Student nurse using phone during procedure

No we are not allowed to get out phones out. Although I do often show patients cat pictures if it comes up in conversation. It’s quite a good ice breaker sometimes. I also have the BNFC app on my phone, as a PP said. Are you sure it wasn’t a work phone. We all have iPhones to do obs on.

In my trust we have phoned to scan the patient health records and input meds and contact drs. If this is in Manchester then she was probably reading your child’s medical notes. We use iPhones

Student nurses are people, not angels. If she’s young it’s likely she doesn’t realise it’s not professional. I work with students, honestly for some of them it’s like the first time someone has told them to put their phone away. They view scrolling on personal mobiles during face to face meetings as normal, and these are often exceptionally intelligent young people with A levels and some with previous degrees.

We check the rates/volume as part of the checking process when we check the bags. Unless we forget and then we do it at the bedside.

Do you calculate TPN rates before you put it up then? They always did it as they were putting it up and then of course, the other nurse who has to check it would usually take her phone out and double check the rates.

Always right next to my son as they were sorting the pumps out.

Not if she’s going to be one of those slackers always distracted by her personal life.

I'm not q nurse but I've worked in hospitals where all communication with drs/nurses is done via an app, basically like a messaging service. Other Hospitals Ive worked in have an app for all patient notes, you can see patient obs, previous bloods results etc. There are apps for guidelines, apps for the bnf. Apps for learning.

She might have just been writing a note to remind herself to research something.

Personally I would leave it. If she's using her phone for personal matters I'm sure whoever is mentoring her will pull her up on it.

You should care. You want her to get through the degree.

Ogh, what maudlin hogwash.

i don’t care if she has 10 kids under three and works 100 hours per week.

if she’s on the job, she needs to focus on the job, not her personal life.

We have iPhones to log notes and observations in our trust

As it doesn’t sound like she was doing something work related on it then it would be unprofessional.

i’m a nurse and have my phone in my pocket during my shift….i sometimes use it to use apps like the BNF (British medication prescribing book) or other similar apps or I use the stop watch on it for counting respirations if there isn’t a clock that I can see. I don’t use it for anything personal though unless I’m on my break (other than the occasional call from my kids nursery which I would let go to voice mail and then nip out and phone back but that’s fairly rare).

I’d have a word with the students mentor/the nurse who was taking the blood, she may have noticed when it happened (unless she was concentrating on getting the blood) but she will be able to escalate it appropriately.

When i started in the ambulance service 20 years ago the trust tried to ban us carrying our personal phones.
Then one day all the radios went down and every switched their phones off. We have always been able to carry our personal phones since then.

We have our clinical practice guidelines, access to clinical notices, consultant connect (nhs phone directory service), bnf, toxbase etc etc, all on our personal phones. Consultants connect won't even work on our work ipads (where we do our patient clinical records), so without our own phones we wouldn't be able to arrange referrals or pre-alert the hospital to incoming critically ill/ injured patients.

The expectation/ assumption now is that we all have a smart phone.

It's a lot of reality I am afraid. I wish it wasn't.

That's a lot of excuses for someone being unprofessional at work.

Are students not allowed to take notes when they’re learning things/procedures?
(genuine question, I’m not being facetious, and if they’re not allowed to I’m surprised at that)

Absolutely, there are times we do need our phone! I use mine for drug calculations, checking how I’m making up IVs correctly, calculating TPN rates are correct, the BNF etc. Even down to googling some syndrome I’ve never heard of. But not next to a patient.

Our Students have their competencies and skills etc to get signed off for uni on an app on their phones. I wouldn't be happy with a student looking at their phone mid procedure though

I wish people would speak up. Times have changed, professionalism has gone out of the window not just in nursing, but everywhere. I think it is best to feel embarrassed afterwards for speaking out then carry it in your heart, for ages, because it was unresolved. I was furious with my gran, who told me the phlebotomist came into her room in a hospital, gloved up, touched the door handle to get in, approached her, very friendly, lovely manners, did not change the gloves, did not use a cleaning pad to swipe a venipuncture site and proceeded to either draw bloods or change the butterfly or whatever. Gran did not say a word, but oh boy, did she rant to me - lots of cleaning pads in her tray, ready to use, she did not use them, etc. etc. I speak up, most of the time. One day I shall probably be roughed up, but I would rather speak up then be annoyed for days afterwards. But it did not come naturally, I was very much like 'lovely Waldorf salad, Mr Fawlty', in fact all of my family are like that, embarrassed to speak up, but vent to other family members.

When has everything become a matter of complaint and grievance?! Maybe she was taking notes, or checking something about the procedure etc. Everything is in our pocket nowadays.

Phones are great breeding grounds for germs, there is no way she should be using it for that reason firstly though I can see why people think it’s bad manners more.

Oh and when my son was on TPN (nutrition directly to blood stream through a central line) in hospital, whoever was setting it up would always use their phone to do the maths required.

How do you know it was nothing to do with the patient if you couldn't see what she was doing?

I agree it wasn't professional, but she could have been checking a term her mentor had used, a drug dose etc, logging her attendance for uni etc . She shouldn't ideally do that in front of patients but that wouldn't be her the same as being on tik tok.

Raise it calmly with the nurse mentoring her if you're concerned.

That's how it was at the hospital my son was at too. Handovers for shift changes were also done in the playroom (closed for handovers) because that was the only space available.

This.
Nurses eat their young.