This semester is rapidly coming to an end. I have finished all of my hours for the teaching practicum, and now I can focus all of my attention on this course. I spent the other day with five students who needed to make up a clinical day. Two of those students missed a day due to illness, but the other three were repeating a day because they had been sent home previously with a clinical failure. It really boggles my mind that even with these students knowing that this was their final opportunity to redeem themselves, they still were not prepared. Is that insane or what? I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this type of behavior in the clinical setting with students. These students are consistently not coming prepared to take care of their patients. The pre-clinical paperwork is not being completed and they do not know enough about their patients to care for them in a safe, effective manner.
This concerns me a great deal, especially since these students will be graduating soon and entering into clinical settings. There needs to be a way to set higher standards and expectations. Hospital orientations are not meant to teach basic nursing skills that are expected to have been learned in school. Unfortunately, these are the nurses who are more susceptible to making errors that are potentially harmful or even fatal to patients.
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11 comments:
Those are some daring students. I would not have dared to do that during my clinicals because I was terrified of failure and looking stupid
I have had that experience before. I think it is the condition with which students are attending school now. They have spouses and children placing demands on their time. Then some are just not committed and just want to get by doing nothing, but how do you tell which ones they are. Grade as you see fit. Unfortunate some may not make it, but that is life. With all the struggles they still need to be prepared that is the nature of the beast.
Wow Kim, how unfortuate for those students. I have not had that experience in my Teaching Practicum but was talking with a colleague who is faculty at a university and each semester she is faced with at one as you described in her clinical group. What a process it is to fail a student in clinical.
Congratulations to you on completing your Practicum! I'm almost there as well. Doris
Is there a personal committment that is missing from the students?
Kim, Congrats on your completion.
I have not observe this behavior, however I have witness a trend where recent graduates, and now some students are avoiding patient care as part of their regular duties. Two students told the nurse techs that TWU students were not supposed to give baths...A colleague recently stated the need for BSN nurses to stay clear of patient care...what will the future hold?
Unfortunately some people don't get what they are doing wrong. Sometimes some people get what they are doing wrong and then come back and fix it. It's their personal journey. It's just difficult sometimes to see.
To allow such students to graduate is doing the program and the university a disfavor; their perfromance in the real world will reflect poorly on their educational institution. Furthermore by graduating these students, the public will be endangered, hospitals will have to deal with noncomplince issues and the team work on the unit will suffer when committment and professionalism is lacking in an individual nurse.
Sometimes these students will make into the real world, but are there not checks and balances for students doing poorly? It might be a difficult choice to fail a student, but it has to be done sometimes to have them realize that nursing is serious. Congratulations on practicum I. You guys writing about this class really gives us who are waiting to take the class some valuable insight.
Document Document Document! Then do us all a favor and say goodbye to these individuals.
This would be the exact worry that I am most worried about when I am teaching. There are some scary people out there and I get intimidated easily. I want to make sure that I have spent the amount of time expected to spend with them; and I guess document like crazy. Do you almost have to put on a hard attitude with these students? Thanks for your valued blogging. Oh, and congrats on Practicum 1!
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