How do I deal with the snail preceptee?

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It seems that your preceptee hasn’t quite mastered the art of time management and, well, efficiency. You have three patients assigned to you and it’s 10 a.m. and your preceptee has yet to even see the third. Come 6 p.m., there are two patients whose charts have been empty since 12 hours prior, and you have to wait around an hour after your shift to let the tortoise catch up on charting. How do you deal with this?

The most important thing is to be patient. Patience is the key to sanity when orienting new nurses who just may not be catching on. Here are a couple of tips for keeping these nurses on track.

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Nicole Lehr

Nicole Lehr is a pediatric nurse. She can be described in three adjectives: content, thankful and fortunate. All credit for the aforementioned description can be given to the love she has for her profession as an RN. She graduated from University of Florida with her Bachelor’s in Nursing and moved to Atlanta to work at the Cardiac Stepdown Unit at Children’s — her dream job.