Will I fail my management placement?

So I am in my third year of nursing and currently on my second placement. The last placement I received negative feedback regarding my performance. I am not where I need to be for a third year student. This feedback has really hit me hard. I no longer feel confident, I feel as though I don’t know anything and my mind goes blank when anyone in practice asks me anything. When I get a patient I don’t know what to do with them. It’s really bad. I don’t know what to do. I feel so stressed juggling personal life, assignments, dissertation and placements. I really don’t want to go in for fear of failure. I am constantly worrying about what if? I have less than 6 months left, how can I retrieve 2 and a half years of my education within these few months! I feel as though everyone is judging me when I am on placement. I have severe anxiety and depression. I also have adhd which is the reason for my forgetfulness, disorganisation and lack of focus. Anyone who has failed, how do you get over the embarrassment? I have a lot of pressure from my family to be successful. Do you get another chance once you’ve failed a placement? Any coping strategies with stress. Thank you.

Reply 1

Coventry University Student Ambassadors

Official Rep

16

Original post by MariamMH

So I am in my third year of nursing and currently on my second placement. The last placement I received negative feedback regarding my performance. I am not where I need to be for a third year student. This feedback has really hit me hard. I no longer feel confident, I feel as though I don’t know anything and my mind goes blank when anyone in practice asks me anything. When I get a patient I don’t know what to do with them. It’s really bad. I don’t know what to do. I feel so stressed juggling personal life, assignments, dissertation and placements. I really don’t want to go in for fear of failure. I am constantly worrying about what if? I have less than 6 months left, how can I retrieve 2 and a half years of my education within these few months! I feel as though everyone is judging me when I am on placement. I have severe anxiety and depression. I also have adhd which is the reason for my forgetfulness, disorganisation and lack of focus. Anyone who has failed, how do you get over the embarrassment? I have a lot of pressure from my family to be successful. Do you get another chance once you’ve failed a placement? Any coping strategies with stress. Thank you.

Hello @MariamMH [br] [br] I hope you’re well, I’m sorry to hear about this. As much as it’s unfortunate what’s happened - I would see if you could get some further feedback on ways to improve. By doing this, you could find particular areas of weakness and focus on those rather than being overwhelmed about everything. If that helps?

I think try and display initiative, ask midwives after every shift of ways to improve and ask for feedback after every shift on your performance. They could make you feel more confident by also listing the things you’ve done well.

Best of luck
Jade :smile:

Cov Uni Student Ambassador

Reply 2

Tracey_W

17

Original post by MariamMH

So I am in my third year of nursing and currently on my second placement. The last placement I received negative feedback regarding my performance. I am not where I need to be for a third year student. This feedback has really hit me hard. I no longer feel confident, I feel as though I don’t know anything and my mind goes blank when anyone in practice asks me anything. When I get a patient I don’t know what to do with them. It’s really bad. I don’t know what to do. I feel so stressed juggling personal life, assignments, dissertation and placements. I really don’t want to go in for fear of failure. I am constantly worrying about what if? I have less than 6 months left, how can I retrieve 2 and a half years of my education within these few months! I feel as though everyone is judging me when I am on placement. I have severe anxiety and depression. I also have adhd which is the reason for my forgetfulness, disorganisation and lack of focus. Anyone who has failed, how do you get over the embarrassment? I have a lot of pressure from my family to be successful. Do you get another chance once you’ve failed a placement? Any coping strategies with stress. Thank you.

Hi Mariam X

Hope you are enjoying your second last placement as a final year student midwife.
Unfortunately your last placement has given you a negative feedback about it - I know it is hard to take in with this feedback but what was the reasons for them to give you such negativity ( did you do everything as asked, turned up early each shift, not taking any days of sick, communicating with the other staff members and the patients). As you didn't say why.

Sometimes your mind goes blank for a few seconds when you get asked something you probably done in a previous year or something else as it happens to us all. Your main concern about your mind going blank is when you are dealing with any of your patients ( mum's to be) as make sure you are giving them the best advice while treating them so you not risking anything.

Don't think the worse about you thinking about failing but this is the thing nobody knows whether or not you'll fail until you get told of it as you might pass it so don't get yourself stressed out about it as go in each day and do your job and prove that you can be a fantastic midwife.

With what you have said about things I would only suggest that you make contact with your university course leader and your placement officer and discuss the issues with them asap so that they can support you through your final months of being a student midwife.
You should ask your fellow year students for any advice.

You asked about placement if you happen to fail it - so what happens is if and only if you were to fail a placement then you'll unfortunately have to redo it as your university course leader and your placement officer will have to arrange it with you to do ( you don't have to do it at the same place that you failed it at as can be done elsewhere) - remember that you'll have to compete everything for your course by time you are about to qualify ( all the necessary paperwork plus all of the 4600 hours=2300 for placement and 2300 for your university studies) before NMC will issue you with your midwife registration pin 📌.

You shouldn't have to be worrying about what your family think as just remember that it is you who is doing this very hard degree.

I remember how much pressure it was when I was studying at university for my midwife degree especially in the final year when things got tougher but I wasn't pressured by my family as my mum and sister are both registered adult nurses with lots of experience.

A NHS registered midwife and mentor/supervisor to students midwives.

Reply 3

Emily_B

15

Original post by MariamMH

So I am in my third year of nursing and currently on my second placement. The last placement I received negative feedback regarding my performance. I am not where I need to be for a third year student. This feedback has really hit me hard. I no longer feel confident, I feel as though I don’t know anything and my mind goes blank when anyone in practice asks me anything. When I get a patient I don’t know what to do with them. It’s really bad. I don’t know what to do. I feel so stressed juggling personal life, assignments, dissertation and placements. I really don’t want to go in for fear of failure. I am constantly worrying about what if? I have less than 6 months left, how can I retrieve 2 and a half years of my education within these few months! I feel as though everyone is judging me when I am on placement. I have severe anxiety and depression. I also have adhd which is the reason for my forgetfulness, disorganisation and lack of focus. Anyone who has failed, how do you get over the embarrassment? I have a lot of pressure from my family to be successful. Do you get another chance once you’ve failed a placement? Any coping strategies with stress. Thank you.

Registered nurse and practice assessor to students here.

I do remember the horrible feeling of getting negative feedback - it felt like the worst thing ever at the time. I've long since qualified.

What you need is structure of what to work on - "this is what you're not quite achieving, this is what we want to see you doing in order to achieve this properly".

Original post by MariamMH

The last placement I received negative feedback regarding my performance. I am not where I need to be for a third year student. This feedback has really hit me hard. I no longer feel confident

Original post by MariamMH

I feel so stressed juggling personal life, assignments, dissertation and placements.

Original post by MariamMH

I have severe anxiety and depression. I also have adhd which is the reason for my forgetfulness, disorganisation and lack of focus.

Original post by MariamMH

I have a lot of pressure from my family to be successful.

These things, all together, is what's adding up to this:

Original post by MariamMH

I feel as though I don’t know anything and my mind goes blank when anyone in practice asks me anything. When I get a patient I don’t know what to do with them.

Everything is mounting up here, you're purring loads of pressure on yourself to:
- finish this degree and make your family proud
- do well on the academic side of your degree
- keep up your social life
- do amazingly well on placement.
All of this together isn't helping your mental health and is probably making you more forgetful, disorganised, and less focussed. (I don't have ADHD and I get really forgetful and disorganised when I'm tired and/or stressed. I can't even begin to imagine how much worse it is with ADHD.)
Time to be kind to yourself and give yourself a bit of a break - you don't have to do everything in your social life (easier said than done!) - hobbies and friends will always be there once you've got yourself back on track. Giving yourself time off is also OK. Please speak to your university tutors about arranging academic and social support as you clearly need this right now. If you need extensions/deferrals on essays/dissertation... fine. None of your colleagues or patients will know or care once you've qualified.

As for practice...
I've mentored students who have also had the "mind going blank" and "not knowing what to do" issue, these have also been people seriously lacking in confidence. Clearly you did know what to do before you had your confidence shredded, otherwise you wouldn't have made it through 1st and 2nd year!
It's perfectly OK not to know the answer to things, it's perfectly OK to ask for help. That definitely includes as a 3rd year student and including when qualified (last week, I had a colleague who qualified in 1987 ask me for help with something she'd never seen before... she's normally the one we ask for help off!) Please start saying when you don't know, are not sure, or are having a mental block as this will help your knowledge, understanding and confidence. Get your practice assessor/supervisor/mentors to let you know what you need to work on and support you in doing so. "I need to look up 2 medications in the BNF every shift" is perfectly acceptable. Writing crib sheets of "this is what to do in this common scenario" for you to use when you have a mental block with a patient is also fine.
Get the practice education team involved to support you as well - you 100% can turn this round to qualifying.

Will I fail my management placement?

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