Nurses play a pivotal role in shaping the learning experiences of nursing students, and there are several ways in which nurses can create positive learning environments for students while also avoiding exhaustion and burnout.
You arrive to work for your 12-hour nursing shift. Today should be an easy and predictable day, as you have previously had this set of patients you are assigned, and are familiar with their care, even though they are high acuity patients.
Then the nursing students arrive. Five of them, and the charge nurse has no choice but to assign one of them to you. There goes your “easy and predictable” day. Instead, you will have to stop and explain every single thing that you are doing, why you are doing it…all of the things that eager nursing students yearn to know.
Students are required to complete a certain number of clinical hours in a variety of clinical areas and are often working alongside a multitude of different nurses throughout their clinical experiences. While nursing students rely on these nurses to help teach and mentor them in their clinical placements, they often do not feel supported by the nurses they are assigned to. The learning environment in the clinical setting often involves potential risks that are not present in the classroom setting, as well as students having to navigate different interpersonal and interprofessional relationships.
Registered nurses play a key role in facilitating learning experiences for nursing students. Some nurses are just “made”, it seems, to take students under their wing in the clinical setting, effortlessly mentoring them and making them feel at ease. Others struggle with the idea of having someone follow them around all day, requiring them to take extra time to have to slow down and teach a student.
So, how can you make the best of the situation, ensuring that you can provide a positive learning experience and environment for your nursing student?
1. Recognize the role and learning objectives of the nursing student.
Nursing students have specific competencies and objectives that must be met while in the clinical setting. Some of these competencies and objectives are focused on basic patient care duties, such as bathing, grooming, and taking vital signs. However, many of the clinical objectives that must be met are focused more on performing certain procedures and skills, learning how to take care of the patient holistically, and seeing the bigger picture of what is going on with their patients, many who have multiple comorbidities. In addition, students may also be required to spend time with their clinical instructor during the day, reviewing the student’s patients and their plan of care.
It should be the responsibility of the student to communicate to the nurse they are assigned to their specific learning objectives or goals for the day. Many facilities have multiple levels and types of students coming to their units for clinical rotations, all with varying levels of experience and learning objectives. However, once a student nurse is assigned to you, help the student to meet these objectives as you are able to.
Often, the nurses and nurse aides view the students as “extra” nurse aides for the day. They are tasked with doing things such as taking all of the vital signs for the entire unit, answering call lights, and bathing patients. While all of these tasks are important, as the nurse, recognize that students are not at clinicals to be the “helper” on the unit. Help to facilitate learning experiences for the student. Even if it is a procedure or task that is not within their scope of practice, encourage the student to follow along and observe when there is the opportunity for a unique learning experience. These experiences can be invaluable for nursing students, as it allows them to see a situation in practice, ask questions, and learn from the experience.
2. Foster inclusivity and positivity.
Nursing students need to feel like they are welcome and included on the unit. In addition, they need to see that the healthcare work environment can be a positive space, despite the fact that there are going to be negative situations that are encountered during the nurse’s workday. Clinical experiences play a key role in the process of learning professionalism in nursing.
As a nurse who has a student assigned to you, try your best to model positive and inclusive behaviors, even when it may be challenging. Try to reflect back on your own clinical experiences from when you were a nursing student, and remember what would have made your experiences more positive and useful. Attempt to incorporate positive behaviors and actions that the student can truly learn from, so that one day he or she will be able to incorporate those behaviors into their own nursing practice.
3. Remember that sometimes students have school or hospital-specific rules to follow.
At times, students may not be allowed to perform certain skills or tasks in specific clinical settings, such as administering medications by certain routes, performing point-of-care testing such as blood glucose, or starting an IV. Sometimes this is a rule that is set by the school, and other times it may be the facility’s policy. Regardless of the reason, recognize that students may not be able to truly provide all of the patient care that is required for their patients they are assigned to. Try to not get frustrated with what a student is not able to do, but instead foster the learning experience for them by allowing them to observe the task or procedure, and provide a safe place to ask questions.
In addition, sometimes students are required to do “extra” things during their clinical day, such as written documentation (as opposed to charting in the patient’s actual medical record, for legal purposes), and spending time gathering data from the patient’s medical record. As the nurse, be cognizant that the student may be required to spend time throughout the day doing these tasks, and may be unavailable to follow them at all times.
4. Address nurse and healthcare worker burnout.
It is no secret that burnout among nurses and other healthcare workers is a real threat to healthcare systems in the United States. The workloads and demands placed on healthcare systems, including nurses, has continued to grow, having a negative impact on the nursing work environment.
While nurse burnout is real, nurses should strive to not allow this to negatively impact patient care, as well as how they interact with other co-workers, including students who may be on their unit. Emotional exhaustion is one of the main components of burnout, commonly compounded by nurses working excessive hours and not getting enough sleep. One factor that is within the nurse’s control is how much sleep they are getting each night, and taking self-care measures to ensure that they are better equipped to handle stressful and unanticipated situations at work. While getting adequate sleep and partaking in self-care may not magically make you want to have a nursing student assigned to you, this one simple measure may at minimum put you in a better headspace to be able to more effectively handle the added pressures of having a student follow you throughout your workday.
Clinical experiences should be a positive experience for nursing students, as they are the future of nursing. As nurses, we should strive to create and foster an effective learning environment, supporting professionalism in nursing.