First clinical as an instructor

Now I went through clinicals, I was told about the dress code. Slacks no jeans, dress shirt no tee shirt, and dress shoes. Well yesterday I accompanied 9 students to a clinical orientation. I was speech less, out and out speechless, of the nine students one, yes one, only ONE was dress appropriately. Did you get that ONE was dressed in business casual. 7 were in Jeans, one in sweats, when I saw the first in jeans I thought great I will have to send her home. Then I saw the rest and I thought how could I send home 8 student nurses? Now this is not all their fault I will take 50% of the blame, I didn’t think to explain to them what business casual was, that jeans were not appropriate. So I will mark this one down as a learning experience for me. I don’t think that they realize that during their clinical experience every time they are in a facility they are on a job interview. I think that some nursing students take clinicals too lightly they think that they are just buying their time until the graduate. What they fail to see is that the nurses that are working on the floor when they are a student are the same nurses that they will be working with when they finish school. I know of an instance where a student nurse was let out of a contract because they could not find a unit that would accept her based on her clinical performance as a student nurse. So be careful when you are at your clinical sites.