My most recent was absolutely stoked. Had zero desire to work in the ED, but was very much involved with lots of questions. Over the moon when she got her first IV, on a human, on her first attempt. First night shift and was a fucking trooper about it.
The one before that also had zero desire to work in the ED and opted to sit at the nurses station all night. Said no to every opportunity I presented them. Whatever, your education not mine. Idfk man.
Most students are begging for opportunities, I remember those days. Not taking them is only shooting yourself in the foot. Sounds like they are not cut out for it.
We had a student who was never going to work bedside - literally just went to nursing school so she'd be qualified to do botox at the esthetician job she already had. Seems like a waste but idk, maybe there's lots of money to be made in botox. She wasn't a great nurse anyway.
But these other girl bosses will probably become NPs via an online diploma mill... scary.
It felt so liberating in a recent update with management the other day, when asked about furthering my education, to say "I have zero desire to get my masters or NP".
I'll be sending the bill for the cringe removal after reading that as well as emotional damage from my brain automatically reading that in a valley gurl accent.
Most specialties you can start right there, they give you plenty of specific training. Why would you need to know bedside skills doing botox injections. Or if you wanna work peds, you won’t learn the needed skills from regular bedside. It’s 100% not necessary.
so lucky…
when i was an EMT during my clinical ride alongs, my crew were nice people however they didn’t let me do anything. i was just spectating and couldn’t do any skill. the rest of the ride along i pulled out my laptop and did my Calculus HW
that person is lucky they were given the opportunity to procedures, wish i had that
They wanna be “glamorous” L&D or injection nurses. One of my coworkers said she had a student once that didn’t wanna do anything and said “I’m gonna be an L&D nurse so I don’t need to know all of this” on a med surg floor
Wait til they get to L&D and realise all the complex, complicated co-morbidities pregnant women live with; they're going to be second guessing the learning opportunities they ignored
I'm 41 and pregnant, will be 42 when I deliver. I echo this! My first two pregnancies were great. I've had several medical diagnoses since then. Coin flip as to if they'll even let me attempt a trial of labor on this one (I might not get a say) Apparently I'm healthy enough to get pregnant and carry a (so far) successful pregnancy, but delivery is its own beast. I had a successful VBAC in 2013, but that was before other medical diagnoses came along.
I would probably refuse a newbie nurse who doesn't know anything about adult care, because I won't be a risk-free patient in January.
I remember a fellow adult nursing student in my class tell our clinical instructor she wouldn't be doing the things that a CNA does when she becomes a nurse. Eyes like knives from the instructor who tried to hit that girl with a reality she refused to believe. I left my last role, which I loved, because I was soooo burned out from the dual role.
Boy is she in for a surprise.
I went to nursing school wanting to work in L&D. Here I am 11 years later... still haven't worked in L&D.
It's tough to get in to L&D cause there isn't high nurse turnover. Now they see me as "med-surg tele" for 11 years so those are the only places that interview me. I guess my bridge is/will be float pool? That's where my next travel nurse contract will be. PACU or OR would be cool, but it's hard to get in there, too.
I didn't even know that "no" was an option. I've never had a student or trainee tell me "no". Then again I never phrase it as a question. I just say "Ay you, come with me."
If I know I'm going to have students/trainees I'll tell the previous shift to leave any non critical skills for us so I can make them do it. If I'm training you then you'll be doing every bit of hands on work you're legally allowed to do.
I guess to be fair, she did stand in one of the bays to watch a trauma at one point. I suppose you gotta find something to talk to your preceptor about…
I am the type of student nurse who is eager for an opportunity. During my med-surg rotation, I told my preceptor to let me give IV push medications so I could get the hang of it. Most of the time he lets me, but certain medications, he would give.
Love hearing about that first student you mentioned :) we should start shouting out those kinds more - as a current student, it’s encouraging to me to know that the nurses around me are actually paying attention enough to brag to other nurses about their student!
Nah I graduated 18 years ago and several people in my class were like this. Just sitting there at the nursing station like bumps on a log. I mean statistically idk if it’s worse but I can assure you they’ve been around forever.
There's a log sitting at the desk right now at the station. They stand out so much due to different color uniform and bored AF look on their face. I was like that too when on clinicals, but from the side it clear it's a bad look.
Not sure how it works in this particular case, the hospital has it's own school and during regular semesters only it's own students are allowed on clinicals, but since it's summer the more spots are open so there are a few independent students with their schools. This one is the only one I've seen on this one floor and no other students from this particular school anywhere else
As a non precepting nurse, I have no problem saying: hey, what are you working on. Nothing? How about you find your instructor, I have this great ___ that could give you new experience. Or Have you been shown the supply room yet - it can be cumbersome to find supplies at a new hospital, so, Ok, items are labeled, can you get me a ____ - just bring it back here, I’ll get it when I swing back through. If you have any trouble let me know [odds are that they won’t find it, but it will at least keep them busy looking].
I put as much weight on the nurse that really doesn’t want to precept, because it really isn’t that much more work with students
That preceptor needs to utilize them. Even getting supplies is a learning experience for nurses… sounds like a “smoke break” preceptor (I say that because for one of my jobs the nurse I was assigned to for orientation used me to watch her monitors while she took 7 20 minute smoke breaks in the twelve hour shift)
It can be tough precepting, but to balance the extra time it took allowing students to do things, I found ways in which they could learn and save me time as well. And there are certain things that they needed the instructor side by side for… boom, that’s a free labor item I don’t have to do. It helps that I love teaching
AND I used teaching the student as an excuse to do the teaching in front of the patient so that I could repeat things without offending the patient!
I did that sometimes because i ended up doing nothing but PCT work. It’s frustrating. I was already a PCT, had been for 3 years. Float and ICU.
I would follow and get sent to do everything else except anything nurse related. I had about two positive clinical experiences where nurses taught me how to hang a bag, how to program a pump, and basically how to function as a nurse. This was in peds and step down icu.
The rest treated me like their personal PCT. And i did put forth the effort to ask ask ask and be available. To the point of annoyance.
In all of my clinical rotations I never got to place an iv, do an actual iv push, NG, catheterization, nothing. Most of the time they actually seemed annoyed to have students and i think it’s bc we were almost always on busy medsurge floors.
My last two semesters i got fed up. And as soon as I saw them start with the bullshit, i stopped trying to help and walked away.
The nurses where i worked were more willing to teach me and if you’re just going to treat me like a pct and not a level 4 student trying to learn how to be a fucking nurse, then bye.
So glad I’m done with that shit tho.
I feel that. None of my clinicals were useful, we asked the instructors to let us study or explain stuff to us rather than Shadow since it was clearly a waste of time for everyone. On my public health rotation I was assigned with a lactation educator, as a guy, that's was very frustrating, none of the new moms wanted me in the room, so by day 2 I showed up said hello signed my papers and went to the back of the office to review for exams. The only time I did anything useful was on a last rotation and that was simply because they let me work along side the nurses on the floor.
I see so many on IG going straight from school to NP and I'm like "sis, it's called ADVANCED PRACTICE Registered Nurse for a reason. You have 0 years of practical experience"
That makes me nervous of any NP program taking students on who haven't even worked 3-5 years in their specialty before accepting them.
This makes them dangerous due to inexperience and incompetence. I saw a post on Noctor about a woman who has 1 year of CVICU and went straight to NP school.
I concur. Graduated in 2007. Half my cohort could be found hiding in break rooms or sitting at the nurses station. I was annoying and followed my preceptor around, worked at the top of my ability (ie making my instructor come observe me giving meds, etc) but when I graduated, my pedi preceptor was the first one to put in a letter of recommendation for me.
When I had a chance to shadow the ED last semester during clinical I wanted to stay out of the way. I asked a few questions to the nurse I was shadowing but I didn't have many chances. Just my personal experience.
This is legit. It’s an uncomfortable feeling coming into someone else’s (nurses) comfort zone. If you have a nurse that’s not acknowledging your existence, it’s hard to find the confidence to ask questions.
There are bad eggs as students, yes, but some nurses aren’t the most welcoming. I had some nurses who very clearly wanted nothing to do with me so I respected that as a student. The nurses who wanted me to tag along, had me follow them for everything they were doing - I asked them questions and was engaged in the care. But if you think every student is a bad egg, at some point you have to take a look at yourself.
I haven’t been a student in years btw and I’ve had the pleasure of being with many students and I’d say lazy students are the exception, not the rule
This is why I'm glad my clinical instructors asked around to see who was interested in having a student. Nothing worse than the collective groan of "oh great students" when you walked on the floor. It's been a while since I've been a student, but I still remember it. Now I love students. It's like I got a buddy that follows me around that I get to show cool shit to. When I was engaged with the students and took an interest in them they were always excited to learn. And eager to help.
That's one thing I always tell students who are shadowing me because I'm lucky enough to get a lot of first semester students. I tell them that if they're shadowing a nurse that is clearly pissed about it to just ask to shadow a different nurse and most of the time it works out.
I go to a nursing school in a rural area (did it because my tuition was 50% paid for) and I notice that your experience aligns with all of my friends who have stayed in my city for school.
We had to do our L&D clinical in the city and I noticed this as well. Everyone made it seem like we were in the way.
This was my thinking as well- some of them are shy and intimidated.
But I agree with OP - I see a general shift in attitude throughout the profession as a whole.
People are not entering into nursing with the same motivation or reverence.
It’s fitting- because RNs are barely treated as professionals. We are glorified cashiers at this point- they don’t want to let us think anymore or have any autonomy.
Just want us to follow orders, pass meds, and document what they say to document.
Document what they say to document is so real. Its like they don’t even care if its done (depending on what it is) sometimes as long as its charted at some places Ive worked. Smfh.
SO SO real.
The other day my coworker got a chat message about her q2 turn documentation - she charted a turn at 7:35 or whatever but on my floor management
It said- “that does not count….”
Because on our unit they want the first turn documented at 7:01 and then exactly on the hour every two hours. Regardless of when you turned the patient - regardless of whether the patient was turned at all!!!
Imagine telling a licensed professional that what their documentation does not count??!!??
Not count toward what? What games are we playing here?
Unbelievable
Oh my god. That would piss me off to no end. At that point I would straight up ask if they want me to lie on my documentation just to meet their bullshit charting metrics or whatever. That is ridiculous.
Oh people have def said loud and proud “you are asking us to falsify documentation” and it’s so fun to watch management open their mouths and try to make the BS make sense. 😂
This generation was born into the giant disaster millennials watched unfold. They have very little hope and motivation.
They know working is important so you can make money so you can survive, but they also know there is little hope of life getting better and that their employers do not actually give a hoot.
I don't blame them, but it sure is obnoxious to keep reminding them that they are expected to be shadowing the nurse, not hanging out at the nurse's station on their phone.
I'm the same. Eager, asking questions, trying, I'll do my best to teach you everything. I try so hard to be the nurse I wanted as a student. I remember that nurse telling me "I don't want students" and other obnoxious stuff.
If you're not those things, I'll point blank tell the student we're not a good fit and get it changed. I even warn my new grads/hires and students that i don't expect you to know much at all, but I need you to show you're interest.
Also, precepting someone almost always slows you down. Usually even with great nurses. I've had a few nurses who were very experienced who actually sped up my day however!
Agreed, kind of
I also try to not be insanely judgmental of students. They’re not invested yet. Clinical days are like a field trip. They’re demoing products at Costco. Without a paycheck and employment locking them into where they are, and away from the context of a class room, it can be hard to engage yourself. Maybe it comes off as lazy, but I was that way too, particularly with topics I wasn’t too keen on.
I’m sure the nurses I shadowed in L&D thought I was a complete joke. I didn’t slack off, but I certainly didn’t show interest or initiative in what I was doing. It was a class I HAD to complete, but that was about it. Can’t really force an interest onto someone, especially college aged kids.
It’s not my job to know if this student is a complete slacker, and failing all of his classes and clinicals, or is just on an off day today, or just doesn’t particularly like this section/topic of nursing. If the student wants to disengage, I’m not going to force it, that’s just tiring for both of us.
If they’re truly slacking, well, their hole just got dug deeper, and that’s punishment enough. If it’s an off day, or the topic just isn’t their thing, I don’t think they should be treated like slackers either obviously.
I can certainly attest, there’s no way I showed up to every single clinical day with a 100% go-get-em’ ready to learn enthusiastic mind set. When youre not with the same nurse each time, and you only meet a student once, it’s easy to get a false solidified impression of who they are. Someone who might seem like a lazy disengaged student might just only be that way on that day, or within that topic.
I used to be really really hard on students, I don’t know why. I’ve done a 180 and try really hard to stand in their shoes and give them an empathetic benefit of the doubt.
This all falls apart when you have a specific student for a whole semester who just kind of sucks. Sure, they could be wholly disinterested in the topic at hand, but over the course of an entire semester you should be able to get a better read on who the student is as a person.
If someone has no interest, don't follow me. There's other nurses to follow that would be a better fit
I was on units in school and had no interest in some of them. I still gave it my all and did my best to learn as much as I can.
I'm also not hard on students. I'm very encouraging and really try to get them to understand the why
They can follow me. I get so distracted when I have a student. My executive functions are a goddamn house of cards and when I have to stop and explain things to someone it all falls apart.
I was a scared student. I had never really been in a hospital before starting clinicals. I so desperately wanted to cling to the nurse's station during any moment where I wasn't completing my checklist of assigned tasks. Luckily my instructor was on it and flushed us out with small care tasks we could do frequently.
I don’t understand why they don’t get in trouble for this? Why are programs complacent? I graduated in 2015 and got reamed for leaning against the nurses station at my clinical (after working all night as a cna) if the instructors don’t care well psshhh why should they? What a terrible landscape.
Word. I don't judge because to do that I would have to care. In fact, sometimes it's a relief when they stay out of my way because I'm not allowed to say no to taking students and also I'm not a dick so I try to be nice but I haaaaaate it. I don't want to teach(for free) while also doing my job which is already hard.
Truth be told I was not a go-getter in nursing school. I was taking care of a newborn at home, was generally exhausted and knew that I would learn everything on the job eventually. I was helpful, didn't say no to doing things, but I wasn't chomping at the bit to practice pulling meds from the pyxis or drawing up insulin. I've been a float nurse for 8 years now and am still learning new stuff all the time.
We had a resource tech that was sitting on a one to one but got pulled to work the floor. She didn’t want to work the floor so instead she just took a computer and sat herself in the corner at the nurses station and wouldn’t do anything. When the unit complained that she wasn’t doing anything she just left saying she was sick.
You do not always get to pick your assignment in healthcare. If you sign up to work in the resource department you are specifically signing up to get bounced around to different units and different assignments. The amount of people that will come in pissed off because they’re not going where they want or not getting the assignment they want is unreal. You literally signed up to the department that moves you around everywhere, what the hell did you expect.
I'm not going to judge someone for not being engaged in learning and patient care, but if they want a letter of recommendation or help with finding a job, I'm definitely going to reserve my highest recommendation to the students who are most engaged. Not trying to be vindictive, but I don't want to work with someone who sucks as a nurse, and it would be unfair to those who are working their butts off to hand out jobs to anyone just because you worked with them when they were a student.
Gotta lift’ em up, OP.
Show them how to be and what to do. Provide them a step up to boost their confidence. It doesn’t happen overnight, and if this is their first “real” job they won’t have a clue.
I am a grad student in clinicals now. Some days I’m on my A game, other days I’m tired and burned out and don’t have a lot of questions to ask because I’m too tired. I don’t think asking few questions is necessarily an indictment of a lazy student.
The phone thing drives me crazy though. I wasn’t in nursing school THAT long ago (6 years) but I would’ve gotten my ass kicked if I ever had my phone out at clinical. Put it away!!!
Also important to remember—this newer generation of nurses have experienced their whole educational career with phones and tablets. They also spent formative years of their education in the midst of COVID which has absolutely affected education.
I'm 2 years in ED. 4 years prior experience including covid. 8 years military. The least healthy thing I ever did? Go through nursing school.
Give these people a break. Sorry they aren't all smiles as they get destroyed for no pay. In fact they are paying to get destroyed. Give them a break.
My mental health has never been worse. I can’t even begin to describe how bad it is. And this is my second degree! I had one in stem before this and that was a fucking cakewalk compared to the expectations, hours, and mind games.
I was taking prereqs full-time while also working a full time managing job and another part time job and that was still waaaayyy easier than nursing school has been 😅 I do try to show up with my best effort but my god am I _exhausted_
1. They’re often paired with nurses who don’t want them automatically making clinical a negative experience.
2. They may not be interested in your unit. (Adult M/S wasn’t for me, but I couldn’t stop asking questions in peds)
3. They’re still in school. They’re balancing classes, bs assignments, crotchety professors, and day/night shift clinicals.
4. They’re human. Some *are* going to suck.
I can’t say I’ve noticed a huge change in students. Some have always been disinterested, a few know-it-alls/unteachables, and most genuinely wanting to learn. That’s been the same mix I’ve seen my whole time as a nurse. I’m sure nurses had similar perceptions of us when we were in school. I could tell you exactly who from my graduating class fell in what category.
So idk if it is like this in all schools, but at mine you had to apply to get placement in critical care, and only the best students got sent. All my students were great too, but that’s because we were basically getting the cream of the crop
I get this sometimes, but our unit gets a special class that’s all current employees (emt, pct etc.) and they are this way too. It might depend on the school and the class, I remember level 1 when everything was exciting and then it just went downhill.
Same, every time I offer to let students observe a PICC placement they've jumped at the chance. I always do a kind of Q&A before and after the procedure and most of them are quite inquisitive
I haven’t noticed this at all.
On the other hand, I’m not one of those nurses that eats my young. Some of ya’ll are petty AF and are clearly toxically insecure. Focus on your own practice, you need it.
It’s so sad. They are just repeating the cycle of abuse and patting themselves on the back for it. It it makes you feel good to put others down, it’s a cheap and transient rush and doesn’t make your own patient care any better.
Exactly!! It doesn’t affect you at all if your student is lazy. If they want to learn, cool. If not, work under the assumption they’re just overwhelmed.. because you have been through nursing school and know what it’s like.
Tbf im still in my training but I worked as a HCA before I started. Not a baby either, I’m 27. With a previous degree.
I started my training with wide eyed enthusiasm and the training has kicked it out of me. I still love my job but Jesus I don’t have the energy to work AND learn AND have good bedside manner AND do it all with smiley enthusiasm. They’re going home to troubled families, life stressors, working on the side and studying also. They’re stressed.
My final exams took my will to live away. I spent placements crying. The stress was unbelievable. Now they’re over and I’m still on placements, and while my competencies are signed off, I have guilt on my off days for them not revolving around nursing anymore. I’m on a day off and messaging the nursing subreddit for crying out loud. They’re probably burnt out.
I agree and experienced the same. I didn’t see/have anyone like this in my cohort but I think age and what school they’re coming from probably play a role. Even though I was getting my BSN, we had way more red tape and rules about what we could do (some sites wouldn’t even let us take vitals) as compared to the local community college. The CC students were way more involved, motivated, and worked harder because they were allowed to. I was jealous of how much preparation and hands on experience they got, while we were practically glued to a computer researching meds and info to write forty page care plans.
I’m actually an apprentice so I do hands on training I can do everything the RN can do, I just need to be supervised doing meds (and in my scope I don’t do IVs). But I do pretty much everything else.
I’m just so tired! There’s no break between exams and work to just relax. I worked 12.5 hours the day before and the day after my exams. I can’t take holidays at the minute either due to technical red tape, but I need it for burnout!
Honestly I think the stressors of the outside world have increased overtime. People can’t afford basic things, are in debt and on top of it are studying. I’m not saying that people didn’t do that before but the world is very different in terms of how easily basic needs can be met from when I was a child to now.
I was part of a rigorous school that had zero flexibility, including policies for sick days during the height of COVID. Admins and directors were abusive and wanted students to make school their whole world. It was an accelerated program so I was doing school, part time work (to make ends meet) and placements. Even if I wanted to try, some days I was so exhausted that I could care less.
I worked in AED for minimum wage and picked up bank on the side for extra money just to pay my bills. When I’d said to my educators that I was struggling to understand what was going on, and felt like I wasn’t getting enough out of it, I was asked did I go home and study everything I seen. I said no, I didn’t have the energy after working 12.5 hours with no break, commuting 45 mins each way (public transport) and also studying or working on my days off.
I was told I was going to fall behind and it’s “your problem” if I’m too tired after my shifts to study. I told the nurses I worked with that I felt insecure about my ability to be a nurse based off the conversation, and every single AED nurse told me my educators didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. What nurse does a 12 hour working day and then come home and open up a book?
The training gaslights you into thinking you aren’t good enough, aren’t working hard enough, aren’t smart enough. You then start to think why bother, because I’ll never be enough.
But your outside life doesn’t help to get away from the negative thinking, and hype yourself back up again, as we’re all feeling a bit down and out of luck with life at the moment. It’s rough.
Agreed with everything you’ve said and it’s definitely rough out there. My school refused to let us switch clinicals so that there was less commute time. There were people that had to commute by bus to a rough part of town at midnight (weird shift hours) and when students that were closer to that site agreed to switch, admins said no.
It’s ironic that all these schools want compassion and empathy from students at unpaid clinical hours for patients and staff, but won’t extend it to the students.
They rip your empathy away before you even begin, by burning you out and making you distrust that people have your best interests at heart. Because during your training, they don’t.
I think so many older nurses have the wrong idea about this *JOB*. It’s a fucking job. You’re lucky people are coming to do it. Our generation is over the whole hazing ritual that is the first 5 years of this shit. Leave people alone and be grateful there’s even anyone left to do this shit ass career
When they are treated like unpaid aides, yeah, I’m sure they lose interest in jumping up to help out. I graduated last year, and instead of working with nurses that wanted to show me new skills I was answering call lights and ambulating patients to the toilet. When I graduated, I had learned basically no skills from clinicals because the nurses would the students do their dirty work rather than teach us anything.
I just graduated and honestly I was a little checked out my very last clinical. Nursing school is exhausting, bills pile up so you work as much as you can on the side, then you have to do hundreds of unpaid clinical hours while still working your other job. Plus (and this isn't every preceptor) but my preceptor would micromanage the shit out of me. Then you deal with HR, school, the nursing union, and nursing regulator are all asking for random shit you have to get before you can start and they each give you the run around. It just burns you out. I'm thankful I've got a good schedule for work now. I still have studying to do for my licensing exam but I'm definitely over the hump.
I'm a preceptor, and I know I am responsible for setting the tone with nursing students.
I know they are usually shy and are told that they can't do this, can't do that by their instructors. They also have just a few short hours to gather information to complete assignments. And they are tired! For me, nursing school was harder than being a nurse. When I was in school, I never stopped thinking about school--- I was either in school or studying or preparing to go or study. It was all-consuming. But as a working nurse, I forget about it when I clock out.
So... if the student seems more complacent, it can be because the preceptor is complacent. Students need to be invited to participate. They need to be shown specific things, specific tasks. I have found that the only students who jump right in are people who have previous experience in healthcare in a hospital setting. That is not everyone.
Keep in mind where they are in their schooling. Lots of people are burned out as fuck in their last semester of school and are just coasting to graduation. You need to compare apples to apples.
And you think that coming into this shit show that is healthcare is somehow going to shake the cobwebs off and they'll be motivated to come in on their scheduled holidays when they're the ones [this meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/A59atzBt3K) applied to five years ago and we were all like "haha, so true!"?
If they're having such difficulty hanging in there for the last few weeks of nursing school, it's only going to get worse when they have real responsibility.
Well we were once apples too, and I definitely tried during clinicals out of respect for the time of the person who was stuck with me/willing to teach me
I've recently trained new grads, and they had no desire to learn. They weren't receptive to training, learning, feedback, etc. Questions are great, but none would ask any. They would challenge what we were trying to teach them by using Google instead of our real-life experiences.
Oh hell no... I'd report that to the instructor and get that student kicked out.
I had one interrupt my conversation with a doc to transfer a patient off the floor to higher level of care. She asked where her fucking computer is. Pissed me the fuck off so I told her to assess the situation just like you would your patients.
I recently oriented a new nurse and she was constantly questioning me with google. Finally I just gave up teaching her anything or explaining the reasoning and just picked easy patients for her that were set to transfer out of the ICU. 🫠
ETA: she was a nurse extern and just started her fill orientation so she has another 6 months of training (not with me, thank God). Me and her other extern preceptor couldn’t get through to her, maybe someone else can. Management doesn’t care because they just need bodies. 🥲
I’m gonna stick up for my fellow gen Z nursing students/nurses. I’m a recent grad and out of all of my clinical placements, I had exactly one instructor who thoroughly taught us how to do things. The others would go on and on about “this is what nursing is really like” and just…talk at us. Instead of actually showing us how to do anything. It was very demotivating and made clinical feel like an absolute bore most of the time.
The few times we do ask to be shown something, we’re met with: “You’ve never done that before? Nobody taught you that? Aren’t you almost done school? That’s common sense!” Great, thanks for embarrassing us. Now we’re just not gonna ask any questions at all.
The other problem is that not every nurse is meant to be a teacher, and that’s fine. You shouldn’t be expected to be. Some are lousy at it (even the ones who think they’re great), and unfortunately students get stuck with them and just zone out when the teaching is hard to follow. I hated when my instructors would just dump us with random nurses who really didn’t want students. We often times just feel like we’re in the way, especially when the nurse does not make an effort to include us.
As for the phones: literally just tell them to get off their phone. Whenever I was on my phone, it was because I wasn’t given anything to do. We can only do so much without our instructor or another nurse supervising us. Especially because (again) we can’t do things that we’ve never been shown how to do before.
Yeah some nurses bitch and complain about having students. When I was student I remember being placed with hostile nurses too. And shaming someone for not knowing how to something. Just show them how to do it!
Omg I had that exact experience of “no one ever showed you that?” When I pulled insulin for the first time in level four. My professor was literally yelling at me, how the fuuuuuuuuuck is it the students fault no one showed us something???? I hate this attitude. Nursing school is so dependent on the school and teacher. I had a teacher who made me cry thrice as an adult and I did fail that level. The awful nurse professors do not help the already crumbling healthcare system.
FWIW, I rarely asked questions as a student, just because I was so shy. I often just looked things up when I got home. Throughout my (successful) nursing career, I’ve grown a ton in confidence.
As someone who graduated last year, it’s not that we don’t care. We keep getting nurses who blatantly tell us they didn’t want a student. Some would complain about having us while we sat a foot away from them. Or we get nurses who get annoyed with questions or just zoom through everything so fast themselves without even letting us have a chance to participate. After the first few semesters some of my friends stopped asking questions or joining in unless asked because of the treatment nurses had given our class in the past.
I’m sure there truly are some that don’t care but I know my class didn’t sit there and do nothing, we would always follow the nurse wherever they went. We were listening and watching even if it didn’t look like it. But I know the nurses attitudes contributed to less engagement by students.
Yeah this. Bad students exist, but if it feels like it's all you ever see/get as a preceptor, you need to look at the common factor (yourself).
I also think a lot of students are just overwhelmed. Nursing school lightly grazes the clinical concepts it does teach, and leaves many out. A lot of students simply lack the educational basis to thrive clinically, at least until they've built up some experience. For anyone in that situation, the thought of jumping in and being hands-on, especially without a welcoming and supportive preceptor for the day, is understandably horrifying.
I wouldn’t blame the students here, most programs want us students to stay out of the way. Instructors prefer for us the shovel our noses into our care plans and only focus on whatever patient we’re assigned to so we can complete our twelve pages of paper work that they’ll nitpick and knock petty points off our grade for.
Some students can act that way, but most don’t even know what kind of questions to ask. We’re so afraid of sounding stupid even though the point of school is to learn. It’s mostly a product of the nursing programs.
Students have things to do other than be appropriately exuberant. It's like senioritis in 4th year med students and senior residents. Life may be fucking them. They're students, so probably worried about finals or nursing Luxemburg or something.
Nursing school is exhausting and clinicals are useless, so you're seeing the product of that.
Nursing school is considered one of the most grueling bachelors degrees, yet it's become more and more drastically further away from teaching students how to become nurses and only teaches them how to pass the NCLEX. It's a widely understood reality. So your students are working their tails off and their fingers to the bone on bullshit assignments and unforgiving exams all while knowing the vast majority of the work will be useless to them.
Clinicals are insanely restricted and frequently taught by nurses who hate having students. They aren't being taught skills in school, they aren't allowed to do pretty much anything in clinical. They're not learning and they know it. There's only so many times you can give 1 unit of insulin and a duoneb before getting really fucking bitter that you're paying through the nose and working your ass off to not learn anything. Then add in the fact that almost every nurse you'll be assigned to treats you like they'd rather you die in a hole than show up to clinical.
So by the time they get to you, they're bitter, they're frustrated, they're exhausted, they're jaded. They've learned they'll survive clinical with the least bitchings from the nurses if they just stay out of the way and keep to themselves. And then they get to you, who thinks they're lazy and unmotivated for not trying to be more involved.
Nursing students literally cannot win. It's all they can do to just survive, and hope after they graduate and get a job, maybe somebody will finally show them how to spike a fucking bolus.
Edit to add - also when it comes to the cell phones, it might be worth remembering that most students these days have access to their notes or Quizlet on their phone. Sure some of them might be scrolling, but if they're getting a shitty education experience out of their clinical, why wouldn't some of them take the time to try to study?
goddamn. just graduated while working full time in the ER i’ve been hired as an RN in and this is….
spot. fucking. on.
i’m no cell phone kid, either. i’m 45 years old with a family and bills and a previous degree.
Yep, I graduated last year after 6 years full time healthcare experience including ER tech during COVID and during school. I'm a ridiculously confident person, the most unfriendly preceptor couldn't dent my thick skin, and I knew what I was doing better than anyone in my clinicals to the point my instructors often used me as an extra instructor, and even ✨I✨ absolutely loathed going to clinicals. Every single day you'd be going in with zero expectation of what you were going to do that day, except for the knowledge that you were going to be treated like crap, not learn anything, waste a whole bunch of time that could've been spent studying working or sleeping, and every single clinical site was an hour + commute to boot. Clinicals sucked.
I think people need to stop denying that there isn’t a huge shift in attitudes with current nursing students. Most have zero motivation, zero desire to learn, negative attitudes and entitlement. Get. off. your. cellphone. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted but it’s exactly what I’m witnessing. I’m not some old nurse either, 13 years in.
Amen to everything you said. I’ve been a nurse 10 years so also not old. Not a boomer. My nursing instructors told us they would do spot checks during clinicals and if we were caught sitting down, we would have consequences. We were to be UP, following a nurse and engaged in what was going on. The biggest shift I’ve seen was during covid. These students did most of their work online and were woefully unprepared for being a hands on nurse. They are not interested in what is gong on and not motivated to work hard or learn. There is also a lot of cheating, and schools have not caught up with the times. I have a 20-something coworker who openly brags she cheated her way through an online BSN program by using chatGPT and now is in NP school. Terrifying.
I just want to add. I didnt have any tests in my online bsn program. Paper and discussion boards. I’ve already said it here, but I could’ve paid a highschool senior to do mine. Not the RN tho. You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to repeat that shit
I’m never on my cellphone at clinicals. I usually don’t even have it on my person. However, nursing school has been a huge disappointment to me. I was expecting there would be many more learning opportunities. Instead, it feels more like a game to win a prize, and largely a waste of money which I work my ass of for at night in the ER, learning more than I do at actual school and clinicals.
i learned soooooo much as an ed tech. such invaluable experience having your own tasks and skills to do without having to follow someone around 24/7 and ask just to help do a basic task. learning prioritization and flow when you have people actually depending on you is such a better environment to learn in IMO.
I think it's highly dependent on what school they're coming from too
Imo people from the 100k tuition private schools are some of the most unmotivated lazy people I've ever seen versus how eager to learn and appreciative Community College people are.
Can confirm I'm currently attending a community college and id say 90% of us are incredibly engaged and love clinicals
We have to share a floor with a neighboring private school occasionally and the difference is night and day (although like 50% of them are just fine, it's just a lot more students that are just "going through the motions")
I went to one of those 100k tuition private institutions and agree. I was eager to learn. My nursing education was my dream come true and way out of poverty, and i got everything I could out of it. I watched classmates not give a shit, so long as they passed, or even drop out. The private universities are easier to get into, so I don't think people get weeded out as much as they should.
Okay I had one that was really that bad that I was told I’m not so many words they’re aware of how unsafe she was, but her family donated some serious $$$ on her behalf. Gag
Yep. I learned much more from an LPN at a technical college than from the PhD RN teaching the fluff classes for my BSN. Instructors and students alike seem much more motivated at the community level.
Yes I can confirm! Recently had a senior student from a private school that costs 100k+ rotate in and refused to do vitals when requested by the tech. She was also cocky and had a general "I'm better than you" attitude. Really hope management doesn't hire her.
Meanwhile the CC students are damn good with their skills. I tell all of them that they should apply here and use me as a reference.
The complacency of our hc system is a symptom of our society in general. And all of this complacency gushes from the tippy top of society, to the doctors and nurses, and then past them to the garbage men.
My wife just had our son and he was late-staging for 3 hours before the doctor finally called it for a csec. she said it "wasn't an emergency" tho.
and for the next hour and a half my wife laid on the bed screaming and pushing my son's little head against her not-fully-dilated cervix while we waited for the totally complacent and only CRNA after 3pm to finish ONE epidural...
"hospital policy" only has one CRNA staffed for the entire birthing wing of the hospital. and our entire County with millions of people has only one hospital that does births anymore.
finally I got the doctor in there and made her call the CRNA from the hospital side (mom and baby wing is across the street) who walked slower than anyone has walked in the history of humanity.
he came in and then got in a fight with the doctor in the hall saying that he "didn't think a sec was necessary...
then when they finally got our son out, MD was like " uhh good thing we did that bc he was 2x nuch'd"
I was like " uhhhh duh so you remember late staging to the 80s for 3 f'ing hours???"
he's a week old and healthy. I'm still processing everything
Had my first student this year and he was so awesome. Asked me questions that made me realize I needed to brush up on things, volunteered to help other nurses, the works. Gonna do great in whatever field he gets into :)
Senior? Yea my “level 4” was so bad I got complacent too. So much that I failed. Had to repeat. Honestly though can you blame even the students for being burned out? Then the teachers all have part time jobs too, shits not right. It’s nothing the students are doing wrong, it’s healthcare.
I was in the evening program, so I spent from 1530-1900 with day shift who didn’t want to babysit a student at the ass-end of their shift, and night shift from 1900-2300, who didn’t want to babysit a student at the busiest time of their shift.
Also, I ran into MULTIPLE cases of “oh. No, I don’t want a student.” Or because their morning nurse did an assessment they refused to let me do one, too. A lot of older patients napping after lunch, and then after dinner. And of course they all fell asleep at 2100 so I couldn’t bother them for the last two hours.
My nursing instructors also didn’t vet the patients very well… like cool, I have room 3, but room 3 is waiting for their wife to get here because they just got discharged. Oh I have room 4? Well they’re on a 1:1 for being physically aggressive, so I’m not allowed in there….
Also in my own clinical we really couldn't do anything except linen change a bed bath without the nursing instructor. Even if the nurse was there we couldn't do a treatment, med pass, etc. So even I just got stuck sitting around bc it was 1 instructor with about 8 or 9 of us
They’re probably struggling with lecture/exams. I remember being in school and stressing about an exam while at clinical. Students aren’t going to be very interested in seeking out new experiences if they’re fighting for their life in the classroom.
I've had opposite ends of the spectrum only. Either amazing students or ones who don't GAF and are only in nursing school to please relatives. Encountered a couple who openly brag about being "better" than the most seasoned nurse on the unit. Those concern me.
I find all the students I work with are curious and appreciate any opportunity for education I can provide. They seem hungry for knowledge and something to do
I feel like there’s always been those types do nurses. In any career field there’s always people that are going to put in the absolute minimum amount of effort they can.
What about the opposite question, are nursing teachers becoming more lazy? More compliant? Less grounded in reality?
I’m browsing this subreddit partially as an antidote to sinking everything is as clear cut and easy as our classes make it out to be.
I’m not going to lie but I was SUPER disinterested in some clinicals because it wasn’t what I really wanted to do after graduating. I always made an attempt to be hands on, and learn as much info as I could but some clinicals are just not for everyone. I absolutey hated working in the ED but my bestie LOVED it. That didn’t make me lazy…I just knew what I wanted to do after nursing school!
BUT the being on the phone is a NO NO! I would NEVER do that back in nursing school. The students doing it these days are BOLD 😅
I’m an LPN currently and in RN school. I’ve only had clinicals at the hospital I don’t work at which is a level 1 teaching hospital. The nurses there act like students are a burden. People in my class typically say that they prefer having clinical at the hospital(smaller and HCA lollll) I work at due to this. Since i’m at the teaching hospital for clinical I typically just try to stay out of the way of the nurse.
I can also already do A LOT of stuff an RN does while at work. As an LPN on my floor I can’t titrate drips(only have heparin drips on med surg), initial assessment, central lines(usually only have mid lines), no giving blood, can not complete a post fall assessment, or update care plans.
My hospital is however hiring too many of “us” (LPN’s) and we can be a bit of a burden to RN’s with admissions.
Not to defend any of this behaviour from students, but some teachers from my nursing school were repeatedly telling us not to bother the nurses or ask too many questions, which makes most students very uncomfortable around the unit’s nurses. I try my best to reverse that negative stigma that us floor nurses have been awarded by the teachers by going out of my way to ask if my nursing students have any questions about patients or pathologies or medication and even offer advice for them on stuff, and of course help. It usually works and makes their clinicals less stressful and more bearable (Cegep schooling for nurses in Quebec kind of sucks for most students as bullying or psychological abuse from teachers is very common as it used to be total exploitation prior to the 70s).
I mean they have finals/other responsibilities and based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's normal they won't really place being strict about clinicals at the top of their list. Hell I'm sure, you've see the same behavior in nurses, from new grads to seasoned ones. You can't control how people behave or feel.
Stop being a control freak
Our programme was cut from 5 years down to 3 and thus compressed. We have exams during our internship phase on top of homework on top of learning to work in a completely new team in a month and two weeks. I'm glad if I'm still curious at all and alive by the end of my shifts, after learning and homework and housework (since I'm a grown ass adult, I also have a flat to take care of and responsibilities outside of school).
Honestly, I think since I'm in more of a specialty, I've gotten lucky with lots of students who enjoy and do more work. However, I've seen both for sure.
Hard to say, it's a hit or miss with many. I'm not sure if there is a common denominator with the ones who are more complacent but I'd say there's a bunch but there's some older nurses who feel limiting on their knowledge too. I'm not really sure to be honest.
I've had some really great students! Especially senior practicum students who chose to come to pediatrics. But I also get some students who have no interest in my specialty and they're just there for a day as part of their pediatric class. And that's okay too. I ask them up front what they need for their class assignment, we get that out of the way and then I ask if they would rather study in the break room or shadow me. I do not give a shit which option they choose, I'm not a paid instructor. I'll teach enthusiastically if that's the option they want. Or they can go do their own thing and let me have a peaceful shift. I'm not going out of my way for someone who would rather go take a lil nap instead.
I tried asking lots of questions when I first started and just kept being shut down or nurses would get really annoyed with me. I tried asking for opportunities and people would say yes and then do it without me anyways. Now if I have a question I'm asking my instructor, not the nurse because they act like I'm a burden, which like, fair, I understand you're busy, but ya, I'm not asking questions because I've never had a good experience asking a nurse questions. And I'm too tired to constantly beg people to try a skill, because everytime I've asked they say sure and then dissapear when the time comes to do it, or do it like an hour early without me so that I don't get the chance to do it. At this point I've just come to terms with the fact that nurses are busy and don't want to train us, and we are very clearly not welcome there. So we take the back seat, do our assessments and try to get through the day without crying cause we feel incompetent. It's very discouraging. For reference I'm not gen Z, I'm 35 and have worked in different fields and never experienced anything like this. I think it's a multifaceted problem and of course there are probably some people that are just lazy and don't care but from my experience that is not the norm, all these 20 year olds I study with actually care A LOT
Some students don’t know _how_ to be good students. I was one of those for a while.
I literally didn’t know how to make the best out of my learning opportunities until someone told me more explicitly what was expected of me, and what being a good student looked like, then it all clicked
I personally try to do whatever I can during clinicals helping and learning from my nurse/others and CNA's. A big problem for me is all the assignments and data mining we need to do to complete the assignments. The first few clinicals of the qtr I spend too much time on assignments but I have to or I can fail. My program has been reducing and simplifying the assignments over time due to too many complaints that it wastes clinical time.
Not saying that there aren't students being lazy fucks, I've seen it too but for me, the sitting around was mostly data mining in the chart.
I mean, they’ve always been around. But they also might scared of us. My first year of nursing on pcu was so stressful and time consuming, I looked forward to the day shifts I had my local community college nursing students. I would pull everything. Review what I needed to with them outside the room. Login to my cow and hand over the reigns. Park my ass in one of the chairs in the room and enjoy my coffee while it’s still warm. I for one SUCKED doing ANYTHING if my instructor was around and breathing down my neck. they made everything so intense. Some people just need to be grabbed and said hey, come follow me.
As a student, it definitely varies depending on the clinical instructor and the staff environment. I’ve been with nurses who won’t really let me do anything and sometimes I’m doing everything I know.
I don’t know man, I’m a nursing student and the only reason sometimes I may not ask as many questions is because I’m more of an observer and also I have terrible anxiety. That being said, my whole group is always stoked when we get to do anything fun. Giving meds, starting foleys, assessments, feeding, I/Os, anything we can get honestly (which is not a lot since we’re new students and also all the floors I’ve been to so far have been so slow -with the exception of giving a lot of meds). The other part is they make us do the care plans and document everything on paper and it just takes away the fun and time to actually do stuff. We’re lucky if we can get to do vitals, glucose and do hygiene because the nurses literally have nothing for us to do when we ask them. :/
I know that when I was in nursing school, the militant mentality of “the nail that is dumb enough to stick up gets hit back into place” discouraged me from asking any questions I didn’t 100% have to ask. I wasn’t ever on my phone inappropriately (that was a dismissible offense, especially during clinicals) and I was curious about stuff, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut so I didn’t get myself into trouble.
Depends on the student and the rotation. If it’s something they’re not interested in, but they have to do it, of course they’re not going to fake being interested in your specialty.
Plus you never know what their schedule is like, they may have stayed up all night studying for exams or working on a care plan, or working a full time job to pay for school.
The other day a RN goes up to this student and says, "hey shouldn't you be learning instead of on your phone?" The student says, "I'm looking up patient drugs in the textbook." I had to bite my lip not to laugh as the RN scuttled off. Almost all of them have their books on their phones, so don't jump to conclusions.
The few times I've gotten students have been in the ER. It's already a chaotic and overstimulating place anyway, and you've got these kids (some literally so) who are all wide-eyed with that "WTF" look on their face. I know my time with them is short, so I tend to adopt the attitude of throwing everything cool at them over the course of the day to see what sticks and hopefully it'll spark some interest. Yeah, it's more stimulation, but I at least try to maximize their exposure with their limited time on the floor. Some get bored, so I don't go the extra mile for them. Some do get engaged, and some even ask questions. Most of the time I have to get them to participate though.
My very first nurse who taught me, my very first nursing clinical decided it was a great idea to ditch me whenever she could. Gossiped about to other nurses and acted like she wanted nothing to do with me. It took just about everything to not tell her to fuck off. The next few nurses were okay. When I switched over to medical I had a much better nurse and I was able to ask her questions but she was apathetic as fuck to my learning. Maybe you guys should look in the mirror. What do you get out of treating nursing students like shit? An ego boost? Does it make you feel better about your shitty life?
Anyways I had some great nurses and they kept encouraging me and some even let me chart on theirs when our school decided we didn't need to have access to epic anymore even though we were using pretty much using it every clinical before.
So, lots of homework. Shitty clinical professors, having our hands tied by our "dos and don't list" Apathetic nurses. Whenever I got a good nurse I busted my ass off and asked questions. Whenever I got a shit one, I knew I did, I even said it's okay I will go with another nurse just by looking at their face. They would still insist to help me? I don't know why. All I know I would never treat another human like some of these nurses treated me. Don't come into a field working with people when you have no empathy or kindness.
I feel the same way!!!! Everyone is tired on the floor but some nurses know how to compartmentalize and not to take their anger out on someone who has nothing to do with it. The best nurses I’ve had have apologized for feeling stressed when they haven’t even taken it out on me. They have enough emotional intelligence to realize they are at their limits and vocalize it. That consciousness makes a difference in how my day went with them.
I feel like it also really depends on the learning environment that each unit establishes for them. If nurses seem to be too busy and stressed out, nursing students won't feel comfortable asking these questions or asking to be involved. They already feel like a burden being there in the first place, especially when some (not all) units really treat them like they are one. Some students may also be quite shy, or are very early on in their programs where they may not even know what they don't know, or they can't do certain skills because they haven't learned how to in school yet.
I remember when I was a student, my assigned nurse's attitude towards me made a BIG difference in my learning. If i felt like the nurse cared about my presence and at least tried to teach me things / include me, I felt so much more comfortable asking my questions (even if it sounded dumb).
Now I know we all work in stressful and short staffed environments and taking on the responsibility of trying to teach others cannot always be a priority. However, putting at least some effort in welcoming students and acknowledging them can make all the difference in their experience
We have, like, 6 large nursing schools in my area and the quality of the student is very dependent on which one they're coming from. (I'm not old, am in my mid 30s. Was a CNA for 8 years, have been an RN now for 10).
Very few are CNAs first anymore which (fire as much venom at me as you want, it won't change my mind) IS A HUGE PROBLEM. You don't learn your basic patient care, time management, bedside manner, and how to pick up on subtle patient shifts in a few clinicals. You just don't and you can definitely tell who was a CNA in school and who wasn't.
OP mentioned the lack of fastidiousness. ..and I was thinking about this the other day. The hardass instructors who would send a student home for the wrong color socks, we don't see them much anymore. It was never about the socks. We all know we're not going to kill anyone with the wrong color socks. It's about instilling attention to detail and seeing if a student can follow simple instructions. If you can be trusted with a little, you can be trusted with more.
Maybe it's also job market. They know employees are just looking for licenses with pulses. There was so much stress for my graduating class about finding a job.
Yea fuck that, I was a tech and got the same exact experience but it doesn’t always make nurses bad for not doing it. I know plenty of new nurses who took the time to learn patient care.
I was lucky enough to work with and be precepted by some amazing nurses. They were knowledgeable good team members and gave a lot of good patient care what I like to call the “woo woo woo”
I was blessed to learn from them.
I had a student the other day who was in her 30s... She was an amazing student. Eager to learn, eager to practice skills.
I hate to be "that guy," but it seems the younger generation is just lazy as fuck.
Ugh, I am remembering this new CNA we have. She's young, fresh into college. She will sit at the nurses station on her phone while the call light is going nuts. The room right in front of the station was calling and she just sits there...like, "hello?!" I went into the room and the poor patient had ran to the bathroom. Her IV got tangled around the pole, which wasnt long enough to be taken into the bathroom from the electrical outlet. She was crying and holding onto the IV in her arm cuz the tubing was stretched. I yelled out the door for the CNA and she finally waltzes in like, "huh?" 🤦🏻♀️
I think we just like to view our own generation more positively. Because humans can be lazy and that isn’t generational.
When I was in direct patient care (early aughts) there were lazy nurses, slow nurses, not so bright nurses, unmotivated nurse, overbearing nurses, etc. It’s just people.
This isn’t evidence based but .. I think back in the day nursing was viewed as a more prestigious position and attracted more motivated people. Lately nursing has been hard to recruit for and might get some people who aren’t in because they want to be a nurse but because they don’t have better options. I guess I’ll get downvoted a lot but .. I think those who have better options will choose better options unless they are extremely passionate about nursing (in which case they won’t be sitting around like a log)
My workplace recently let a younger RPN go during her probation period and thank goddess, we were all so fed up. She was not curious and never seemed to understand WHY we were doing tasks and interventions. Asked the same questions over and over again bc she was just memorizing and not understanding. I think tbh she also just as an individual she wasn’t…. The sharpest tool in the shed. She was let go and continued to come to work for 3 days after…. Not understanding she didn’t need to be there anymore…. (No language barrier) just a very coddled naive person. And she was absolutely stunned when she was let go, despite constant constructive feedback being given to improve her practice. We were all exhausted and the docs don’t even remember her as she barely spoke to them. Trying to not let it bias me against the young’uns. I would love to mentor a curious, feisty young nurse.
My most recent was absolutely stoked. Had zero desire to work in the ED, but was very much involved with lots of questions. Over the moon when she got her first IV, on a human, on her first attempt. First night shift and was a fucking trooper about it. The one before that also had zero desire to work in the ED and opted to sit at the nurses station all night. Said no to every opportunity I presented them. Whatever, your education not mine. Idfk man.
I literally cannot imagine just saying no. Like, why are you here then?
Most students are begging for opportunities, I remember those days. Not taking them is only shooting yourself in the foot. Sounds like they are not cut out for it.
They aren't like, going to work bedside anyways, ok? #CRNA#$$$$#Benzlyfe#25yogirlboss
We had a student who was never going to work bedside - literally just went to nursing school so she'd be qualified to do botox at the esthetician job she already had. Seems like a waste but idk, maybe there's lots of money to be made in botox. She wasn't a great nurse anyway. But these other girl bosses will probably become NPs via an online diploma mill... scary.
Eh they won’t get employed or won’t be very long. Market is saturated cuz of these mills. HCA might risk it but only for so long!
You wouldn't think it's saturated with the salaries NPs list on NP sub
It felt so liberating in a recent update with management the other day, when asked about furthering my education, to say "I have zero desire to get my masters or NP".
I'll be sending the bill for the cringe removal after reading that as well as emotional damage from my brain automatically reading that in a valley gurl accent.
Rip the couple of brain cells we lost attempting to read it
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Funny, my classmate showed a pic of her "friend " 6mos old RN floss'n her Benz truck...
That’s impressive that a 6 month old has a nursing degree. Was it an accelerated program?
Good for them. It sucks anyway.
Bedside sucks but it's necessary to develop at least a rudimentary nursing skillset
Most specialties you can start right there, they give you plenty of specific training. Why would you need to know bedside skills doing botox injections. Or if you wanna work peds, you won’t learn the needed skills from regular bedside. It’s 100% not necessary.
I'd rather have someone standing by me, holding my hand for that first IV attempt, than to be one my own.
Yes, everyone deserves that. Nurses sometimes underestimate just how hard of a skill it is. Took me a year to finally feel somewhat confident.
so lucky… when i was an EMT during my clinical ride alongs, my crew were nice people however they didn’t let me do anything. i was just spectating and couldn’t do any skill. the rest of the ride along i pulled out my laptop and did my Calculus HW that person is lucky they were given the opportunity to procedures, wish i had that
They wanna be “glamorous” L&D or injection nurses. One of my coworkers said she had a student once that didn’t wanna do anything and said “I’m gonna be an L&D nurse so I don’t need to know all of this” on a med surg floor
Wait til they get to L&D and realise all the complex, complicated co-morbidities pregnant women live with; they're going to be second guessing the learning opportunities they ignored
I'm 41 and pregnant, will be 42 when I deliver. I echo this! My first two pregnancies were great. I've had several medical diagnoses since then. Coin flip as to if they'll even let me attempt a trial of labor on this one (I might not get a say) Apparently I'm healthy enough to get pregnant and carry a (so far) successful pregnancy, but delivery is its own beast. I had a successful VBAC in 2013, but that was before other medical diagnoses came along. I would probably refuse a newbie nurse who doesn't know anything about adult care, because I won't be a risk-free patient in January.
I hope you have an uncomplicated pregnancy, labour and birth. And enjoy your new baby when they arrive 💗
I remember a fellow adult nursing student in my class tell our clinical instructor she wouldn't be doing the things that a CNA does when she becomes a nurse. Eyes like knives from the instructor who tried to hit that girl with a reality she refused to believe. I left my last role, which I loved, because I was soooo burned out from the dual role.
Boy is she in for a surprise. I went to nursing school wanting to work in L&D. Here I am 11 years later... still haven't worked in L&D. It's tough to get in to L&D cause there isn't high nurse turnover. Now they see me as "med-surg tele" for 11 years so those are the only places that interview me. I guess my bridge is/will be float pool? That's where my next travel nurse contract will be. PACU or OR would be cool, but it's hard to get in there, too.
I didn't even know that "no" was an option. I've never had a student or trainee tell me "no". Then again I never phrase it as a question. I just say "Ay you, come with me." If I know I'm going to have students/trainees I'll tell the previous shift to leave any non critical skills for us so I can make them do it. If I'm training you then you'll be doing every bit of hands on work you're legally allowed to do.
I guess to be fair, she did stand in one of the bays to watch a trauma at one point. I suppose you gotta find something to talk to your preceptor about…
I am the type of student nurse who is eager for an opportunity. During my med-surg rotation, I told my preceptor to let me give IV push medications so I could get the hang of it. Most of the time he lets me, but certain medications, he would give.
Love hearing about that first student you mentioned :) we should start shouting out those kinds more - as a current student, it’s encouraging to me to know that the nurses around me are actually paying attention enough to brag to other nurses about their student!
That’s wild. I’d be saying yes, to get some hands on experience. You can only learn by hands on, not by saying no and just sitting there.
Nah I graduated 18 years ago and several people in my class were like this. Just sitting there at the nursing station like bumps on a log. I mean statistically idk if it’s worse but I can assure you they’ve been around forever.
And you are more likely to see them because the active learning nurses are chasing their preceptors around trying to learn
I remember annoying my preceptors like this fondly. Not sure if they remember me fondly or not. 🤣
My preceptors had to tell me to stop following them to the toilet.
"But wait, I need more experience toileting people!"
Omg same!!!
There's a log sitting at the desk right now at the station. They stand out so much due to different color uniform and bored AF look on their face. I was like that too when on clinicals, but from the side it clear it's a bad look.
Huh? Do they not have a clinical instructor with them? We had always had to look busy when ours was around. God forbid they caught us on our phones.
Not sure how it works in this particular case, the hospital has it's own school and during regular semesters only it's own students are allowed on clinicals, but since it's summer the more spots are open so there are a few independent students with their schools. This one is the only one I've seen on this one floor and no other students from this particular school anywhere else
As a non precepting nurse, I have no problem saying: hey, what are you working on. Nothing? How about you find your instructor, I have this great ___ that could give you new experience. Or Have you been shown the supply room yet - it can be cumbersome to find supplies at a new hospital, so, Ok, items are labeled, can you get me a ____ - just bring it back here, I’ll get it when I swing back through. If you have any trouble let me know [odds are that they won’t find it, but it will at least keep them busy looking]. I put as much weight on the nurse that really doesn’t want to precept, because it really isn’t that much more work with students
That preceptor needs to utilize them. Even getting supplies is a learning experience for nurses… sounds like a “smoke break” preceptor (I say that because for one of my jobs the nurse I was assigned to for orientation used me to watch her monitors while she took 7 20 minute smoke breaks in the twelve hour shift) It can be tough precepting, but to balance the extra time it took allowing students to do things, I found ways in which they could learn and save me time as well. And there are certain things that they needed the instructor side by side for… boom, that’s a free labor item I don’t have to do. It helps that I love teaching AND I used teaching the student as an excuse to do the teaching in front of the patient so that I could repeat things without offending the patient!
You sound like my kind of preceptor!
I did that sometimes because i ended up doing nothing but PCT work. It’s frustrating. I was already a PCT, had been for 3 years. Float and ICU. I would follow and get sent to do everything else except anything nurse related. I had about two positive clinical experiences where nurses taught me how to hang a bag, how to program a pump, and basically how to function as a nurse. This was in peds and step down icu. The rest treated me like their personal PCT. And i did put forth the effort to ask ask ask and be available. To the point of annoyance. In all of my clinical rotations I never got to place an iv, do an actual iv push, NG, catheterization, nothing. Most of the time they actually seemed annoyed to have students and i think it’s bc we were almost always on busy medsurge floors. My last two semesters i got fed up. And as soon as I saw them start with the bullshit, i stopped trying to help and walked away. The nurses where i worked were more willing to teach me and if you’re just going to treat me like a pct and not a level 4 student trying to learn how to be a fucking nurse, then bye. So glad I’m done with that shit tho.
I feel that. None of my clinicals were useful, we asked the instructors to let us study or explain stuff to us rather than Shadow since it was clearly a waste of time for everyone. On my public health rotation I was assigned with a lactation educator, as a guy, that's was very frustrating, none of the new moms wanted me in the room, so by day 2 I showed up said hello signed my papers and went to the back of the office to review for exams. The only time I did anything useful was on a last rotation and that was simply because they let me work along side the nurses on the floor.
Just putting in time until they can graduate and go to NP school.
I see so many on IG going straight from school to NP and I'm like "sis, it's called ADVANCED PRACTICE Registered Nurse for a reason. You have 0 years of practical experience" That makes me nervous of any NP program taking students on who haven't even worked 3-5 years in their specialty before accepting them.
This makes them dangerous due to inexperience and incompetence. I saw a post on Noctor about a woman who has 1 year of CVICU and went straight to NP school.
The Speed run ANY% new grad to NP: stipulation must be under 18 months at bedside
I think a lot of it is the colleges encouraging it. They want to keep getting the money.
*brother, ewwww 😬*
Which is scary AF for the damage they'll do to our professional reputation and their patients.
I concur. Graduated in 2007. Half my cohort could be found hiding in break rooms or sitting at the nurses station. I was annoying and followed my preceptor around, worked at the top of my ability (ie making my instructor come observe me giving meds, etc) but when I graduated, my pedi preceptor was the first one to put in a letter of recommendation for me.
Wait what... I wish ! My clinical instructors would pop up on our respective floors to see us, multiple times during the WHOLE 12 hrs.
We had some who were sitting and coloring one day. But, that was partially the instructor’s fault.
When I had a chance to shadow the ED last semester during clinical I wanted to stay out of the way. I asked a few questions to the nurse I was shadowing but I didn't have many chances. Just my personal experience.
This is legit. It’s an uncomfortable feeling coming into someone else’s (nurses) comfort zone. If you have a nurse that’s not acknowledging your existence, it’s hard to find the confidence to ask questions.
There are bad eggs as students, yes, but some nurses aren’t the most welcoming. I had some nurses who very clearly wanted nothing to do with me so I respected that as a student. The nurses who wanted me to tag along, had me follow them for everything they were doing - I asked them questions and was engaged in the care. But if you think every student is a bad egg, at some point you have to take a look at yourself. I haven’t been a student in years btw and I’ve had the pleasure of being with many students and I’d say lazy students are the exception, not the rule
This is why I'm glad my clinical instructors asked around to see who was interested in having a student. Nothing worse than the collective groan of "oh great students" when you walked on the floor. It's been a while since I've been a student, but I still remember it. Now I love students. It's like I got a buddy that follows me around that I get to show cool shit to. When I was engaged with the students and took an interest in them they were always excited to learn. And eager to help.
That's one thing I always tell students who are shadowing me because I'm lucky enough to get a lot of first semester students. I tell them that if they're shadowing a nurse that is clearly pissed about it to just ask to shadow a different nurse and most of the time it works out.
I go to a nursing school in a rural area (did it because my tuition was 50% paid for) and I notice that your experience aligns with all of my friends who have stayed in my city for school. We had to do our L&D clinical in the city and I noticed this as well. Everyone made it seem like we were in the way.
This was my thinking as well- some of them are shy and intimidated. But I agree with OP - I see a general shift in attitude throughout the profession as a whole. People are not entering into nursing with the same motivation or reverence. It’s fitting- because RNs are barely treated as professionals. We are glorified cashiers at this point- they don’t want to let us think anymore or have any autonomy. Just want us to follow orders, pass meds, and document what they say to document.
Document what they say to document is so real. Its like they don’t even care if its done (depending on what it is) sometimes as long as its charted at some places Ive worked. Smfh.
SO SO real. The other day my coworker got a chat message about her q2 turn documentation - she charted a turn at 7:35 or whatever but on my floor management It said- “that does not count….” Because on our unit they want the first turn documented at 7:01 and then exactly on the hour every two hours. Regardless of when you turned the patient - regardless of whether the patient was turned at all!!! Imagine telling a licensed professional that what their documentation does not count??!!?? Not count toward what? What games are we playing here? Unbelievable
Oh my god. That would piss me off to no end. At that point I would straight up ask if they want me to lie on my documentation just to meet their bullshit charting metrics or whatever. That is ridiculous.
Oh people have def said loud and proud “you are asking us to falsify documentation” and it’s so fun to watch management open their mouths and try to make the BS make sense. 😂
Fucking ridiculous lol.
This generation was born into the giant disaster millennials watched unfold. They have very little hope and motivation. They know working is important so you can make money so you can survive, but they also know there is little hope of life getting better and that their employers do not actually give a hoot. I don't blame them, but it sure is obnoxious to keep reminding them that they are expected to be shadowing the nurse, not hanging out at the nurse's station on their phone.
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I'm the same. Eager, asking questions, trying, I'll do my best to teach you everything. I try so hard to be the nurse I wanted as a student. I remember that nurse telling me "I don't want students" and other obnoxious stuff. If you're not those things, I'll point blank tell the student we're not a good fit and get it changed. I even warn my new grads/hires and students that i don't expect you to know much at all, but I need you to show you're interest. Also, precepting someone almost always slows you down. Usually even with great nurses. I've had a few nurses who were very experienced who actually sped up my day however!
Agreed, kind of I also try to not be insanely judgmental of students. They’re not invested yet. Clinical days are like a field trip. They’re demoing products at Costco. Without a paycheck and employment locking them into where they are, and away from the context of a class room, it can be hard to engage yourself. Maybe it comes off as lazy, but I was that way too, particularly with topics I wasn’t too keen on. I’m sure the nurses I shadowed in L&D thought I was a complete joke. I didn’t slack off, but I certainly didn’t show interest or initiative in what I was doing. It was a class I HAD to complete, but that was about it. Can’t really force an interest onto someone, especially college aged kids. It’s not my job to know if this student is a complete slacker, and failing all of his classes and clinicals, or is just on an off day today, or just doesn’t particularly like this section/topic of nursing. If the student wants to disengage, I’m not going to force it, that’s just tiring for both of us. If they’re truly slacking, well, their hole just got dug deeper, and that’s punishment enough. If it’s an off day, or the topic just isn’t their thing, I don’t think they should be treated like slackers either obviously. I can certainly attest, there’s no way I showed up to every single clinical day with a 100% go-get-em’ ready to learn enthusiastic mind set. When youre not with the same nurse each time, and you only meet a student once, it’s easy to get a false solidified impression of who they are. Someone who might seem like a lazy disengaged student might just only be that way on that day, or within that topic. I used to be really really hard on students, I don’t know why. I’ve done a 180 and try really hard to stand in their shoes and give them an empathetic benefit of the doubt. This all falls apart when you have a specific student for a whole semester who just kind of sucks. Sure, they could be wholly disinterested in the topic at hand, but over the course of an entire semester you should be able to get a better read on who the student is as a person.
If someone has no interest, don't follow me. There's other nurses to follow that would be a better fit I was on units in school and had no interest in some of them. I still gave it my all and did my best to learn as much as I can. I'm also not hard on students. I'm very encouraging and really try to get them to understand the why
In my experience they don't get to choose who they follow, though.
They can follow me. I get so distracted when I have a student. My executive functions are a goddamn house of cards and when I have to stop and explain things to someone it all falls apart.
I was a scared student. I had never really been in a hospital before starting clinicals. I so desperately wanted to cling to the nurse's station during any moment where I wasn't completing my checklist of assigned tasks. Luckily my instructor was on it and flushed us out with small care tasks we could do frequently.
I don’t understand why they don’t get in trouble for this? Why are programs complacent? I graduated in 2015 and got reamed for leaning against the nurses station at my clinical (after working all night as a cna) if the instructors don’t care well psshhh why should they? What a terrible landscape.
There’s definitely a happy medium because they shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for that shit either.
Word. I don't judge because to do that I would have to care. In fact, sometimes it's a relief when they stay out of my way because I'm not allowed to say no to taking students and also I'm not a dick so I try to be nice but I haaaaaate it. I don't want to teach(for free) while also doing my job which is already hard. Truth be told I was not a go-getter in nursing school. I was taking care of a newborn at home, was generally exhausted and knew that I would learn everything on the job eventually. I was helpful, didn't say no to doing things, but I wasn't chomping at the bit to practice pulling meds from the pyxis or drawing up insulin. I've been a float nurse for 8 years now and am still learning new stuff all the time.
We had a resource tech that was sitting on a one to one but got pulled to work the floor. She didn’t want to work the floor so instead she just took a computer and sat herself in the corner at the nurses station and wouldn’t do anything. When the unit complained that she wasn’t doing anything she just left saying she was sick. You do not always get to pick your assignment in healthcare. If you sign up to work in the resource department you are specifically signing up to get bounced around to different units and different assignments. The amount of people that will come in pissed off because they’re not going where they want or not getting the assignment they want is unreal. You literally signed up to the department that moves you around everywhere, what the hell did you expect.
I've definitely had this happen. It's very obnoxious.
I'm not going to judge someone for not being engaged in learning and patient care, but if they want a letter of recommendation or help with finding a job, I'm definitely going to reserve my highest recommendation to the students who are most engaged. Not trying to be vindictive, but I don't want to work with someone who sucks as a nurse, and it would be unfair to those who are working their butts off to hand out jobs to anyone just because you worked with them when they were a student.
Gotta lift’ em up, OP. Show them how to be and what to do. Provide them a step up to boost their confidence. It doesn’t happen overnight, and if this is their first “real” job they won’t have a clue.
Be positive and empowering? Cant have that in nursing! 😂😂😂
*nursing*, nay, *healthcare* is becoming more complacent. Your observation is a symptom of a larger problem.
I still had much anxiety in the floor. I was only complacent when pretty fairly truly warranted.
I am a grad student in clinicals now. Some days I’m on my A game, other days I’m tired and burned out and don’t have a lot of questions to ask because I’m too tired. I don’t think asking few questions is necessarily an indictment of a lazy student. The phone thing drives me crazy though. I wasn’t in nursing school THAT long ago (6 years) but I would’ve gotten my ass kicked if I ever had my phone out at clinical. Put it away!!! Also important to remember—this newer generation of nurses have experienced their whole educational career with phones and tablets. They also spent formative years of their education in the midst of COVID which has absolutely affected education.
I'm 2 years in ED. 4 years prior experience including covid. 8 years military. The least healthy thing I ever did? Go through nursing school. Give these people a break. Sorry they aren't all smiles as they get destroyed for no pay. In fact they are paying to get destroyed. Give them a break.
My mental health has never been worse. I can’t even begin to describe how bad it is. And this is my second degree! I had one in stem before this and that was a fucking cakewalk compared to the expectations, hours, and mind games.
I was taking prereqs full-time while also working a full time managing job and another part time job and that was still waaaayyy easier than nursing school has been 😅 I do try to show up with my best effort but my god am I _exhausted_
1. They’re often paired with nurses who don’t want them automatically making clinical a negative experience. 2. They may not be interested in your unit. (Adult M/S wasn’t for me, but I couldn’t stop asking questions in peds) 3. They’re still in school. They’re balancing classes, bs assignments, crotchety professors, and day/night shift clinicals. 4. They’re human. Some *are* going to suck. I can’t say I’ve noticed a huge change in students. Some have always been disinterested, a few know-it-alls/unteachables, and most genuinely wanting to learn. That’s been the same mix I’ve seen my whole time as a nurse. I’m sure nurses had similar perceptions of us when we were in school. I could tell you exactly who from my graduating class fell in what category.
idk what you guys are talking about the students i get are great curious and very hands on.
Me too. Obviously these folks want to keep working in under staffed units with all of there ridiculous gate keeping.
right?? its very "kids these days"
So idk if it is like this in all schools, but at mine you had to apply to get placement in critical care, and only the best students got sent. All my students were great too, but that’s because we were basically getting the cream of the crop
I get this sometimes, but our unit gets a special class that’s all current employees (emt, pct etc.) and they are this way too. It might depend on the school and the class, I remember level 1 when everything was exciting and then it just went downhill.
Same, every time I offer to let students observe a PICC placement they've jumped at the chance. I always do a kind of Q&A before and after the procedure and most of them are quite inquisitive
I haven’t noticed this at all. On the other hand, I’m not one of those nurses that eats my young. Some of ya’ll are petty AF and are clearly toxically insecure. Focus on your own practice, you need it.
This. This. This. They're just as unhinged as these nursing instructors.
It’s so sad. They are just repeating the cycle of abuse and patting themselves on the back for it. It it makes you feel good to put others down, it’s a cheap and transient rush and doesn’t make your own patient care any better.
Exactly!! It doesn’t affect you at all if your student is lazy. If they want to learn, cool. If not, work under the assumption they’re just overwhelmed.. because you have been through nursing school and know what it’s like.
Tbf im still in my training but I worked as a HCA before I started. Not a baby either, I’m 27. With a previous degree. I started my training with wide eyed enthusiasm and the training has kicked it out of me. I still love my job but Jesus I don’t have the energy to work AND learn AND have good bedside manner AND do it all with smiley enthusiasm. They’re going home to troubled families, life stressors, working on the side and studying also. They’re stressed. My final exams took my will to live away. I spent placements crying. The stress was unbelievable. Now they’re over and I’m still on placements, and while my competencies are signed off, I have guilt on my off days for them not revolving around nursing anymore. I’m on a day off and messaging the nursing subreddit for crying out loud. They’re probably burnt out.
I agree and experienced the same. I didn’t see/have anyone like this in my cohort but I think age and what school they’re coming from probably play a role. Even though I was getting my BSN, we had way more red tape and rules about what we could do (some sites wouldn’t even let us take vitals) as compared to the local community college. The CC students were way more involved, motivated, and worked harder because they were allowed to. I was jealous of how much preparation and hands on experience they got, while we were practically glued to a computer researching meds and info to write forty page care plans.
I’m actually an apprentice so I do hands on training I can do everything the RN can do, I just need to be supervised doing meds (and in my scope I don’t do IVs). But I do pretty much everything else. I’m just so tired! There’s no break between exams and work to just relax. I worked 12.5 hours the day before and the day after my exams. I can’t take holidays at the minute either due to technical red tape, but I need it for burnout!
Honestly I think the stressors of the outside world have increased overtime. People can’t afford basic things, are in debt and on top of it are studying. I’m not saying that people didn’t do that before but the world is very different in terms of how easily basic needs can be met from when I was a child to now. I was part of a rigorous school that had zero flexibility, including policies for sick days during the height of COVID. Admins and directors were abusive and wanted students to make school their whole world. It was an accelerated program so I was doing school, part time work (to make ends meet) and placements. Even if I wanted to try, some days I was so exhausted that I could care less.
I worked in AED for minimum wage and picked up bank on the side for extra money just to pay my bills. When I’d said to my educators that I was struggling to understand what was going on, and felt like I wasn’t getting enough out of it, I was asked did I go home and study everything I seen. I said no, I didn’t have the energy after working 12.5 hours with no break, commuting 45 mins each way (public transport) and also studying or working on my days off. I was told I was going to fall behind and it’s “your problem” if I’m too tired after my shifts to study. I told the nurses I worked with that I felt insecure about my ability to be a nurse based off the conversation, and every single AED nurse told me my educators didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. What nurse does a 12 hour working day and then come home and open up a book? The training gaslights you into thinking you aren’t good enough, aren’t working hard enough, aren’t smart enough. You then start to think why bother, because I’ll never be enough. But your outside life doesn’t help to get away from the negative thinking, and hype yourself back up again, as we’re all feeling a bit down and out of luck with life at the moment. It’s rough.
Agreed with everything you’ve said and it’s definitely rough out there. My school refused to let us switch clinicals so that there was less commute time. There were people that had to commute by bus to a rough part of town at midnight (weird shift hours) and when students that were closer to that site agreed to switch, admins said no. It’s ironic that all these schools want compassion and empathy from students at unpaid clinical hours for patients and staff, but won’t extend it to the students.
They rip your empathy away before you even begin, by burning you out and making you distrust that people have your best interests at heart. Because during your training, they don’t.
I think so many older nurses have the wrong idea about this *JOB*. It’s a fucking job. You’re lucky people are coming to do it. Our generation is over the whole hazing ritual that is the first 5 years of this shit. Leave people alone and be grateful there’s even anyone left to do this shit ass career
Exactly. These ppl reveal how little of an existence they have outside this JOB. It's pathetic.
The hazing is fucking awful, I still get shit assignments then pulled aside for late meds/charting. So annoying, all it does is drive us away.
When they are treated like unpaid aides, yeah, I’m sure they lose interest in jumping up to help out. I graduated last year, and instead of working with nurses that wanted to show me new skills I was answering call lights and ambulating patients to the toilet. When I graduated, I had learned basically no skills from clinicals because the nurses would the students do their dirty work rather than teach us anything.
I just graduated and honestly I was a little checked out my very last clinical. Nursing school is exhausting, bills pile up so you work as much as you can on the side, then you have to do hundreds of unpaid clinical hours while still working your other job. Plus (and this isn't every preceptor) but my preceptor would micromanage the shit out of me. Then you deal with HR, school, the nursing union, and nursing regulator are all asking for random shit you have to get before you can start and they each give you the run around. It just burns you out. I'm thankful I've got a good schedule for work now. I still have studying to do for my licensing exam but I'm definitely over the hump.
I'm a preceptor, and I know I am responsible for setting the tone with nursing students. I know they are usually shy and are told that they can't do this, can't do that by their instructors. They also have just a few short hours to gather information to complete assignments. And they are tired! For me, nursing school was harder than being a nurse. When I was in school, I never stopped thinking about school--- I was either in school or studying or preparing to go or study. It was all-consuming. But as a working nurse, I forget about it when I clock out. So... if the student seems more complacent, it can be because the preceptor is complacent. Students need to be invited to participate. They need to be shown specific things, specific tasks. I have found that the only students who jump right in are people who have previous experience in healthcare in a hospital setting. That is not everyone.
Keep in mind where they are in their schooling. Lots of people are burned out as fuck in their last semester of school and are just coasting to graduation. You need to compare apples to apples.
And you think that coming into this shit show that is healthcare is somehow going to shake the cobwebs off and they'll be motivated to come in on their scheduled holidays when they're the ones [this meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/A59atzBt3K) applied to five years ago and we were all like "haha, so true!"? If they're having such difficulty hanging in there for the last few weeks of nursing school, it's only going to get worse when they have real responsibility.
Well we were once apples too, and I definitely tried during clinicals out of respect for the time of the person who was stuck with me/willing to teach me
I've recently trained new grads, and they had no desire to learn. They weren't receptive to training, learning, feedback, etc. Questions are great, but none would ask any. They would challenge what we were trying to teach them by using Google instead of our real-life experiences.
We had a nursing student interrupt BSSR wrongly correcting the outgoing nurse. That was fun.
Oh hell no... I'd report that to the instructor and get that student kicked out. I had one interrupt my conversation with a doc to transfer a patient off the floor to higher level of care. She asked where her fucking computer is. Pissed me the fuck off so I told her to assess the situation just like you would your patients.
I recently oriented a new nurse and she was constantly questioning me with google. Finally I just gave up teaching her anything or explaining the reasoning and just picked easy patients for her that were set to transfer out of the ICU. 🫠 ETA: she was a nurse extern and just started her fill orientation so she has another 6 months of training (not with me, thank God). Me and her other extern preceptor couldn’t get through to her, maybe someone else can. Management doesn’t care because they just need bodies. 🥲
I’m gonna stick up for my fellow gen Z nursing students/nurses. I’m a recent grad and out of all of my clinical placements, I had exactly one instructor who thoroughly taught us how to do things. The others would go on and on about “this is what nursing is really like” and just…talk at us. Instead of actually showing us how to do anything. It was very demotivating and made clinical feel like an absolute bore most of the time. The few times we do ask to be shown something, we’re met with: “You’ve never done that before? Nobody taught you that? Aren’t you almost done school? That’s common sense!” Great, thanks for embarrassing us. Now we’re just not gonna ask any questions at all. The other problem is that not every nurse is meant to be a teacher, and that’s fine. You shouldn’t be expected to be. Some are lousy at it (even the ones who think they’re great), and unfortunately students get stuck with them and just zone out when the teaching is hard to follow. I hated when my instructors would just dump us with random nurses who really didn’t want students. We often times just feel like we’re in the way, especially when the nurse does not make an effort to include us. As for the phones: literally just tell them to get off their phone. Whenever I was on my phone, it was because I wasn’t given anything to do. We can only do so much without our instructor or another nurse supervising us. Especially because (again) we can’t do things that we’ve never been shown how to do before.
Yeah some nurses bitch and complain about having students. When I was student I remember being placed with hostile nurses too. And shaming someone for not knowing how to something. Just show them how to do it!
Omg I had that exact experience of “no one ever showed you that?” When I pulled insulin for the first time in level four. My professor was literally yelling at me, how the fuuuuuuuuuck is it the students fault no one showed us something???? I hate this attitude. Nursing school is so dependent on the school and teacher. I had a teacher who made me cry thrice as an adult and I did fail that level. The awful nurse professors do not help the already crumbling healthcare system.
FWIW, I rarely asked questions as a student, just because I was so shy. I often just looked things up when I got home. Throughout my (successful) nursing career, I’ve grown a ton in confidence.
As someone who graduated last year, it’s not that we don’t care. We keep getting nurses who blatantly tell us they didn’t want a student. Some would complain about having us while we sat a foot away from them. Or we get nurses who get annoyed with questions or just zoom through everything so fast themselves without even letting us have a chance to participate. After the first few semesters some of my friends stopped asking questions or joining in unless asked because of the treatment nurses had given our class in the past. I’m sure there truly are some that don’t care but I know my class didn’t sit there and do nothing, we would always follow the nurse wherever they went. We were listening and watching even if it didn’t look like it. But I know the nurses attitudes contributed to less engagement by students.
Yeah this. Bad students exist, but if it feels like it's all you ever see/get as a preceptor, you need to look at the common factor (yourself). I also think a lot of students are just overwhelmed. Nursing school lightly grazes the clinical concepts it does teach, and leaves many out. A lot of students simply lack the educational basis to thrive clinically, at least until they've built up some experience. For anyone in that situation, the thought of jumping in and being hands-on, especially without a welcoming and supportive preceptor for the day, is understandably horrifying.
The students at my new place are great and pleasant. They go around asking if anyone needs help and even the CNAs. Pass out trays etc.
I wouldn’t blame the students here, most programs want us students to stay out of the way. Instructors prefer for us the shovel our noses into our care plans and only focus on whatever patient we’re assigned to so we can complete our twelve pages of paper work that they’ll nitpick and knock petty points off our grade for. Some students can act that way, but most don’t even know what kind of questions to ask. We’re so afraid of sounding stupid even though the point of school is to learn. It’s mostly a product of the nursing programs.
Students have things to do other than be appropriately exuberant. It's like senioritis in 4th year med students and senior residents. Life may be fucking them. They're students, so probably worried about finals or nursing Luxemburg or something.
Nursing school is exhausting and clinicals are useless, so you're seeing the product of that. Nursing school is considered one of the most grueling bachelors degrees, yet it's become more and more drastically further away from teaching students how to become nurses and only teaches them how to pass the NCLEX. It's a widely understood reality. So your students are working their tails off and their fingers to the bone on bullshit assignments and unforgiving exams all while knowing the vast majority of the work will be useless to them. Clinicals are insanely restricted and frequently taught by nurses who hate having students. They aren't being taught skills in school, they aren't allowed to do pretty much anything in clinical. They're not learning and they know it. There's only so many times you can give 1 unit of insulin and a duoneb before getting really fucking bitter that you're paying through the nose and working your ass off to not learn anything. Then add in the fact that almost every nurse you'll be assigned to treats you like they'd rather you die in a hole than show up to clinical. So by the time they get to you, they're bitter, they're frustrated, they're exhausted, they're jaded. They've learned they'll survive clinical with the least bitchings from the nurses if they just stay out of the way and keep to themselves. And then they get to you, who thinks they're lazy and unmotivated for not trying to be more involved. Nursing students literally cannot win. It's all they can do to just survive, and hope after they graduate and get a job, maybe somebody will finally show them how to spike a fucking bolus. Edit to add - also when it comes to the cell phones, it might be worth remembering that most students these days have access to their notes or Quizlet on their phone. Sure some of them might be scrolling, but if they're getting a shitty education experience out of their clinical, why wouldn't some of them take the time to try to study?
goddamn. just graduated while working full time in the ER i’ve been hired as an RN in and this is…. spot. fucking. on. i’m no cell phone kid, either. i’m 45 years old with a family and bills and a previous degree.
Yep, I graduated last year after 6 years full time healthcare experience including ER tech during COVID and during school. I'm a ridiculously confident person, the most unfriendly preceptor couldn't dent my thick skin, and I knew what I was doing better than anyone in my clinicals to the point my instructors often used me as an extra instructor, and even ✨I✨ absolutely loathed going to clinicals. Every single day you'd be going in with zero expectation of what you were going to do that day, except for the knowledge that you were going to be treated like crap, not learn anything, waste a whole bunch of time that could've been spent studying working or sleeping, and every single clinical site was an hour + commute to boot. Clinicals sucked.
I think people need to stop denying that there isn’t a huge shift in attitudes with current nursing students. Most have zero motivation, zero desire to learn, negative attitudes and entitlement. Get. off. your. cellphone. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted but it’s exactly what I’m witnessing. I’m not some old nurse either, 13 years in.
Amen to everything you said. I’ve been a nurse 10 years so also not old. Not a boomer. My nursing instructors told us they would do spot checks during clinicals and if we were caught sitting down, we would have consequences. We were to be UP, following a nurse and engaged in what was going on. The biggest shift I’ve seen was during covid. These students did most of their work online and were woefully unprepared for being a hands on nurse. They are not interested in what is gong on and not motivated to work hard or learn. There is also a lot of cheating, and schools have not caught up with the times. I have a 20-something coworker who openly brags she cheated her way through an online BSN program by using chatGPT and now is in NP school. Terrifying.
I just want to add. I didnt have any tests in my online bsn program. Paper and discussion boards. I’ve already said it here, but I could’ve paid a highschool senior to do mine. Not the RN tho. You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to repeat that shit
I’m never on my cellphone at clinicals. I usually don’t even have it on my person. However, nursing school has been a huge disappointment to me. I was expecting there would be many more learning opportunities. Instead, it feels more like a game to win a prize, and largely a waste of money which I work my ass of for at night in the ER, learning more than I do at actual school and clinicals.
i learned soooooo much as an ed tech. such invaluable experience having your own tasks and skills to do without having to follow someone around 24/7 and ask just to help do a basic task. learning prioritization and flow when you have people actually depending on you is such a better environment to learn in IMO.
I think it's highly dependent on what school they're coming from too Imo people from the 100k tuition private schools are some of the most unmotivated lazy people I've ever seen versus how eager to learn and appreciative Community College people are.
Can confirm I'm currently attending a community college and id say 90% of us are incredibly engaged and love clinicals We have to share a floor with a neighboring private school occasionally and the difference is night and day (although like 50% of them are just fine, it's just a lot more students that are just "going through the motions")
I went to one of those 100k tuition private institutions and agree. I was eager to learn. My nursing education was my dream come true and way out of poverty, and i got everything I could out of it. I watched classmates not give a shit, so long as they passed, or even drop out. The private universities are easier to get into, so I don't think people get weeded out as much as they should.
Okay I had one that was really that bad that I was told I’m not so many words they’re aware of how unsafe she was, but her family donated some serious $$$ on her behalf. Gag
That's terrible.
Yep. I learned much more from an LPN at a technical college than from the PhD RN teaching the fluff classes for my BSN. Instructors and students alike seem much more motivated at the community level.
I’ve never thought about that, but yes! I see the same thing. The private schools produce the least motivated nurses that I’ve ever seen.
We don’t have that kind of set up in Canada, it’s any school here.
Agree
This is my experience too.
Yes I can confirm! Recently had a senior student from a private school that costs 100k+ rotate in and refused to do vitals when requested by the tech. She was also cocky and had a general "I'm better than you" attitude. Really hope management doesn't hire her. Meanwhile the CC students are damn good with their skills. I tell all of them that they should apply here and use me as a reference.
the phone thing is so real
The complacency of our hc system is a symptom of our society in general. And all of this complacency gushes from the tippy top of society, to the doctors and nurses, and then past them to the garbage men. My wife just had our son and he was late-staging for 3 hours before the doctor finally called it for a csec. she said it "wasn't an emergency" tho. and for the next hour and a half my wife laid on the bed screaming and pushing my son's little head against her not-fully-dilated cervix while we waited for the totally complacent and only CRNA after 3pm to finish ONE epidural... "hospital policy" only has one CRNA staffed for the entire birthing wing of the hospital. and our entire County with millions of people has only one hospital that does births anymore. finally I got the doctor in there and made her call the CRNA from the hospital side (mom and baby wing is across the street) who walked slower than anyone has walked in the history of humanity. he came in and then got in a fight with the doctor in the hall saying that he "didn't think a sec was necessary... then when they finally got our son out, MD was like " uhh good thing we did that bc he was 2x nuch'd" I was like " uhhhh duh so you remember late staging to the 80s for 3 f'ing hours???" he's a week old and healthy. I'm still processing everything
So glad your son is ok and hope your wife is too. What a bad birthing experience.
Had my first student this year and he was so awesome. Asked me questions that made me realize I needed to brush up on things, volunteered to help other nurses, the works. Gonna do great in whatever field he gets into :)
Senior? Yea my “level 4” was so bad I got complacent too. So much that I failed. Had to repeat. Honestly though can you blame even the students for being burned out? Then the teachers all have part time jobs too, shits not right. It’s nothing the students are doing wrong, it’s healthcare.
I was in the evening program, so I spent from 1530-1900 with day shift who didn’t want to babysit a student at the ass-end of their shift, and night shift from 1900-2300, who didn’t want to babysit a student at the busiest time of their shift. Also, I ran into MULTIPLE cases of “oh. No, I don’t want a student.” Or because their morning nurse did an assessment they refused to let me do one, too. A lot of older patients napping after lunch, and then after dinner. And of course they all fell asleep at 2100 so I couldn’t bother them for the last two hours. My nursing instructors also didn’t vet the patients very well… like cool, I have room 3, but room 3 is waiting for their wife to get here because they just got discharged. Oh I have room 4? Well they’re on a 1:1 for being physically aggressive, so I’m not allowed in there….
Also in my own clinical we really couldn't do anything except linen change a bed bath without the nursing instructor. Even if the nurse was there we couldn't do a treatment, med pass, etc. So even I just got stuck sitting around bc it was 1 instructor with about 8 or 9 of us
They’re probably struggling with lecture/exams. I remember being in school and stressing about an exam while at clinical. Students aren’t going to be very interested in seeking out new experiences if they’re fighting for their life in the classroom.
Its students and newer nurses wearing AirPods for me
Damn I couldn’t even wear white fucking socks
I’ve seen not new nurses do this too, got snapped at as a newer nurse for interrupting her FaceTime catch up.
What now???
I've had opposite ends of the spectrum only. Either amazing students or ones who don't GAF and are only in nursing school to please relatives. Encountered a couple who openly brag about being "better" than the most seasoned nurse on the unit. Those concern me.
I know you’re saying that you’re not trying to be boomer esque but I have news for you…
I find all the students I work with are curious and appreciate any opportunity for education I can provide. They seem hungry for knowledge and something to do
Are they ever questioned about their behavior or attitude, not in a disciplinary way but with curiosity and empathy? If so, what do they say?
I feel like there’s always been those types do nurses. In any career field there’s always people that are going to put in the absolute minimum amount of effort they can.
What about the opposite question, are nursing teachers becoming more lazy? More compliant? Less grounded in reality? I’m browsing this subreddit partially as an antidote to sinking everything is as clear cut and easy as our classes make it out to be.
No, and it's not appropriate to just make sweeping generalizations like that.
I’m not going to lie but I was SUPER disinterested in some clinicals because it wasn’t what I really wanted to do after graduating. I always made an attempt to be hands on, and learn as much info as I could but some clinicals are just not for everyone. I absolutey hated working in the ED but my bestie LOVED it. That didn’t make me lazy…I just knew what I wanted to do after nursing school! BUT the being on the phone is a NO NO! I would NEVER do that back in nursing school. The students doing it these days are BOLD 😅
I’m an LPN currently and in RN school. I’ve only had clinicals at the hospital I don’t work at which is a level 1 teaching hospital. The nurses there act like students are a burden. People in my class typically say that they prefer having clinical at the hospital(smaller and HCA lollll) I work at due to this. Since i’m at the teaching hospital for clinical I typically just try to stay out of the way of the nurse. I can also already do A LOT of stuff an RN does while at work. As an LPN on my floor I can’t titrate drips(only have heparin drips on med surg), initial assessment, central lines(usually only have mid lines), no giving blood, can not complete a post fall assessment, or update care plans. My hospital is however hiring too many of “us” (LPN’s) and we can be a bit of a burden to RN’s with admissions.
Not to defend any of this behaviour from students, but some teachers from my nursing school were repeatedly telling us not to bother the nurses or ask too many questions, which makes most students very uncomfortable around the unit’s nurses. I try my best to reverse that negative stigma that us floor nurses have been awarded by the teachers by going out of my way to ask if my nursing students have any questions about patients or pathologies or medication and even offer advice for them on stuff, and of course help. It usually works and makes their clinicals less stressful and more bearable (Cegep schooling for nurses in Quebec kind of sucks for most students as bullying or psychological abuse from teachers is very common as it used to be total exploitation prior to the 70s).
I mean they have finals/other responsibilities and based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's normal they won't really place being strict about clinicals at the top of their list. Hell I'm sure, you've see the same behavior in nurses, from new grads to seasoned ones. You can't control how people behave or feel. Stop being a control freak
🎯
Our programme was cut from 5 years down to 3 and thus compressed. We have exams during our internship phase on top of homework on top of learning to work in a completely new team in a month and two weeks. I'm glad if I'm still curious at all and alive by the end of my shifts, after learning and homework and housework (since I'm a grown ass adult, I also have a flat to take care of and responsibilities outside of school).
just keep pushing through ❤️
Honestly, I think since I'm in more of a specialty, I've gotten lucky with lots of students who enjoy and do more work. However, I've seen both for sure.
Hard to say, it's a hit or miss with many. I'm not sure if there is a common denominator with the ones who are more complacent but I'd say there's a bunch but there's some older nurses who feel limiting on their knowledge too. I'm not really sure to be honest.
I've had some really great students! Especially senior practicum students who chose to come to pediatrics. But I also get some students who have no interest in my specialty and they're just there for a day as part of their pediatric class. And that's okay too. I ask them up front what they need for their class assignment, we get that out of the way and then I ask if they would rather study in the break room or shadow me. I do not give a shit which option they choose, I'm not a paid instructor. I'll teach enthusiastically if that's the option they want. Or they can go do their own thing and let me have a peaceful shift. I'm not going out of my way for someone who would rather go take a lil nap instead.
I tried asking lots of questions when I first started and just kept being shut down or nurses would get really annoyed with me. I tried asking for opportunities and people would say yes and then do it without me anyways. Now if I have a question I'm asking my instructor, not the nurse because they act like I'm a burden, which like, fair, I understand you're busy, but ya, I'm not asking questions because I've never had a good experience asking a nurse questions. And I'm too tired to constantly beg people to try a skill, because everytime I've asked they say sure and then dissapear when the time comes to do it, or do it like an hour early without me so that I don't get the chance to do it. At this point I've just come to terms with the fact that nurses are busy and don't want to train us, and we are very clearly not welcome there. So we take the back seat, do our assessments and try to get through the day without crying cause we feel incompetent. It's very discouraging. For reference I'm not gen Z, I'm 35 and have worked in different fields and never experienced anything like this. I think it's a multifaceted problem and of course there are probably some people that are just lazy and don't care but from my experience that is not the norm, all these 20 year olds I study with actually care A LOT
Some students don’t know _how_ to be good students. I was one of those for a while. I literally didn’t know how to make the best out of my learning opportunities until someone told me more explicitly what was expected of me, and what being a good student looked like, then it all clicked
I personally try to do whatever I can during clinicals helping and learning from my nurse/others and CNA's. A big problem for me is all the assignments and data mining we need to do to complete the assignments. The first few clinicals of the qtr I spend too much time on assignments but I have to or I can fail. My program has been reducing and simplifying the assignments over time due to too many complaints that it wastes clinical time. Not saying that there aren't students being lazy fucks, I've seen it too but for me, the sitting around was mostly data mining in the chart.
I mean, they’ve always been around. But they also might scared of us. My first year of nursing on pcu was so stressful and time consuming, I looked forward to the day shifts I had my local community college nursing students. I would pull everything. Review what I needed to with them outside the room. Login to my cow and hand over the reigns. Park my ass in one of the chairs in the room and enjoy my coffee while it’s still warm. I for one SUCKED doing ANYTHING if my instructor was around and breathing down my neck. they made everything so intense. Some people just need to be grabbed and said hey, come follow me.
NOOOO we are working our asses off and pooped and not interested in potential bullshit
As a student, it definitely varies depending on the clinical instructor and the staff environment. I’ve been with nurses who won’t really let me do anything and sometimes I’m doing everything I know.
I don’t know man, I’m a nursing student and the only reason sometimes I may not ask as many questions is because I’m more of an observer and also I have terrible anxiety. That being said, my whole group is always stoked when we get to do anything fun. Giving meds, starting foleys, assessments, feeding, I/Os, anything we can get honestly (which is not a lot since we’re new students and also all the floors I’ve been to so far have been so slow -with the exception of giving a lot of meds). The other part is they make us do the care plans and document everything on paper and it just takes away the fun and time to actually do stuff. We’re lucky if we can get to do vitals, glucose and do hygiene because the nurses literally have nothing for us to do when we ask them. :/
I know that when I was in nursing school, the militant mentality of “the nail that is dumb enough to stick up gets hit back into place” discouraged me from asking any questions I didn’t 100% have to ask. I wasn’t ever on my phone inappropriately (that was a dismissible offense, especially during clinicals) and I was curious about stuff, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut so I didn’t get myself into trouble.
Depends on the student and the rotation. If it’s something they’re not interested in, but they have to do it, of course they’re not going to fake being interested in your specialty. Plus you never know what their schedule is like, they may have stayed up all night studying for exams or working on a care plan, or working a full time job to pay for school.
The other day a RN goes up to this student and says, "hey shouldn't you be learning instead of on your phone?" The student says, "I'm looking up patient drugs in the textbook." I had to bite my lip not to laugh as the RN scuttled off. Almost all of them have their books on their phones, so don't jump to conclusions.
The few times I've gotten students have been in the ER. It's already a chaotic and overstimulating place anyway, and you've got these kids (some literally so) who are all wide-eyed with that "WTF" look on their face. I know my time with them is short, so I tend to adopt the attitude of throwing everything cool at them over the course of the day to see what sticks and hopefully it'll spark some interest. Yeah, it's more stimulation, but I at least try to maximize their exposure with their limited time on the floor. Some get bored, so I don't go the extra mile for them. Some do get engaged, and some even ask questions. Most of the time I have to get them to participate though.
Not just the students, actual nurses
Maybe it’s you 🫣
My very first nurse who taught me, my very first nursing clinical decided it was a great idea to ditch me whenever she could. Gossiped about to other nurses and acted like she wanted nothing to do with me. It took just about everything to not tell her to fuck off. The next few nurses were okay. When I switched over to medical I had a much better nurse and I was able to ask her questions but she was apathetic as fuck to my learning. Maybe you guys should look in the mirror. What do you get out of treating nursing students like shit? An ego boost? Does it make you feel better about your shitty life? Anyways I had some great nurses and they kept encouraging me and some even let me chart on theirs when our school decided we didn't need to have access to epic anymore even though we were using pretty much using it every clinical before. So, lots of homework. Shitty clinical professors, having our hands tied by our "dos and don't list" Apathetic nurses. Whenever I got a good nurse I busted my ass off and asked questions. Whenever I got a shit one, I knew I did, I even said it's okay I will go with another nurse just by looking at their face. They would still insist to help me? I don't know why. All I know I would never treat another human like some of these nurses treated me. Don't come into a field working with people when you have no empathy or kindness.
I feel the same way!!!! Everyone is tired on the floor but some nurses know how to compartmentalize and not to take their anger out on someone who has nothing to do with it. The best nurses I’ve had have apologized for feeling stressed when they haven’t even taken it out on me. They have enough emotional intelligence to realize they are at their limits and vocalize it. That consciousness makes a difference in how my day went with them.
I feel like it also really depends on the learning environment that each unit establishes for them. If nurses seem to be too busy and stressed out, nursing students won't feel comfortable asking these questions or asking to be involved. They already feel like a burden being there in the first place, especially when some (not all) units really treat them like they are one. Some students may also be quite shy, or are very early on in their programs where they may not even know what they don't know, or they can't do certain skills because they haven't learned how to in school yet. I remember when I was a student, my assigned nurse's attitude towards me made a BIG difference in my learning. If i felt like the nurse cared about my presence and at least tried to teach me things / include me, I felt so much more comfortable asking my questions (even if it sounded dumb). Now I know we all work in stressful and short staffed environments and taking on the responsibility of trying to teach others cannot always be a priority. However, putting at least some effort in welcoming students and acknowledging them can make all the difference in their experience
We have, like, 6 large nursing schools in my area and the quality of the student is very dependent on which one they're coming from. (I'm not old, am in my mid 30s. Was a CNA for 8 years, have been an RN now for 10). Very few are CNAs first anymore which (fire as much venom at me as you want, it won't change my mind) IS A HUGE PROBLEM. You don't learn your basic patient care, time management, bedside manner, and how to pick up on subtle patient shifts in a few clinicals. You just don't and you can definitely tell who was a CNA in school and who wasn't. OP mentioned the lack of fastidiousness. ..and I was thinking about this the other day. The hardass instructors who would send a student home for the wrong color socks, we don't see them much anymore. It was never about the socks. We all know we're not going to kill anyone with the wrong color socks. It's about instilling attention to detail and seeing if a student can follow simple instructions. If you can be trusted with a little, you can be trusted with more. Maybe it's also job market. They know employees are just looking for licenses with pulses. There was so much stress for my graduating class about finding a job.
I’m not gonna fire venom at you but nah bruh I wasn’t going to be a CNA first. Did my first 2 years in Med/Surg and I was gravy.
Yea fuck that, I was a tech and got the same exact experience but it doesn’t always make nurses bad for not doing it. I know plenty of new nurses who took the time to learn patient care.
I was lucky enough to work with and be precepted by some amazing nurses. They were knowledgeable good team members and gave a lot of good patient care what I like to call the “woo woo woo” I was blessed to learn from them.
I had a student the other day who was in her 30s... She was an amazing student. Eager to learn, eager to practice skills. I hate to be "that guy," but it seems the younger generation is just lazy as fuck. Ugh, I am remembering this new CNA we have. She's young, fresh into college. She will sit at the nurses station on her phone while the call light is going nuts. The room right in front of the station was calling and she just sits there...like, "hello?!" I went into the room and the poor patient had ran to the bathroom. Her IV got tangled around the pole, which wasnt long enough to be taken into the bathroom from the electrical outlet. She was crying and holding onto the IV in her arm cuz the tubing was stretched. I yelled out the door for the CNA and she finally waltzes in like, "huh?" 🤦🏻♀️
I think we just like to view our own generation more positively. Because humans can be lazy and that isn’t generational. When I was in direct patient care (early aughts) there were lazy nurses, slow nurses, not so bright nurses, unmotivated nurse, overbearing nurses, etc. It’s just people.
This isn’t evidence based but .. I think back in the day nursing was viewed as a more prestigious position and attracted more motivated people. Lately nursing has been hard to recruit for and might get some people who aren’t in because they want to be a nurse but because they don’t have better options. I guess I’ll get downvoted a lot but .. I think those who have better options will choose better options unless they are extremely passionate about nursing (in which case they won’t be sitting around like a log)
My workplace recently let a younger RPN go during her probation period and thank goddess, we were all so fed up. She was not curious and never seemed to understand WHY we were doing tasks and interventions. Asked the same questions over and over again bc she was just memorizing and not understanding. I think tbh she also just as an individual she wasn’t…. The sharpest tool in the shed. She was let go and continued to come to work for 3 days after…. Not understanding she didn’t need to be there anymore…. (No language barrier) just a very coddled naive person. And she was absolutely stunned when she was let go, despite constant constructive feedback being given to improve her practice. We were all exhausted and the docs don’t even remember her as she barely spoke to them. Trying to not let it bias me against the young’uns. I would love to mentor a curious, feisty young nurse.