Are We Teaching Nurses to Pass the NCLEX… or to Survive a Trauma?

A pediatric ICU nurse educator gets real about simulation labs, bedside chaos, and what nursing school is really preparing students for.

If you’ve ever precepted a new grad and thought,“Okay… but what do I actually do right now?”

This episode is for you.

On this week’s At the Nurses’ Station, Kelly and Sam sit down with Jameson — pediatric ICU charge nurse, clinical instructor, and master’s-in-nursing-education student — to talk about what’s changed in nursing education, what COVID did to clinical training, and why simulation labs can only take you so far.

Spoiler: mannequins don’t curse at you, kick you, or ignore your plan of care.

What We’re Talking About

This episode dives into:

* The impact of COVID-19 on nursing clinical hours

* Simulation-based learning vs real bedside experience

* Concept-based nursing curriculum

* Teaching to the NCLEX vs teaching clinical judgment

* Why new grad nurses sometimes struggle with prioritization

* Generational differences in resilience and accountability

* The gap between academia and real-world nursing

Jameson shares how watching students graduate during the pandemic, many with heavily simulation-based clinical experiences pushed him toward teaching.

And he’s on a mission: bring reality back into nursing education.

Because running a trauma isn’t multiple choice.

This week on At the Nurses’ Station, we break down Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in nursing and why understanding it might be the key to supporting new nurses, preventing nurse burnout, and building stronger emergency room teams. From brand new grads who don’t yet know where the IV tubing is, to experienced nurses navigating safety and workplace stress, we explore how physiological needs, belonging, and esteem show up in real hospital life. If basic needs like knowing where supplies are or feeling supported during a critical patient aren’t met, it’s nearly impossible to grow into a confident, competent nurse.

We talk about what it really takes to move from “baby nurse survival mode” to respected, steady team member and why belonging and professional confidence can’t happen before safety and foundational skills are secure. Whether you’re a new grad nurse, travel nurse, charge nurse, or healthcare leader, this episode reframes nurse development through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy and challenges us to ask: are we expecting self-actualization from nurses who don’t know where US is?

In this episode of At the Nurses’ Station, Kelly and Sam dive headfirst into workplace violence in healthcare, focusing on the daily reality of patient and visitor aggression toward nurses and hospital staff. From verbal threats and intimidation, to physical assault, they examine why so many healthcare workers are told this behavior is “not tolerated”, yet continue to experience it shift after shift.

They discuss how nurse safety is often deprioritized in the name of patient satisfaction, why hospitals rely heavily on de-escalation training instead of real security support, and how repeated exposure to violence leads to normalization and burnout. The episode also explores the legal and ethical gray areas surrounding assault on healthcare workers, including intoxicated, psychiatric, or cognitively impaired patients and why meaningful change in hospital workplace safety won’t happen until violence against nurses is treated as unacceptable, not inevitable.