Ever encountered biased teachers in nsg school?

systoly · Oct 15, 2009

oh systoly , i meant biased because shes always picked on me. everytime shes the cI i seem to make all these dumb mistakes..im scared of her and she knows it. i go all clumsy. and who wouldnt if someone yells at you in your face in front of a lot of people.
maybe i should "try" to joke around w/ her and be her friend apparently you cant be just a student or a neutral person to teachers anymore or else they wouldnt like you.

I see what you mean now. As others have said: do what you need to do to graduate. I do shiver at the thought of trying to befriend someone who has no trouble to publicly belittle those under their care.

dannyc12 · Oct 15, 2009

Sigh ive been trynig hard for a while, have 2 mos to go actually.
Today i made a mistake in terms of calculating the time due of an IV. She (our clinical instructor) yelled at me that the NOD looked at me, and my classmates said she was talking to me like i was a first grader.

Get used to it. More specifically, gain some skills in not letting it get to you.

We had our Oral Med Administration checkoff the other day. Up till now, our Lab Instructors have been rather low key and helpful. This particular checkoff was different. We were given almost no information on how the test would go or insight into ways they would try to trip us up. We tested in groups of 5.

As we walked into the lab, the normally reasonable instructors began yelling at us like recruits on their way to basic training. "DROP YOUR THINGS!! GO FIND AN OPEN STATION!! HURRY UP!! NOW!! NOW!!" My immediate internal reaction was bemusement, but I tried to remain outwardly calm and nonresponsive as I gathered my stuff while they wailed and walked to an open station. A classmate walked in behind me and the instructors shifted their "wrath" to her. I almost laughed out loud at her shocked reaction to the R. Lee Ermey act.

After I finished the test, which I passed, I figured out the reason for the shenanigans: They wanted about a third of us to fail our first pass. Why? I came up with a few reasons:

1. Patient Safety. They didn't want this to be a test where we were given the answers. They wanted to see how we would react to completely random and unpredictable occurrences while passing meds. Our program values it's clinical sites and does not want to lose one because some dumbass student passed Med Administrations without being challenged. The Drill Sgt. act was contrived to get our heart rates up and rattle us before we even got to the test.

2. Educational Opportunity. Students can learn a hell of a lot from failing. We get three tries and the students who get remediation do have good learning experiences - including working under stress.

3. Program Validation. They must figure no Nursing Program worth it's salt has more than a 70% first-pass rate on Medication Administration checkoffs.

4. Recent graduate student screw up. One of my programs grads apparently went through a bunch of Pyxis machines emptying them of a drug because his calculation said he should give 100 tablets. Someone asked him what he was doing after he hit the 3rd machine. I think they want to shake that prospective guy out before he can take his boards.

Not that I wasn't rattled during my test. My tester for the Skills section was none other than my program's Dean and that was my first time meeting her. I stumbled around like a goon but I got it done.

I learned a lot about how to prepare for future checkoffs: It's kind of like a Haunted House the way things are thrown at you, but try to be as prepared, calm, and focused as you can. And don't worry about failing your first pass, we all are fodder for the mill at one time or another.

Good luck

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