Yesterday an article popped up in my news feed on Facebook.
It was a good one on how an elementary school teacher struggles to understand
student’s lives and how best to support them. It sure did tug at my
heartstrings, I know there are kiddos out there that really don’t have support
at home or parents that are also struggling to survive and those kids in turn
struggle in school. Anyway, it got me thinking about how I can best support my
nursing students, and the bottom line is that it isn’t going to tug at your
heart strings.
It is true that on any given week we have students who are
struggling to keep their heads above water in the nursing program and their lives
are not easy. I learned very early in my career that a box of Kleenex is a
staple for a nursing instructor’s office. Those things get used, often. Every
semester I have students in my office confiding their life struggles to me and
using those struggles to make excuses for why they didn’t come to class, turn
in their work, or show up for clinical without following policies for notifying
the instructor. Some common ones are, “my grandma/grandpa died,” “my
Mom/Dad/sibling/spouse has an illness,” “I had to work,” “My husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend
are splitting.” And I am empathetic to their problems, I want to know what is going on with them. But
you know what, who reading this has not been through any or
all of these in their lives?
So here is the part where I “support” my students and it may
seem cold and heartless, but none of these are excuses for not showing up and
not doing the work, and not following policies and guidelines. I don’t cut them
any slack or let them get by with less than satisfactory work. I want future
nurses that are going show up and do the best they can. These excuses don’t fly
in the real world, if you don’t show up, you lose your job. If you don’t do your
charting, you see a lawyer. If you don’t follow policies and give good care,
patients die. Patients die!
All my nurse friends out there know these nurses and cringe
at the dread they feel when they have to work with them. Nurses, you know them,
come just on time, sleep at the desk, do minimal assessments, and dump on the
next shift. I have been in this profession long enough that I have friends and
former students (now colleagues) in almost every hospital and healthcare
facility in our surrounding communities. They call and ask the nursing
instructors about our students that apply for jobs and they want to know if the
student came to class, if they were professional, and if they were a team
player. They assume they have basic nursing skills, that is not what they are
concerned about. They want hard working professional nurses that are willing to
do more than the minimum. Sooner or later (and it has happened) one of those
students that made it through the program is going to walk into the hospital room
of mine or one of my loved ones, and I want to be one hundred percent positive
that they are competent nurses, not that they liked me, but that I trust that they
will give good care. Here is to hoping the next nurse you have is a great one.
H. Farley
