Abusive and Cruel Clinical Instructors: Why??

I recently started a new semester of nursing school with a different CI, and am already seriously concerned that she is going to fail me. Today she continuously singled me out in front of my 5 other classmates. During our group meeting, she interrupted my report on my patient, insinuated that I was making stuff up about my patient's status, said I needed to work on it, and asked the next student to start her report. When I later pointed out to her that my patient did in fact have a condition that she just previously remarked she did not see, she completely dismissed the fact that she had embarrassed me in front of my classmates. Whenever we ask her questions, she always gives condescending, snippy remarks like "Well, yea." and "Obviously no." leaving us feeling stupid and on our own. She is extremely insensitive and will share things with the class that students have hoped she would keep confidential. Basically I have an instructor who makes us feel stupid when we ask her to teach. I don't know how I will ever learn how to properly document on my patient's progress unless I seek help from my other teachers. I actually considered going to our administrator about this, but do not want to start anything if it will only cause more trouble and no solution. I doubt that I can be transferred into another clinical group considering all the other CI's at our school already have more students than my own CI. I just have this awful fear that I will do well on my written exams and reports and still won't be able to continue nursing school, because my CI failed me.

Try and get through this rotation is the only advice I can give you. The instructor I had took something away from me so the previous post concerning them scarring you is very true. I find myself trying to stay under the radar now. I'm almost relieved when my new instructor is with someone else. But I've learned more in the last two weeks than I did that entire rotation. Our instructor used us as free CNA labor for her hospital.

What many of these schools really need to understand is that by allowing this to go on they are not producing a nurse with skills. They are producing a nurse who is already jaded to the profession, who feels that may never be confident. I am not going to take abuse again though. I will quit first. I had a nurse the other day jump all over my tush because of my allowing the patient the time to finish praying rather than interrupting the time alone with their priest and family. JMVHO but emptying the urinal and the basic care I needed to do could wait five minutes for the patient to have their spiritual needs met. I relayed the information to my instructor, and if I'm labelled as a troublemaker so be it.

Rule one, document all that the instructor said to you and her attitude towards you and keep it at a safe place.

I've come across instructors like that clinical and theory instructors.
One said that their new policy was to try to instill fear to gain respect. Others were mean and you could tell, just to motivate you to do the best.

I've seen one leave teaching (which was a blessing to us all)
One getting pulled from teaching to something more office related
But I've seen ones that were just evil. They do it for the power trip sometimes. They worked for years at bedside and you've given them just a taste of power and they go nuts.

They're pretty unpleasant.

Well said. I must say I have not experienced this at my school. I got the toughest clinical instructor according to everyone else and I learned so much. She expected nothing but the best, but she did let you know if you were doing well.

C&B, if you were my student, I would have given you an "A" for the day for your excellent holistic assessment! I would have jumped all over the tush of any nurse who would DARE harass a student of mine for respecting a patient's spiritual needs.

I have to say that I am late to this discussion, but, having been a clinical instructor, I never tried to be intimidating or rigid. I feel secure enough in myself as a person to not have to bully students or other nurses. My biggest challenge was that I was a bit rusty in my clinical skills and, in retrospect, I should have asked for much more orientation to the clinical facilities at which I taught. It is a little ridiculous that a school will put an instructor, especially an adjunct, in a facility in which he/she has never even set foot! However, I did have one student who took advantage of my easy-going nature and, looking at it from the other side of the issue, I was definitely hurt by her actions and her duplicity. I haven't taught in a clinical setting since then and, while I would rather be teaching in a classroom, I might be at least a little wary if I do teach clinicals again because of how manipulative this student was. It isn't right---but my guard is definitely up. I believed that if I treated students with respect, they would in turn respect me---but then again, the rest of my students were great, so I should not let one bad apple spoil the entire bunch.

Actually, the experience burned me out so badly that I thought I would never want to teach again. But, especially after reading the posts here, I know that I am needed. Thank you for reinforcing that for me.

BTW, instructors from hell exist in all sorts of programs, even at the graduate level. I am sorry about the horrible experiences many of the posters on this thread have had but it does help me to realize that I wasn't the only one to which something like this happened. Yeah, I had it happen to me as a student, too, and it is NOT a pleasant experience. Please feel free to PM me if you ever need a shoulder.

I too had a bad nursing instructor. She would say are you ready to pass meds when I'd say yes she would be like you don't have the insulin syringe ready what are you going to give it with your finger. The syringe was right beside the pyxis machine so not like I needed to have it out. Then she would try to rush me through pulling up meds and say the pyxis is going to run out of time and error out. One time I had a patient that had abnormal lung sounds so I was like mrs*** you might want the other students to listen to this. Her reply was I John I think they have all heard lung sounds, in a really smart way. I worried and just hated every minute of my clinicals with her, learned nothing, and built a hate for her. My point is this if you are a clinical instructor don't treat your students like crap, you could be their pt or they may be your supervisor someday. Plus you should want to teach them so that they can become an excellent nurse. If you're a nursing student don't let an instructor intimidate you. one you are paying them to teach you, second you deserve better, third you should just report them. One of my friends working on the floor accidently squired some of the insulin out of a syringe and was too nervous to tell her so just gave the lower dose. That puts pt in harms way so just remember that next time you are a total hag to your students.
P.S. I told her what I thought. One day at the pyxis machine when I was pulling up insulin, I told her that I was not going to rush and she as a clinical instructor shouldn't want us to rush through a med esp one that can be very dangerous. She was shocked and speachless. If you are the instructor reading this post I really hope you grow up and get over your power trip because your just ruining new nurses and we all think you were a horrible instructor...
I've said my peace thanks for reading

Some of them are on a powertrip.... Don't put up with it report them to their supervisor and then board of nursing. That will stop the BS...

I guess I'm lucky because most of our clinical instructors are pretty cool. They are SUPER strict and will make you re-do your checkoffs for ANY little reason but they are also patient and respectable. I have heard horror stories though about nursing school and I'm sorry you have to deal with those types of people, it's abuse.

Thank you for this thread! I haven't read all of the responses, but have my problem answered. I started my class at the local CC in mid August. The following week we saw the VS video on Wednesday afternoon, and were checked off on Friday morning. I really messed up the pulses because I have nerve damage in my fingertips. Another student in my class also had this problem, but is not "disabled". I was told last week that I would not be allowed to go to clinicals because of this. I was never given another opportunity to re-test like the other student, but was checked off on everything else. I can do it now, due to the suggestions on this MB. I'll have to find another program, but think that my 103 GPA and the fact that I was noted to always be prompt will only help. Is there a way to find out which programs have instructive, non abusive teachers? I learn much more through encouragement and instruction that screaming rants. I found it ironic that these instructors spent more time teaching the different types of abuse, then yelled at me that I was NEVER going to succeed??

Thank you so much!