Any Nurse mentors or tutors around?

[Miley1967]

Any advice appreciated please. I am worried sick ! DD ( aged 19 ) is on first adult Nursing placement. All seemed to be going ok until she had a mid placement meeting with mentor a few days ago. Apparently her attitude is poor, communication is awful etc. DD is distraught , she has been told she may not pass her placement. I have advised her to speak to her Uni tutor on Monday, although apparently her mentor is already going to do that. DD has issues with sleeping/ anxiety. I was a Nurse for many years and this just brings back huge issues for me too, I never wanted her to go into nursing but have tried obviously to keep this to myself and be supportive. Where does she go from here? What happens if she fails , does that mean she gets chucked off the course completely? It took a lot for her to get this place, had to do Uni foundation course etc.

Firstly it’s good that they’ve had this discussion with her now, as it gives her time to work on the areas they feel she needs to improve. It would be awful if they let her get to the end of her placement and then fail her. She needs an action plan and goals to work towards.

Talking to the university and her personal tutor will help. She won’t get thrown off the course! Universities make it very difficult for students to fail.

She needs to listen to what’s been said to her and work out with her mentor what to do going forward. It’s only her first placement so being thrown into a first placement can often be a shock. We find some first year first placements are so shy and quiet and don’t know how to talk to people, which comes with time and experience. Keep supporting her. Is she getting help for her anxiety?

Thanks for your reply. She has an appointment with the Gp this week. She has been trying to arrange this for some time but with being given 3 and sometimes 4 twelve hour shifts a week it keeps having to be re-arranged. Thanks for your reassurance that they don't kick students off the course easily, she is adamant she wants to continue. i wonder if they are just comparing her to other students many of whom are mature students have years of experience as HCA's behind them or even just a lot of life experience. I just feel so gutted for her.It has been seven weeks since she started the placement and this is the first mention of any problem.

I'm a student teacher tutor, so not the same profession but not a million miles away in terms of supporting students on placement. Firstly, at worst if she fails placement she will get a resit. As @ThePinkPowerRangers (love the name!) said, we don't throw students off courses lightly.
If she hasn't already, she needs to tell the uni about her anxiety and get an appointment with disability services. There might be supports that can be put in place to help with uni and with placement.
I do think this should have been brought up sooner than halfway through placement, though. She needs to find out exactly what they mean by a poor attitude? Is it that she's not smiley and chatty? Does she ask what needs to be done and generally make herself useful? She may genuinely not know that she isn't doing something that the mentor is viewing as poor attitude or communication.
This is where the uni tutor needs to try to get to the bottom of it and then support your daughter in setting clear achievable goals to work on. The uni tutor should hopefully also be able to tell whether the practice mentor is expecting too much from a first year student.
Hopefully if she can demonstrate professional commitment by showing progress between now and the end of placement she will get through.

Thanks. I asked her if it was communication with patients or other staff that was the problem and she said both. I've think she does naturally have a face that can look as though she has an attitude when she doesn't ( hard to explain ! ). I will ask her to look into the disability services thank you. I think you are correct in that she genuinely doesn't know what she is not doing that they want her to do. It is literally her first ever placement, the first time she has stepped into any kind of hospital. I really wish she had got a bit more life experience before subjecting herself to this. Hopefully tings will be clearer tomorrow. I just worry with her being over 3 hours away on her own and worrying. Thanks for all your advice I really appreciate it.

If she’s at risk of failing the placement at the midway point, the mentor should have done an Action Plan, outlining what she needs to do to improve. Unless the process is different in different areas of the country, I don’t think they can fail her without an Action Plan at the 2 universities my students come from. We have failed students on my ward though it is very unusual, and they are not immediately thrown off the course, they get a second chance to come back and do it again. I hope things work out ok for her.

Most of our students are young, we have very few mature students. Although I’m in children’s so I don’t know about adult land!

It’s good she’s seeing the GP and she needs to access support through the university. I think she needs to have a good chat with her mentor or the ward manager. Maybe she should spend a shift with the support workers as that’s a great way to learn a lot of the basics, especially where everything is and how the ward runs. But she definitely needs an action plan.

Thanks. I don't think it was a great placement for her first placement, it's a private hospital mostly cosmetic procedures where the patients are mostly self caring with hygiene etc so I wonder if maybe she just hasn't had enough experience yet of doing personal care and just getting stuck into the basic things. It's doing those kind of things, bed baths etc that you build up a rapport with patients and learn to overcome any shyness. She has emailed her tutor. Fingers crossed this week will be better.

Just spoken to her again. She says she is two weeks away from the placement finishing now and this is the first time anything has been said to her about poor performance. It makes me so cross as now gives her little time to turn things around. I have said she needs to tell her tutor everything that has been said.

That sounds like a really odd placement. What is it specifically about her attitude that she needs to change? Sounds like the sort if thing that needs to be addressed at the time rather than at mid point.

Hmm she may not be telling the entire truth about this being the first time anything has been said. I work in a university and some students will tell their parents all sorts about what the university has or hasn't done to save face and it's not the truth.

Is there an action plan from the mid point review? Specifically how can she address this, what steps does she need to take.
Students can appear board or caught in the headlights. Is DD able to reflect on this feedback?
How does she feel that she came across, did she come to supervision prepared. However to be fair your DD I would assume that their are different expectations in the private sector.
This is only one area, there must have been some positive feedback.
This is only placement 1.

Did the mentor say awful and poor?

The half way review is meant to address any issues that may have arisen and give enough time to resolve them

She's best speaking to her university but also to her mentor to see what she can do to resolve things....

I'm a nurse and was very young when I trained (I turned 18 end of August and started my training in September). I heard that I shouldn't have started so young and should have got experience so many times. In my second year I started working as a bank HCA in our local mental health trust (I'm an RMN) and it made such a huge difference- not just my confidence but learning how to do HCA tasks meant that if as a student there wasn't much to do I could offer to do other stuff that I knew.

I'm a nurse lecturer. I had a student a while back that the practice assessor wanted to fail because they said he had been unprofessional. I got statements. We met with him. Turned out he was extremely anxious, it was his first placement and he was scared stiff. All his other placements were absolutely fine. He didn't fail and Infact he is just about to qualify.

She should have had a mid point review. Has she? Even if she does need to fail that placement then she would need an action plan, clear goals and support. It's usually at the end of the placement. Has the university got a practice link person that can go into placement and sit down and discuss this with her and her PA? She will need to pass her placements to pass the course. They are 50% of the programme credits.

Did you have concerns this may happen? Your post seems to indicate that. What concerned you before she started?

I was the same. I started training two months after I turned 18. I had so many horrible things happen in my training, I still feel scarred 40 years later ! Maybe this is why i just so wanted it to go smoothly for dd. hopefully she can sort this out. Thanks everyone for your input.

No I didn't really have too many concerns before she started except that she has not long turned 19 and based on my own experience of starting Nurse training at just turned 18 I know that was too young for me and she doesn't have as much life experience as I did . I had done voluntary work in a unit for long term disabled people, worked with disabled children etc. She has anxiety about talking on the phone which she knows she needs to overcome but is otherwiise normally confident.
This mid point review has just happened after seven weeks on placement and with two weeks left leaving not much time to put any kind of action plan into place ! This is my main concern. What happens if she fails, would it just delay her finishing, do they add another placement onto the end of the three years?

I trained at 18, but I'd had a Saturday job in a nursing home for two years, and it makes such a difference.

If the timeline is accurate and two weeks before the end of the placement is the first she's heard of problems, it doesn't sound like her mentor has followed procedures.

I have failed a couple of students on placement, the universities are like bloodhounds ensuring we gave the student every chance to pass, they often take it too far if I'm honest.

If she wants to continue I'm sure she will be able to at this point, but maybe she needs to consider if the timing is right for nurse training, it's a tough course.

@Miley1967 it depends on individual courses how they structure it but usually you can't progress to the next programme stage without passing all the credits on that stage. Placement hours are the only aspect ( usually) you can make up at the end in a programme extension). She can appeal and say her mid point wasn't mid point. She may want to contact YUSU to help. She needs to seek help from her supervisor and uni first though.

Your DD needs to speak with her practice education facilitator and get wellbeing support from the disability team. These seem like vague and subjective comments. Your DD needs to have SMART targets set (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time limited) because “improve communication” could mean anything. These concerns seem to have been sprung on her at the review and should have been communicated before she got to this point. She will be given the chance to repeat the placement.

I know of one university where more than 50% of student nurses left the course of their own accord during first year - it is a tough course. One placement is not enough to write her off and she is adamant that she wants to continue, which shows tenacity. Perhaps some bank work as a HCA would support her confidence.

I do think people should gain some experience in healthcare and working with people before committing to a nursing degree. Sadly, I've come across many who realised too late that nursing is not what they expected it to be. Starting straight from A levels and with zero experience of working with people is nearly always going to be an issue when you are being assessed on communication, interpersonal skills, and attitude. Get your daughter to join the bank, or an agency, or take on some shifts in a nursing home so she can learn how to interact with people. And practice smiling! She needs to show that she has taken this feedback onboard.

Thousands of us started our training at 18. We had 8 weeks classroom learning, then straight to our first placement, part of the paid, rostered workforce.
The vast majority managed without being 'traumatised' by someone talking to us, or having to instigate a conversation.
Some with prior care experience fared well, some didn't, and vice-versa.
Nursing is tough, but so rewarding.

Quite believe this. DS (17) tells us one thing, his teacher at school has a different interpretation. We blame it on his autism/ADHD.

Get in touch with additional support services at uni, get your DD to speak with them about her anxiety. I am sure with more information it can be sorted out whilst still on placement.

Often if they're not enthusiastic enough that comes across as disinterested. When it's clearly not the case for your DD.

As others have said there is a whole process to be followed to "fail" a student- the assessor needs to create an action plan and actively work with the student and the university. I've had to do it once and it was a long and tedious process.

My guess is that the assessor (perhaps misguidedly) wanted to put a bit of a boot up your DD. She needs to be able to talk to the team and patients like an adult. She needs to come across as enthusiastic and proactive. Asking questions is a great way to show this. Has she got coping strategies/ mechanics for her anxiety? Are the placement aware?

Students can be an absolute pleasure to have, or they can make an already stressful work day even harder. The staff working with her won't receive any extra time/ benefits from teaching her. The placement may not be where she wants to be but she needs to make the most of any opportunity (as practice time is so limited).

I was an inpatient in a private hospital last week and asked a student on first placement if she wanted me to critique her care of me - told her to smile now and again and be a little more physically proactive - think Ted socks kind of physical - far too limp wristed she seemed to take it well. It can be a hard heavy pukey stinky and shitty job, they all should work in a nursing home for their first placement it isn't all running around with a syringe in your hand!

If it's her mid point, she has time to turn it round. I had similar with a student last year. It was absolutely draining. After a meeting with her tutor she did manage to turn it round. Your daughter must listen to the feedback, take it on board and act on it.