A disillusioning experience.

In this month’s Viewpoint column, clinical nurse instructor John Burkley describes a disturbing incident in which his clinical nursing students were treated with dismissiveness and rudeness by a nurse on a unit to which they’d been assigned. The students ultimately left this early encounter with hospital nursing—which took place at a teaching hospital—with varying degrees of disillusionment.

Nurses may need to develop a certain inner resilience to handle the physical, emotional, moral, intellectual, and organizational challenges of their profession. But bullying won’t help them develop it.

Alienating future nurses does lasting harm. What can be done?

As Burkley notes, negative clinical experiences can have a formative influence on aspiring nurses—they “are alienating, contribute negatively to learning, and should not be tolerated.”

Unfortunately, while many nurses are welcoming and supportive of clinical students, such incidents of subtle or overt bullying appear to be common. Drawing on his own experience as well as current literature, Burkley offers a few possible ways nursing schools and teaching hospitals can address this issue. […]