#149 - burdens lifted

i am done with clinicals. we had ten days of clinicals at the hospital and it was such a great experience. well, i take that back, it sucked. i learned a ton from the nurses i worked with and towards the end actually believed i can do this. i got confidence and am excited to be almost there. i can't wait to get a job and start working, of course i don't know enough yet but it's exciting all the same. so the reasons it sucked are many but they all have to do with my instructor. i will not name her name of course but will call her U for useless. she is nice but pretty useless as a clinical instructor. in the past (this is my 4 1/2th term in clinicals) we have had one shadow day and then picked patients and learned a lot. our instructors were there to help us out, they sought out opportunities for learning and new skills and gave us direction. they made sure we knew what our expectations were and the lines of communication were wide open. so this is a new experience. i think it would be best to use bullet points to list things that didn't go well.

• our first day she says "this is my summer term but i have this huge credit card bill and that's the reason i'm doing this." thanks for letting us know how much you want to be here.
• she tells us we are going to have two shadow days. i ended up having three because she couldn't check me off on meds on the third day.
• we cannot give meds until she checks us off and then tells me she wasn't checking me till the 4th day! we had been getting checked off on the first day previously.
• we couldn't give IV medications until the second week, day 5/10. it wouldn't be a problem but EVERYONE in the hospital has an IV! so sometimes you feel useless and the patients are like, "why can't you do that" and basically the answer is because our teacher has no trust in the education we have received from her institution.
• when i asked her to clarify what we can do and that i was feeling like i was taking a step back she got really offended and started to lecture me. she informed me that she has all this experience doing clinicals and this is how it works best. i told her what i accomplished the previous term and that i wanted to move forward and she looked at me like i just said i was going to hold everyone in the hospital hostage with an AK-47.
• when she talks she goes off on tangents and her voice trails, you never really know what she means and she'll throw in a totally random comment.
• she disappears off the floor for hours at a time and when you need to find her she's not around. or she's on the phone or email. she's looking at pictures of cute puppies. aww...
• when she is there it happens to be when we sit down to look up things in the chart and she thinks we're not using our time wisely. but where was she the other 5 hours?
• one of my friends got kicked out of school because of her. she had it out for him. she specifically said to be there at 2:45 and then she said he was late when he showed at that time. some of his paperwork was incomplete and that to her was very important. but she didn't really stress that in our orientation. basically it was all these little things that got him kicked out, and nothing to do with his actual nursing skills or care with the patients. it wasn't even that his nurse preceptors didn't think he did a good job. it was nothing that warrants getting kicked out of the nursing program. i am upset over this, stewing actually.
• he will be the first one to say that he could have done some things right. he had the flu the previous weekend and was recovering from that. the problem is that she instantly focused in on him. other people had incomplete paperwork and she didn't give a crap. she treated him unfairly.
• she argues things. maybe it's fun for her but she really has to be right and doesn't allow differences of opinion.
• she's obsessed over diabetes.
• another gal cried because U said she couldn't communicate and all these other "non-issues" and said "if you want to leave you can".
• she lectured two gals on taking an hour lunch break when they took only 45 minutes, which was what she said to do. they were in there the whole time with their nurse and if she had asked him she would know. but NO, she had to be right. she said "i KNOW you were in there from 7-8" when in fact they were getting a new patient at 7:15 so that was impossible.
• there were other things but i'm tired of thinking about her.

so anyway, i am glad to be done. i did learn a lot and gain confidence, by my own doing and initiative, but mostly i learned that i have to just keep my nose down and fly under the radar. i don't want to be that person she focuses in on and treats unfairly. i hate authority and kissing ass, i will not do it. so i just need to stay out of the way, don't argue, and get what i can from my nurses. is that really the best learning experience for me? no, but it's what i have to do to get through school. i'll graduate, pass the NCLEX, get a job and then the real learning starts, or so i hear. it's just frustrating that they put up so many blocks to our learning and don't really foster it. in a better school or educational system i think they would try to accommodate different things like illness and be more flexible to individual learning needs. not everyone has the same learning styles.

another thing that i had to go through was a "simulation". basically there is this dummy that talks and breathes by teachers controlling it from this little room, think wizard of oz. you have a scenario and go in, with all your student peers watching on a live feed video. so you don't know what's going to happen and you have to react, with all these people watching, judging and probably commenting. it is way too much for me to handle and every time i just have so much anxiety. so this time i just freaked out a little and kind of bonked. when it came time for me to perform, i didn't. this is not a venue where i excel. i had to go in and watch my video to see how i did and it was not pretty. it's like i wasn't even there. psychologically/emotionally i don't think i was. so anyway, i am glad that is over for now. we have one more to do at the end of the term and hopefully i do better.