I had a very similar experience also. Very unnerving isn't it? The nice thing was that she was yelling so load that my instructior with her masters could her her from accross the unit. The instuctor immeadiately told her off and anyalized her work giveing her serveral reasons as to why what she was saying was incorrect. It was truely a beautiful thing. I still can't come up with the words to thank her for doing this. I have figured out over the years, when nurses don't want to work with students or any one else there is a reason. "They don't want anyone examining their work habbits." "They don't want anyone seeing what they are doing." You will soon realize not all of your colleges are following the best work practices when you get your first job. Trust me this is why she doesn't want students around. She knows you will run to your instructor and ask them why is she doing ________! When we were taught never too do __________! (insert what you will ex IV push potasium.) Wait till you get to be in charge and the complaints start rolling in from the pts. Keep working you will get there.

co workers
May as well get used to it. You will run into a lot of nurses with problems. Some of them will even be your preceptors and in charge of orienting you. Just grit and bear it and get thru the day. If you are lucky they will ask you if you want to do the care and they just watch. I always say yes to that, then I am the one in control. More than anything I hate to follow around a disorganized nurse who is standing at the bedside in the middle of a procedure and says oh yes I forgot, could you go and get... Please, let me do the work and I know I wont forget, I will only have to walk to the supply room once. When you take control and just ask questions about their specific procedures, they will shorten your orientation or at least sit down and stop following you when they see you know what you are doing. I have been nursing 32 years and I still run into these situations.

When I was in nursing school, the university I went to was rated #1 and it was on the front page of the newspaper. At clinical that morning, the nurses were very rude to us and made us give up our chairs to them. One nurse was told to get DR. so and so a cup of coffee. Of course , we did these things because we were students in our first hospital clinical. Later that morning my patient's PCA was alarming. My wicked nurse preceptor would not help me. She kept asking in front of everyone "aren't you from the #1 nursing school?' Many of the other nurses were laughing and not helping. I had to go find my clinical instructor elsewhere in the hospital to get help.
Another cruel, but now funny, incident happened. I fed an old man lunch in his w/c, reported off to the RN and went to class. The next day, I went up to the nurses's station and asked where Mr. so and so was. The nurses looked at me with horror and told me I had killed him yesterday. They found him dead in his w/c and had aspirated. I turned so pale they all got up to see if I was okay. I wasn't, but I'll never forget it. The man had aspirated and died after lunch and they thought it would be funny to tell me.

I've been qualified a couple of years now, and I've dicovered that you never stop learning.

I was a 'lead mentor' for a nursing student from Jan, everyone said I did a great job with her... my reply to that is "she did a great job for me", helping me develop teaching strategies. Another student we've had recently had a background in community care and, as such, she had a huge knowledge of wound care. I can handle surgical wounds but then I'm lost.... she helped me out a lot!

Em

There is nothing more frustrating than an "immaculate conception" RN. Yes I will be the first to admit having nursing students with most of my patients can be frustrating and rather time consuming. We all have to remember at one point we were all nursing students. We have a choice to make here when dealing with nursing students. Do we treat them badly just because we were or do we treat them with compassion and understanding. I would like to believe I treat nursing students with compassion and understanding. If we can break the cycle of nursing student abuse maybe we will get to a point where belittling student nurses is a thing of the past