reference letters (I went 5 for 5 in scholarships for them one year).
When I left teaching for a CNS job, I got calls for about six years asking me if I would come to ABC or XYZ college program to teach nursing. I was always thrilled to get these calls, hopeful that I could afford to take one of those positions...and they were never able to offer me more than about 60% of what I was making, and I just could not afford to do it. How much was that? $45,000/year ... but prorated, because that didn't include summers.
So that's why I indulge my teaching jones here.
And I'm so thankful that you do! Thank you!
I had the reputed "meanie" CI during my second NS semester...and I learned more than I ever thought possible. Meeting/exceeding her high standards for knowing WHY strengthened me for third semester and will carry me into the home stretch (final semester begins on Monday, woo hoo!)
As a nursing student entering my final semester of nursing school, I can see exhaustion, the overwhelmed, and a stretched thin look on alot of nurses faces when we arrive for clinicals. I made it a priority to explain to these nurses that I didn't want to be a burden or bothersome but that I DO want to learn and will jump at any oppurtunity to practice a skill. I tell that I'm here to help and to let me know if there was ANYTHING they needed for me to do. It's pretty darn hard to be rude to the face of someone who is doing everything they can to prove to you that they want to be of assistance. I've had a few nurses that were a little bit on the mean side, but by the end of the shift most were letting me perform skills and answering any questions I had. I felt really intimidated most of the time at the beginning of rotations but I would fake confidence and I believe that helped me out alot. Also, at the end if the clinical shift, I ALWAYS thanked the nurses for allowing me to help them. Even if it was just for small things and I didn't really get to practice much. I've had a few clinical rotations that started off rocky, but they didn't stay that way. Be consistent with your eagerness to learn, appear confident and ready (even if your shaking in your boots), jump at every oppurtunity to help, and make sure that when you become a nurse, you pay it forward by finding time and patience to teach a student.
BUT, you must NEVER allow yourself to be disrespected by some of these nurses though. We are students, but we are still adults and deserve respect as such. Just because some of us aren't spineless, does not mean that we have a sense of "entitlement."
My personal faves are the ones who declare that their future is in the ICU. They need their clinical time to practice SAVING LIVES, not doing meager ADLs! Yeah....ok.....with one tech for the whole unit, or no techs sometimes as the norm, they'll get PLENTY of time spent on "CNA work". With nurses pitching together to get the total cares T&P, hygiene, hourly I&O, etc done, sometimes with the help of a tech and sometimes not.
For some students, reality will be a RUDE awakening!
YES!!!!!! They are in for a very big suprise, I work in the ICU and the nurses do everything including the "cna work". Lots of heavy lifting and total care work with patients are in vegetative state who cannot move an inch. The ICU is not as glamorous as people make it seem.
I don't understand why you din't have patient assignments. From your post, it sounds like you were there just looking for things to do. When I had clinical, starting from the first time we hit the floor, we had assigned patients. We did what we were able to do and charted on our patients. We gradually had more skills, and we started to get more patients. Mosts of the time we were too busy with our own work to help out the aides, although we certainly did if we could.
For most of our clinicals we did have patient assignments. For our medical-surgical clinical we would prelab on up to 2 patients. But half the time we'd get there the next day and our patient was either transferred to a different place in the hospital or released from the hospital.
We'd come in and listen in on shift reports at 6:45am. Then we'd do assessment on patients. Then, depending on when our CI got to us we passed meds. She had 9 students and I wasn't going to stand around waiting for her to show up so I could do my meds. The Clinical Instructors I've had have all been good. But they have also all been very busy.
If the patient I prelabbed for was gone I wasn't going to just stand around. I want to learn how to be a nurse. So I jumped in and helped however I could because I wanted the staff nurses to want to teach me stuff. If I made their jobs a little easier then I knew they would be more likely to invest their time in me.
There is always something to do. Patients need turning every 2 hours. There are bed baths and bed changes. There are bags to empty and I&O's to document. There are ADL's. Just jumping in and doing what I could and learning "tricks of the trade" from experienced patient care techs were very helpful.
My point was that staff nurses will be more willing to donate time if they see you working hard for them. I tried to do as much of the care for my patients as I could. But I also recognized that I only had 2 of the 6 patients the nurse had. Rather than stand around I did try to help.
In my critical care clinical our Clinical Instructor assigned us to work with nurses she knew were good teachers. Their patients became our patients and we were expected to be right there alongside the nurse every minute of the day and to do whatever the nurse asked us to do. We are also expected to respond to codes. Two of my classmates actually got to work codes (doing CPR) during the semester. Our CI expected us to then to go home after the clinical day and write up a nursing plan that tied our interventions that day to nursing diagnoses that accurately reflected what was going on with the patient. In some ways it was harder than doing a prelab because the staff nurses would be asking us questions and we didn't have the benefit of reading charts 2 hours the day before and looking up patho or meds. The more we showed we knew our stuff the more we were allowed to do.
This is truly an issue with the instructor, not the floor nurses. We are providing an opportunity for you to learn, a setting, NOT your actual education. That is the responsibility of your instructor. It's not right your education is being neglected, but be angry at the proper person. And I say this as a nurse with only one year under her belt. Abandoning students under the guise of "you will be with Clever today" is irresponsible on their part. For all the instructor knows, I'm an idiot will teach you bad practice.
As a student your paying money to learn but keep in mind they are so busy that they forget this fact. Some just don't care.
enchanted, when you come into a thread, it is helpful if you take the time to read before responding.
The above has been addressed by other posters, but the wording you used struck me so hard that I wanted to reiterate points already made.
WHY should the nurse care that you've paid for your education? Do you think that those uncaring nurses are receiving any of that payment?
It is not my job to teach you. It is the job of the person who DID get paid to teach you. If I do choose to spend time teaching you, recognize that it is a choice I have made and you are adding an incredible amount to my workload. And, again, no, I'm not paid for that extra workload. If I feel even slightly that you are not competent to do something, I won't spend 20 minutes talking to you about it or explaining why. I'll just do it, and ask if you'd like to watch. It's not about you at that point, I just have extremely little time to devote to each and every individual thing, and I don't want to find out after you've started that you have no idea what you're doing.
Now, all that aside, if I volunteer to take you on, I will do absolutely everything I can to get you a good experience as long as I feel you're genuinely wanting to put the effort in. I'm lucky enough to work someplace that won't stick students with a person unwilling to take them.
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
This is really depressing. I will start clinical in about 7 weeks. Now that I know that I will basically just be in the way, not helping, and that the nurse I work with will not be compensated and will likely resent me ... no words for how I feel about this. I may have to use an emoji. And I suck at that. See? That is not exactly how I feel.
Maybe if I bring cookies. Or shots. Just kidding about the shots. There has to be a way to get a learning experience without making life harder for the staff nurse.
If not I just have to stop reading posts here or I'll go nuts.
There has to be a way to get a learning experience without making life harder for the staff nurse.
Of course there is -- it is for clinical instructors to do their job and do the actual clinical instruction. However, far too many schools have abandoned that idea and embraced the "dump and run" theory of nursing education ...
This is really depressing. I will start clinical in about 7 weeks. Now that I know that I will basically just be in the way, not helping, and that the nurse I work with will not be compensated and will likely resent me ... no words for how I feel about this. I may have to use an emoji. And I suck at that. See? That is not exactly how I feel.
Maybe if I bring cookies. Or shots. Just kidding about the shots. There has to be a way to get a learning experience without making life harder for the staff nurse.
If not I just have to stop reading posts here or I'll go nuts.
There have been a number of posts here with hints on how to do just that. And besides, a lot of us loved having students around. Think of this as an opportunity to improve on your assessment skills for later :).
This is really depressing. I will start clinical in about 7 weeks. Now that I know that I will basically just be in the way, not helping, and that the nurse I work with will not be compensated and will likely resent me ... no words for how I feel about this. I may have to use an emoji. And I suck at that. See? That is not exactly how I feel.
Maybe if I bring cookies. Or shots. Just kidding about the shots. There has to be a way to get a learning experience without making life harder for the staff nurse.
If not I just have to stop reading posts here or I'll go nuts.
I didn't feel like a burden to the nurses. Many told us that they liked/didn't mind us. This was because we didn't spend much time with the nurses and we did most of the treatments for their patients. They usually only had to do their assessments and make sure we completed everything. Once again, I'll mention that my clinical instructors always took full responsibility in educating me and didn't push us off on the floor nurses. Only a handful that I've come across didn't want us messing up their grove.
There's a theme here. The students who have good experiences in clinicals have instructors who are present on the floor to do the actual teaching. Students need realize the responsibility for education lies with the clinical instructor, not the RN. Why is this a difficult concept to grasp?
I will tell you why my friend :) . I have been in your shoes trust me and I thought why are they so mean? but the truth is that every nurse after a while learns to short cut . They don't want you to see that. As students we want to do everything by the book, after all we are thought that way but trust me ,on the floor everyone follows their own rules. I had a nurse who did not wear gloves when she started the Iv and she said " don't do what I am doing" . I had a nurse who didn't do her assessment after changing shifts , I had a nurse who never labeled any of the IV tubes. I've seen nurses eat on their station and talk their language for hours . You name it I have seen it. I learn that I will never be that nurse. I train new nurses and I tell them do not short cut , know your basic fundamental of nursing . They don't want you see them being lazy and not doing what they are spouse to do.
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See? That is not exactly how I feel.
jena5111, ASN, RN
1 Article; 186 Posts
And I'm so thankful that you do! Thank you!
I had the reputed "meanie" CI during my second NS semester...and I learned more than I ever thought possible. Meeting/exceeding her high standards for knowing WHY strengthened me for third semester and will carry me into the home stretch (final semester begins on Monday, woo hoo!)