A year ago, I was doing my acute care rotation. I was super excited to learn nursing from an internal medicine perspective. Unfortunately, I was matched with a very strict instructor. Not the good kind of strict who made you want to challenge yourself; but the intimidating kind of strict, who made me feel stupid to be in nursing school. Of course there are always two sides to every story and she probably meant well. But she was the type who took pride in making her students cry. I was on the verge of quitting, but my gut told me to stay strong. "You're almost there! You just need to get through this one and your final preceptorship is right around the corner!" I finally got on her good side when I did something that impressed the nurses on the unit. She finally stopped picking on me and I survived the rest of the rotation.
If there's one thing I learned from the situation it's that I don't want to be like her. As a preceptor myself, I always like to make learning fun. Challenging, but not scary.I always strive to be the approachable instructor and mentor so that my students do not fear coming to me to ask questions. I want my students to feel motivated to come to learn every single day.
I also learned one other thing: Always believe in yourself. Nursing school requires a lot of hard work and dedication. And I believe, more importantly, passion. There's always gonna be critics along the way; take their feedback and move on. Do not dwell on the bad. Do not let one person change the way you think about yourself or your capacity.
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