When I was in nursing school, I said that whenever I got my nursing license and had students with me, I would be really nice to them. During nursing school, I encountered many experienced nurses who we really rude, short, cold, or unwelcoming to the students who were on their unit.
First thing first: This isn’t to justify immature behavior, but to offer possible explanations. When we can increase our understanding of the context of a situation, we can walk into it a little bit wiser, in more control of our emotional response, and able to not take it personally. A key here is remaining objective so that we don’t internalize this stranger’s response to us as something wrong with us.
This is where we can go into a negative thought spiral … doubts everything about ourselves … dread clinical.
The goal here will be to create a little space between yourself and the rude clinical instructor or floor nurse. We don’t want the trajectory of our entire nursing career to essentially depend on this stranger’s initial reaction to us. Now, 12 years into my career, I only remember the name of 1 clinical instructor and none of the names of any of the nurses I worked with during clinical. Seriously, I can’t even picture their faces. What I can remember is the pressure I put on myself for them to like me. The sadness and rejection I felt when I wasn’t welcomed with open arms… when people didn’t care at all what I did, and that I was more of a burden than anything.
This is why I don’t want you to put so much stock into what they think about you – because, in the big picture, they’re genuinely not going to be someone who lives in your head rent-free years later.
Wise people are careful not to attach their identity to something so unstable.
Hard truth: As a student, you’re not going to be able to fix any of these issues yourself. Even if you do everything 100% perfectly, you’ll run into some people who will act like nothing is good enough.
So, we’ve got to take that power away and take ownership of our learning experience. Let’s go through 4 possible reasons they might be giving you the cold shoulder. I hope with this you’ll be able to walk into clinical with a better understanding of some big-picture/systematic issues
