Would you be insulted if you were never asked to precept and people with less experience than you were being asked to precept left and right?
I have been at my job for three years. The clinical nurse educator used to work on the floor and she precepted me and basically told me I was too stupid to work in the specialty. I ended up having to ask for a different preceptor and the two new ones I got disagreed and here we are three years later. She was promoted as clinical nurse educator and I can tell she hates me or at the very least thinks lowly of me.
I asked a fellow coworker (one I trust) if I should be worried, if it means that I am too stupid or terrible. She says I should consider myself lucky. Also, if I was so terrible, I would have been fired ages ago.
I would have thought with the extremely high turnover and the fact that I am quickly becoming more experienced that I would have been asked but then I remembered my history with the nurse educator.
How should I approach this, if at all? It isn't that I necessarily want to precept, but it bothers me that there may be a reason I haven't been asked.
On 2/23/2019 at 11:43 AM, ThePrincessBride said:
Thanks for the reply.
I have definitely become introverted mostly due to the cliques and back-stabbing on the unit (and I wonder if this is part of the reason we are losing so many nurses). I never call off (ever) and have worked overtime and picked up in the past. I also did some committee work.
But I really don't fit in, being black and childless on a unit with mostly white, young to middle-age mothers. So of course, we don't interact much and I am excluded from out-of-unit activities. I have been coping by throwing myself into patient care but I do feel lonely and isolated at times.
I just sometimes feel like some of my co-workers think little of me like I am black tar on the bottom of a shoe (points for anyone who knows the reference), so I just stay quiet.
I don't have any advice for the precepting issue except for making it known you'd really love to when the topic came up. I can understand the isolation you feel. I am also a black nurse on a unit with maybe 3 other black nurses. It is hard to relate when everyone else is married or getting married and/or have kids. For the most part, my unit is pretty good with including everyone. I always get to join when they're going bowling or something like that. The only think that annoys me is they all want to add your personal fb. Haha. I don't agree with them excluding you. Do you make an effort to talk with them? Do they make an effort to talk with you?
You can't change what people think of you; you can only change yourself. I would let it go. I remember cross training for mother-baby unit and being promised the next job. Well, brand new nurses were getting directly hired to unit and I kept getting floated there but not hired. The Nurse Manager apparently knew my husband in the past and took it out on me. Needless to say, I finally had enough of the politics and gave notice - she then told me she would get me there for the next opening but I had to decline at that point as I felt misery would follow. I never could play politics! Just keep doing your job and smiling - you are better than having to beg to be recognized for your worth.
ADN_Is_Complete, ADN
98 Posts
I don't have any advice for the precepting issue except for making it known you'd really love to when the topic came up. I can understand the isolation you feel. I am also a black nurse on a unit with maybe 3 other black nurses. It is hard to relate when everyone else is married or getting married and/or have kids. For the most part, my unit is pretty good with including everyone. I always get to join when they're going bowling or something like that. The only think that annoys me is they all want to add your personal fb. Haha. I don't agree with them excluding you. Do you make an effort to talk with them? Do they make an effort to talk with you?