Nursing Student and Nursing Faculty Relations

I received a phone inquiry this week from a nursing student. The Nursing School/College is taking steps to expel the student from the program. This isn't the first of such calls I have received from nursing students who are being expelled from a nursing program for whatever reason.

Do you think nurse educators and nursing faculty are too tough on nursing students? Are programs designed to fail students? Are the policies and procedures used by nursing schools and colleges to grieve issues (attendance, exams, grades, practice issues, etc.) that occur with nursing students fair?

We have all heard about nursing eating its young. Does this ugly behavior start in nursing schools and colleges (faculty and educators to nursing students) and then continue into the practice environment (nurse to new nurse/former nursing student)?

State Boards of Nursing should devote more time to investigating nursing student complaints involving nursing schools/colleges and nursing faculty. This should be included in determining whether or not the school/college maintains its status with the State Board of Nursing.

Patients in the healthcare environment can turn to nursing administration to hold nurses accountable and also the State Board of Nursing. Nurse educators and faculty are practicing nurses also. Who can and should nursing students look to for holding nurse educators and faculty accountable? The nursing school or college.

The Ohio Board of Nursing allows nursing students and other interested parties to file complaints against a nursing school/college via a Nursing Education Dissatisfaction Form. See http://www.nursing.ohio.gov/PDFS/Forms/NrsgEdReportform.pdf. 

This particular student is over $50,000 in debt from her undergraduate nursing education and less than 10 weeks from completing the program. I didn't accumulate that kind of debt with nursing and law school combined.

I can't discuss the specifics but in my opinion this student is not being treated fairly. But again, fairness is in the eye of the beholder and in this case the Dean of the College.

We have all heard about the nursing faculty shortage and nursing shortage. Have you ever heard of a lawyer shortage? Okay, I made myself laugh with that one.

Is the environment in the nursing workplace (both for staff nurses and nursing faculty) the reason why there is a nursing shortage? A shortage in a field is indicative of something in my opinion. The shortage of nurse educators and nurses is indicative of "what" in your opinion?

 

Comments

[latonia]

Thank you for posting. I agree with you about MedVerify. Nurses should be afforded an opportunity to challenge the information reported to MedVerify and/or submit a statement to MedVerify detailing a response to the incident. It is a one-sided process.

[Ohio/Kentucky Nurse]

If you think nursing faculty are bad, just wait until you hit the floor! Most units are staffed with nurses who are not so willing to jump in and help you but they are real quick to ridicule you(usually behind your back) and run to management.The management then believes the more "seasoned"(burned-out nurse).There is also a thing called MED-Verify which is used by most area hospitals to verify your character etc.etc.Your employer can put whatever they want in this system about you. You don't get to see it and supposedly it's perfectly legal. Good luck getting a decent job once this has happened to you.

[LaTonia]

Ohio Nursing Student, thank you for posting. Do you feel you were treated differently because you were not a traditional nursing student?

[Ohio nursing student]

Wow, and I thought I was the only one! I am an older nursing student that is one quarter away from graduating (with honors) in a hospital based BSN program. I ran into a clinical instructor in my final hospital clinical who was absolutely savage. She belittled me, she kept me from lunch break, she held me after clinical twice for over a half and hour and she had me written up for failure. She determined that a staff nurse that was in a bad mood during report to me (who later apologized to me personally, twice about her behavior) that it was my fault the nurse was in a bad mood because I was not prepared. I was incompetent in patient care because when we walked into the patients room to give meds the patient had misplaced her cup of water in the bathroom, and her bedside commode had urine in it. I could go on and on with the bullying I endured. I tried to go through the proper channels with my concerns to no avail. In the meantime, I am 3 months away from graduation and failing and over $60,000 in debt. I can get no one to address the horizontal violence this instructor, who is also a RN, MSN, PhD and a VP of a department in the hospital system. My concern is not only my rights, but what about the next student who may not be mature enough to deal with the emotional and psychological abuse. I find it amazing how 3 1/2 years of hard work, success and the Dean's list all disappears and becomes meaningless due to one person's judgement.

[LaTonia]

Gail, thank you for sharing. I was in my early twenties when I graduated from nursing school and I worked hard. I was a young single mom struggling. I pulled it off but it was extremely difficult.

It wasn't the school work for me that was difficult, it was juggling the personal and family responsibilities while in nursing school. It scared me when I saw my fellow nursing students flunking out of the program; I studied even harder. I was determined to the complete the program.

I studied more in nursing school (ASN and BSN)than I did in law school. I too passed the NCLEX the first time. I also passed the OH, KY, and IN Bar exams the first time.

[Gail Breneman]

I came across this website quite by accident, and after reading the previous blog, felt compelled to post a comment. I am no longer a nursing student, I have been a practicing nurse for a bit over ten years now, but the 1st comment to your post struck a chord with me, as I also had some very stressful experiences in nursing school. Luckily, I was an adult student...I worked for almost 7 1/2 years as a correctional officer in order to save enough to put myself thru nursing school late in life so that I would not have to use financial aid or student loans.

I went to a 2 year program to obtain my associate RN degree. There was one instructor who seemed to make a determination on the first day of class who she chose to like and who she didn't, and I guess I fell into the latter category. I only had this instructor as a clinical instructor during my last quarter of my first year, no other close dealings with her at all, other than her lectures in class.

On one morning, she assigned me an elderly patient who was very time-consuming due to confusion, etc. Both I and the floor nurse were very busy all morning caring for this patient, so the floor nurse was well aware of everything I did for my patient, care-wise. I had no reason to summon the instructor because the only meds needed in this particular case were IV meds, which we were not yet authorized to give, and since my instructor was tied up doing meds and such with other students, I did not see her that particular morning.

At the end of our clinical morning, this instructor pulled me into the hallway and told me that she felt that I was 'sneaky', that I had spent the entire morning 'hiding' from her, etc. I said nothing in return, as I was genuinely surprised by the confrontation.....when she was done berating me, I could only say, "Where did this come from???"

Before we left the floor, within hearing of my instructor, I approached the floor nurse and told her what the instructor had told me and asked her to check my patient thoroughly, as my instructor obviously felt that I had been deficient in my care, somehow. The floor nurse was as surprised as I.

This instructor also spoke to me very nastily in front of my patients...one patient in particular asked me (in front of the instructor), "Who IS that woman? She has no right to speak to you like that." I told the patient that it was the job of our instructors to toughen us up and prepare us for negative situations in the workplace, altho I'm not sure she bought that.

On the day of our final exam, the instructor called me to her desk in front of the entire class and gave me my clinical evaluation. She told me that she could have flunked me in clinicals but 'chose to give me the benefit of the doubt'. She then handed me a piece of paper with the name and phone number of a psychologist written on it....she informed me that I suffered from a 'pathological lack of self confidence', and that without psychological counseling, I had no hopes of becoming a nurse!

Then she basically demanded that I go to see this psychologist over the summer months! Of course, I never did, and threw the piece of paper away, but to this day, I'm totally at a loss as to why this woman treated me as she did. It was not just me, she was this way with a number of students. Bear in mind that I had absolutely no problems in any of my clinicals before or after that episode.....I had spent 14 years as a nurse aide in my youth, so was very comfortable with patient care.

I have a feeling the 2nd year instructors were familiar with this behavior, because although it took every ounce of willpower I had to return to classes at the end of that summer, the first words out of the mouth of my 2nd year clinical instructor were, "I want you all to know that we do not go by the evaluations of the first year instructors...we make our own determinations as to your competence" I proceeded to go thru my 2nd year without any difficulties whatsoever.

That instructor is still at the school, as she is a tenured employee, and I believe she has since moved up further on the ladder and is no longer a clinical instructor, which is probably a good thing. But we began with a class of over 100 students, and ended up graduating, I believe, 33....some of whom were students who had returned to repeat their second year after flunking the first time. I believe this one instructor was single-handedly responsible for eliminating a good number of those we lost.

I overheard her tell one student that she needed to learn how to speak English, as the girl spoke with a distinct southern dialect and the instructor appeared to not like her accent. I do believe that a lot of the derogatory experiences in nursing begin in nursing school, as it seems when you speak to many nurses, you find that all of them have had something like this happen to them during their school years, which I think is a shame.

I also think that the criteria they use to assess nursing programs (and therefore to determine funding) is so dependent upon pass/fail statistics that it leads some programs to use some maybe underhanded tactics to weed out students that they are afraid may pull their statistics down, although in my case, my graduating GPA was 3.05 and I went on to pass my state boards on my first attempt. Like I said, LUCKILY I was an adult student....and I say that because if I had been younger and not had quite so much time and expense of my own invested in my education at that point, I probably would have just cut my losses and never gone back, because when you have an experience like that, it's a bit traumatizing,to say the least, especially when you haven't a clue why the mistreatment even occurs.

It definitely leads you to seriously question your choice of career, and also the quality and compassion (or lack of) of the people who work in it.

[Latonia]

Your situation is unfortunate. I do believe that some nursing faculty abuse their authority and power.

Nursing faculty are accountable for their conduct and actions and this should be clearly stated in University or School of Nursing policies.

[student at USC Upstate]

Where is the conduct code for teachers? As students we are held to a standard to respect and listen to the faculty but the respect for students have long gone.

I have never been so demoralized in my life at any level (school or home) as this school has made me feel. The faculty has said nasty things to other students about certain students, talk to us like we are stupid in the clinical settings (even nurses of those settings have apalogized to me for the way my instructor has talked to me), they have said things about patients they "don't feel even deserve care" and have made the statement to me that we must come prepared to clinical (meaning rested etc. but make you stay up all night so they can grade so much paperwork as students we do not feel as if we are working as a safe provider).

I will give more detailed statements if and when this post is looked at as being serious. When students complain at the school the student is felt to always be in the wrong and made to think they are the problem, well I am a senior and I have seen so much that is morally wrong and after looking into it some that is even illegal.