scary preceptor

the last 2 days I had a student with me...she is very sweet, but just seems like she needed a lot of encouragment to go in the right direction. She was very willing to do the work, but she just needed a bit of prompting. So I was talking to the other RT in the ICU with me yesterday...Angelina...I told her that I thought my student was pretty good, technically. But I wondered how motivated she was becasue she didn't seem to want to get out there and do stuff without me telling her to. Angelina reminded me that there might be something else causing her "timidness" and that could be that she is afraid of screwing up. Angelina graduated a few years after I did, and I precepted her as well. She told me that I had intimidated her when she was a student. I felt really bad when she said that because I thought she ment that I was mean and intimidating...but she said that it was becasue I knew so much about the patients she was afraid to sound stupid. Of couse I would not think that my little students are stupid if they don't know which sedation med is what, or what vasoactive drug our very sick patients are on...but I do think it is important to know that they are on sedation, and if they are on "pressors" because that does affect our job. Also it is extremely important to look at the patient as a whole person, not just a set of lungs and and airway tract. So I am sorry to all the students I have precepted if you thought that I was/am intimidating, I don't expect you to know this stuff, that is why I am sharing it with you....wow! I never thought I was one of those preceptors ;)