I am a B.S.N. Student in Texas. After talking to several other students from my school, it seems that very few nurses we have encountered even acknowledge that the students are there in the hospital. I feel as if they do not "wish" to have time for us. These are nurses with four or five patients who seem to have plenty of time for everything else but no time for students. Granted, I understand that students can get in the way and slow nurses down but most of us truly want to help. Maybe my persepctive is a lot different because I am in school and I see things idealisticly. I know everyone was a student once. I am just wondering how nurses feel when students are in the hospital? Do you personally feel differently about nursing than you did when you were still in nursing school?
Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.
It sounds like you would be a real good teacher. When I was in LPN school I asked one of the RN's if she could answer a question for me and she threw up her hands and said "I don't have time for this right now" and hurried off. Later she came back and said "Now, you said you had a question?" but I didn't want to ask her anymore...wanted to stay as far away from her as I could...would have made all the difference in the world if she had said instead of "I don't have time for this...blah blah blah" but "I'm sorry I'm very busy now but perhaps we can talk about it later..."
Oh well, I don't figure I'm any worse off for that experience anyhow...
THANKS! Well, I was at work today and remembered another bit of advise! Maybe this may help some!
When I went along during my clinicals, I had many times where I had a question, or comment, but didn't have time...got busy..or suffered from that "oh man, that nurse is soooo going to be put out by this question", or even the defeated attitude of "oh forget it!"..LOL!
Well...I started bringing a clip board and started writing things down big time! Even if it was a tiny scrible of a question in the corner. That way I didn't forget the question and could find the answers somewhere! By either asking my my clinical instructor later, another student, another RN I liked better (LOL!), or look it up in the books or web!
To this day..I still carry that clip board..and it has really been the greatest silly thing I have ever done! That thing acts like my second brain when you are running around multitasking...and hey, I may be RN...but I still as questions daily! You never stop learning!!!!! :)
Just a funny little sidenote...not to get the whole LPN vs. RN thing going again, but something that I have noticed...I have been an LPN 2 1/2 yrs. I am now in an ASN program and will graduate this coming May. I can not believe the difference in attitudes with nurses that I get this time being an RN student vs. when I was in school to be an LPN. It is COMPLETELY different...a lot more respect and a lot less of the attitudes and BS. There are still a few 'bad apples' in there, but not many...and not nearly as many as when I was an SPN. Coincidence???
THANKS! Well, I was at work today and remembered another bit of advise! Maybe this may help some!
Well...I started bringing a clip board and started writing things down big time!
Love yer posts, TriageRN_34. In our program, clipboards are de riguer. We only wonder, at different clinical sites, whether we can take them into the patient's room or not! Some of us even have the kind that open up and you can stick papers in. I stuffed a copy of Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions in mine the other day...
I work in an NICU and we usually get students in for a one day observation type situation. It's hard to know what to tell them about and what not to. I never liked being told "that's the way it is" when I was in school... I wanted to understand why something was a certain way. So I feel like I should explain things to a student if one has been paired with me. then again, students get MAYBE one lecture concerning premature babies (which is mostly what we have), so any explaining I do has to be simplified. Which takes time. And nurses don't always have a lot of time.
Another problem I see is since the student has to work under my direct guidance with anything he/she does, I have to present a certain amount of friendliness and politeness. Sometimes that's hard to do first thing in the morning. I, myself end up stressing because I remember what it was like to be a student and I know students can tell when we don't want to be paired with them. So I end up putting a lot of effort into disguising the fact that I don't want to interact with anyone for the first hour or so of my shift! And then I worry that maybe the student felt I was rude. So, in general I prefer not to have a student for the day, but I put as much effort as possible into hiding it.
Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatric, Behavioral Health.
Nursing students...love them! I always try to keep in mind, what goes around comes around. You never know if that nursing student will some day be your colleague or your boss. Something to keep in mind. Nursing students, at least to me, brings a breath of fresh air...intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, new examples of compassionate care, reminders to myself of innocence lost (yes, by golly, a long time ago, I was once a newbee), and yes, affirmation...that others see what I do, on a day to day basis, as valuable. I'm encouraged when I see other men come on board.
Sure are alot of good points made here for consideration. Looks like someone would catch on and the instructors and the nurses would eventually come together for the good of the students and of COURSE the patients.
I even heard my very own nurse manager say herself, that the SPN students we get take up too much time, and she would like to start getting RN students instead.
Talk about a low blow. Who does she think she's talking to? I'm an LPN myself.
That statement truly came from my boss. Really made me feel bad. I wish, in retrospect, that I had stood up to her and said something back to her about that statement, but I didn't. She's the boss, and I've just always been taught not to talk back to the boss.
I hear of severe nursing shortages all over the country. The student we train today will be helping to relieve our nursing shortage tomorrow. I don't know about any of the rest of you all, but it's been hard at my facility to get new applicants and to keep some positions filled. {Alot of that has to do with salary, I know, but still.....} And I'm all for getting extra help on my job. We need it. And I've been a nurse 30 something years, and am still learning. It's just a shame that we can't be more helpful to each other. No one is perfect or knows everything.
It's been awhile since I worked with student nurses. I used to love working with some of them.I've worked with LVN students, ADN students, and BSN students. However, it was not all positive experiences. I do recall having up to 3 student nurses assigned to my patients on a given shift...and then the clinical instructor was not available. I barely had time to take care of my patients, let alone "teach" and monitor three student nurses.I felt put upon, on those days. I also felt irritated at *some* of the student nurses who would come in with high & mighty attitudes, yet not jump in and take hold of opportunites to help with patient care. I saw them sitting gabbing at the nurses station, etc. Some were so quick to show off their book knowledge, yet don't have a clue how to prioritize care or perform the nuts and bolts of nursing. I felt like they should have been seeking out those experiences (some did).
In my opinion, the best nursing practicum model is a preceptor model, where ONE student works with ONE nurse. When a student is respectful and hard working, then I LOVE working with them too. It is not much different to me than working with any other peer. However, when students come in with an attitude and then sit on their duff, I find that very irritating and unprofessional. I will never forget the BSN student bragging about her many years of education. I worked with some awesome experienced LVNs who would run circles around her! It was so sickening to hear that attitude. I would never have dreamed of doing that when I was a student. Nursing is about teamwork. The place to brag is on your resume. It shocked me when I became a nurse, that some students were very rude and lazy. Many seemed they were biding their time until their post conference. Some others were polite and professional-a joy to work with. I can see why some nurses get cranky with students on the floor. We are spread thin as it is, so when students are added to the mix, they should be there to learn and help out. Those that do, I go out of my way to help them learn.
I've had mostly positive experiences with nursing students; the one I worked with last night was excellent. She was a hard worker and eager to learn.
Earlier this week I worked with a student nurse whose behavior appalled me, to say the least. Our patient was an 18 yo male whose leg had been crushed in a forklift accident. He had a severe open fracture, external fixator, fasciotomy, etc. and was in severe pain to the point of being in tears and screaming out loud. We did get his pain under control eventually, but the student went in to do her assessment and was being very aggressive. She was checking sensation on the affected extremity and was touching each toe to check for sensation. THe patient was moaning in pain, saying "it hurts!" The student told him "I want you to respond yes or no each time I touch a toe without any other comments." Then she was reprimanding him for not being able to get his incentive spirometer up to 4000 with inspiration. I explained that the pt is a smoker, he's been in bed for 4 days, and getting the spirometer up to 2000 was fine at this point.
She also interupted me twice midsentence while I was trying to give report to the next shift. She wanted to know why some of the pt's meds weren't up yet from pharmacy. I told her where in the med room to check for the meds; she said "they're not there." When I went in to check, the meds were in the patient's drawer.
I'm going to speak to this student's instructor next week, but I don't understand why students think it's ok to act this way. They're there to learn!!!
"I do recall having up to 3 student nurses assigned to my patients on a given shift...and then the clinical instructor was not available. I barely had time to take care of my patients, let alone "teach" and monitor three student nurses"
That's one of the things I think that the instructors and nurses should get together on. The instructor is not doing a very good job at assigments. Why don't you let YOUR supervisor know, or tell the instructor yourself? Seems like the nurses and instructors are not working TOGETHER for the good of the students and patients. That's asinine for one nurse to have to deal with 3 students, when she already has more than one nurse can handle already. One student would be great, if she's willing to work and learn.
"I do recall having up to 3 student nurses assigned to my patients on a given shift...and then the clinical instructor was not available. I barely had time to take care of my patients, let alone "teach" and monitor three student nurses"
That's one of the things I think that the instructors and nurses should get together on. The instructor is not doing a very good job at assigments. Why don't you let YOUR supervisor know, or tell the instructor yourself? Seems like the nurses and instructors are not working TOGETHER for the good of the students and patients. That's asinine for one nurse to have to deal with 3 students, when she already has more than one nurse can handle already. One student would be great, if she's willing to work and learn.
The way that patients are assigned in our hospital brings up a great point. We are assigned a patient the night before and we go up to the hospital to do our prework. There are no designated preceptors, our nurse is supposed to be whomever is taking care of our patient that day. Today, I got lucky and had a great experience on the telemetry unit. My nurse let me go into all of her patient's rooms with her, she was very nice and helpful. She was a great nurse to work with. =o)
I don't work in a 'teaching hospital'. If there are nursing students, they usually don't get to spend much time in ICU anyway - usually med/surg or tele floors.
We do get some EMT students that are in school to become Paramedics. I like having them around. They've already had experience in the field and most are mature adults. Yes, they too ask a lot of questions - that's a given with students. Heck, I still ask questions...we all do.
We can be more lax with the EMT's because they ALREADY know how to do IV starts. Still, they have to do so many for their clinical time. I usually just tell them where I need one and give them the supplies...they always get it in. In fact, they've got a better track record than us RN's, LOL.
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Antikigirl, ASN, RN
2,595 Posts
THANKS! Well, I was at work today and remembered another bit of advise! Maybe this may help some!
When I went along during my clinicals, I had many times where I had a question, or comment, but didn't have time...got busy..or suffered from that "oh man, that nurse is soooo going to be put out by this question", or even the defeated attitude of "oh forget it!"..LOL!
Well...I started bringing a clip board and started writing things down big time! Even if it was a tiny scrible of a question in the corner. That way I didn't forget the question and could find the answers somewhere! By either asking my my clinical instructor later, another student, another RN I liked better (LOL!), or look it up in the books or web!
To this day..I still carry that clip board..and it has really been the greatest silly thing I have ever done! That thing acts like my second brain when you are running around multitasking...and hey, I may be RN...but I still as questions daily! You never stop learning!!!!! :)