When your long anticipated wait for your Fall clinical schedule ends and you find out the ONLY student you never want to see again is assigned to the same group.
FUCK MY LIFE.
I can only hope she throws another one of her fits and demands to be moved. I will be my normal grateful and happy student self so the real jackwagon is obvious. She is never grateful or happy so if she plays it, the fake will be obvious.
The good news is I’m at a nice hospital, slightly closer to home, and have one of the toughest (read: GOOD) instructors in the program. I anticipate the herd will be thinned this term, I just hope I am not in that bunch! I will do all I can to help myself and my classmates. Teamwork is important, I just hope the rest of the group gets it.
You know, at least the miserable student lets me know where I stand by throwing a fit in front of everyone if we’re assigned the same group. Not so for fellow students. Yesterday they reacted in sympathy to the miserable student for having to spend all of an hour with me, yet today they are chatty and helpful as can be with me. On Facebook.
Seriously, if you can’t be cool to me in person in front of your miserable friend, don’t fake it with me in cyberspace. It’s lame and makes you look like assholes who can’t think for yourselves or that you like being led around by the nose by an insecure, miserable person.
This is school and we’re training to be PROFESSIONALS, not taking an advanced clique training camp. Get with the program, get mature, and think for yourself. Someday YOU will have a license to provide care that may save someone’s life. Guess what? I ALREADY HAVE ONE. Time to play catch up, not games.
Finally finding yourself in the program that will help get you to your final goal only to have to share the experience with a person so hateful it sucks any pleasure you might have in it.
I’ve dealt with abrasive people in my life, but who hasn’t? What I’ve never dealt with is a person who goes out of his or her way to be abrasive. As in every move is the result of masterful calculation of passive-aggression. Audible sighs. Eye rolls. Arm flapping. Stomping. All from a 40-something student who will be entrusted with the health care of your loved ones in just 1.5 short years.
I’m at a loss for why I’m the recipient of this person’s animosity. It doesn’t really matter though because I’m in this class and won’t be quitting no matter how much a dick this person chooses to be toward me. What I get is experience on how to deal with jerks, an extended lesson in diplomacy and how to set a good example of taking the high road to the younger students.
And that was Summer School Day 1. I think there was some skills practice in between all the shit slung my way.
Our first clinical assignment in nursing school was to spend a month in a long-term care facility (not a nursing home). I’m sure the ideas behind this were…
- Orient students to patient care
- Care for patients not acutely ill, therefore unlikely to accidentally kill
- Get used to touching people
- Learn what C. diff smells like right away
- Get used to waking up before the sun
- Weed out the weak of heart
- Practice the art of powergrabbing from the clutches of LVNs and CNAs
I had a clinical instructor who was straight out of a cartoon, worthy of her own theme song even. The funniest Latina woman I’ve ever met in my life who nicknamed me guera. She wasn’t much of a teacher because she didn’t care for long-term facilities much herself, but she managed to slog us through the tasks and give me a decent review. She teased me a lot and said I needed expand my Spanish skills beyond Speedy Gonzalez. As much as I enjoyed her, I am praying I don’t get her again in a future assignment. I need to learn something, not yuk it up all day long!
… I’ve been gone so long half my blogroll has packed up and moved on. At this point all I get hits for are the Pinkeye Post and the Pregnancy Post, the latter of which generates much emotion. I am surprised at how many women (like me) rip open the test box, toss the instructions, pee on the stick and then stare at it going, “WTF?”… then go search the blogosphere (not the manufacturer’s website) for the answer to the question that might just change their life.