Abusive and Cruel Clinical Instructors: Why??

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.[/quote]

I have a doctorate in another field that at this point I would love to go back to. I feel like a naive smuck. I have had lots of different teachers. My program was multidisciplinary and I took a full semester that was the same as the medical students and a full semster same as the dental students as well as other department. So I am very familiar with profs that are hard, cranky, eccentric, highly competitive, mentally ill. estly, I can handle difficult but no interest in being emotionally abused.

The way the nursing depts are different is that in other depts this abusive type of behavior by an instructor is looked down on and tolerated mainly because a person has tenure or is bringing in lots of grant money. If the person is kept on they tend to try to keep this person from doing major damage ot the students and in fact usually try to get rid of the person.

Nurses are also different as that this type of behavior is looked on as ok and a rite of passage by many. And of course I see especially the "seasoned nurses" talking about younger ones just "not being able to handle it". I got news for you. What you are "handling" is emotional abuse that you have been taught to tolerate. All of you out there tolerating this abuse are like crabs in a barrel trying to pull down everyone else that does not want to tolerate it. Yesterday I heard a student at the local high school was being arreste for punching a teacher. I have seen/heard one two many times that this is just something that happens if you are a nurse and you have to buck it up.

I had high hopes for this professional change and combining it with what I already have but am just about to throw in the towel and declare it a lost cause. Not because there are not good people out there in this field. But because as a majorly codependent person who has worked hard for my recovery and never wants to be in an abusive relationship again I am very attuned to emotional abuse and that what you all are describing here over and over and over.

I do not wish to be trained to take it again or as I hear it put here. On this site I almost laugh when I see the very smug "some people just arent cut out for nursing" in the context that the person that is writing this is somehow superior.

The main problem with nursing is nurses no matter how you cut it. People that need to be martyrs generally have ver low self esteem and I believe nursing attracts people with low self esteem in droves. This is also the reason so many are so mean to each other, people with low self esteem try to get pumped up from outside sources and the best way to do that is by putting another person down.

By the way I had a dream of being a nurse when I was young that I went out and pursued as an older person. I have seen here people saying that there is an idea that once someone is no longer codependent they no longer want to be a nurse. Maybe that is me.

I am pretty much at the point where I am just going to pay off my loans. Once that is over I will og to work every day with a smile on my face even if I am shovelin' poo knowing that my daily interactions will not be spent with a bunch of mean nurses who hate themselves and want to take it out on me cause I dont.

I know lots of you are wonderful people and I am sorry you are having to train yourselves to be treated ike nothing just to keep a job. I unfortunately have joined your ranks but hope my sentence will not be too long.

If you knew me in person you would know that I love people and have always tried to help in any way I can and will continue to do so. Perhaps just not in a field where I have to feel selfish for taking care of myself.

I'm so sorry you've had such a terrible experience! I guess I just want you to know it's not like that everywhere....my instructors (both theory and clinical) couldn't be more supportive...really, they're just fantastic! I'm in a second career and I was worried about the attititude you're talking about. I just wouldn't put up with it very well, it's just not in me. I'm in my 2nd of 3 years and even back in orientation, they told us that they chose us for the program because they thought that we have what it takes to be nurses...and that their job is to help us get there. Really, that's been the attitude for the whole program.

Corrections in clinical are made privately and kindly....really looking for how to correct the problem without you feeling like an idiot. One of our prof's was even talking about our assignments this term, and she was saying that she's always a bit nervous at the start of the term, because what if we don't like the assignments....I don't think I've ever had an instructor care if I LIKED the assignments.

Taking care of ourselves through the nursing program is actually part of our competencies...so there's not just lip service given to it...we're required to find ways to make sure we're taking care of ourselves. It's part of our clinical grading rubric (which is not pass/fail...it's half of our grade for the term, the other half being our lecture exam grades and papers). We even had a psychiatrist come and speak with the class about self-care during one of our clinical orientations, his practice specialty?....treating burn-out health care professionals.

Our nurses that we work with in clinical have been welcoming and patient as well (even with my sometimes gazillion questions!). They're so encouraging and cut me a lot more slack than I cut myself, that's for sure.

Of course none of this means that they're not tough graders....but never unfairly so, they just expect a lot of us, and so far the overwhelming majority of us have more than risen to meet the challenge.

So, I'm sooooooo sorry you're in such a toxic environment....but I really want you to know that the profession is NOT ALL like that.

Peace,
Cathie

I have a doctorate in another field that at this point I would love to go back to. I feel like a naive smuck. I have had lots of different teachers. My program was multidisciplinary and I took a full semester that was the same as the medical students and a full semster same as the dental students as well as other department. So I am very familiar with profs that are hard, cranky, eccentric, highly competitive, mentally ill. estly, I can handle difficult but no interest in being emotionally abused.

The way the nursing depts are different is that in other depts this abusive type of behavior by an instructor is looked down on and tolerated mainly because a person has tenure or is bringing in lots of grant money. If the person is kept on they tend to try to keep this person from doing major damage ot the students and in fact usually try to get rid of the person.

Nurses are also different as that this type of behavior is looked on as ok and a rite of passage by many. And of course I see especially the "seasoned nurses" talking about younger ones just "not being able to handle it". I got news for you. What you are "handling" is emotional abuse that you have been taught to tolerate. All of you out there tolerating this abuse are like crabs in a barrel trying to pull down everyone else that does not want to tolerate it. Yesterday I heard a student at the local high school was being arreste for punching a teacher. I have seen/heard one two many times that this is just something that happens if you are a nurse and you have to buck it up.

I had high hopes for this professional change and combining it with what I already have but am just about to throw in the towel and declare it a lost cause. Not because there are not good people out there in this field. But because as a majorly codependent person who has worked hard for my recovery and never wants to be in an abusive relationship again I am very attuned to emotional abuse and that what you all are describing here over and over and over.

I do not wish to be trained to take it again or as I hear it put here. On this site I almost laugh when I see the very smug "some people just arent cut out for nursing" in the context that the person that is writing this is somehow superior.

The main problem with nursing is nurses no matter how you cut it. People that need to be martyrs generally have ver low self esteem and I believe nursing attracts people with low self esteem in droves. This is also the reason so many are so mean to each other, people with low self esteem try to get pumped up from outside sources and the best way to do that is by putting another person down.

By the way I had a dream of being a nurse when I was young that I went out and pursued as an older person. I have seen here people saying that there is an idea that once someone is no longer codependent they no longer want to be a nurse. Maybe that is me.

I am pretty much at the point where I am just going to pay off my loans. Once that is over I will og to work every day with a smile on my face even if I am shovelin' poo knowing that my daily interactions will not be spent with a bunch of mean nurses who hate themselves and want to take it out on me cause I dont.

I know lots of you are wonderful people and I am sorry you are having to train yourselves to be treated ike nothing just to keep a job. I unfortunately have joined your ranks but hope my sentence will not be too long.

If you knew me in person you would know that I love people and have always tried to help in any way I can and will continue to do so. Perhaps just not in a field where I have to feel selfish for taking care of myself.[/quote]


misplaced1- I wish I could give you a STANDING OVATION FOR THIS!! I could have not said it any more perfectly!!

I thank every single one of my mean, hardcore, abusive, and angry professors every single day I work.

Nursing school is like boot camp, you "sweat today so that you don't bleed tomorrow."

They gave me the single greatest tool I could have ever received, how to think and act quickly in extreme stress.

Yeah your Prof are ******** now but what do you do when the patient is screaming for help, the family is yelling at you, your charge nurse is barking orders, the Doc is breathing down your neck an two different patients are circling the drain??? Trust me the floor is far more abusive and cruel than school ever was.

Today grades are on the line, tomorrow life and limb.

Nursing is not like other professions, lives are literally on the line in a very real fashion.

If caring were enough then everyone would be a Nurse. We are not paid to care, we are paid to deal with stress and ********.

Thanks for giving hope that their are good instructors out there. I'm at the end of a rotation and my CI suddenly decides to tell us that we all are preforming below what she thinks we should be. She believes we are missing things that we should know by now, but for the most part can't say what, she says we "hesitate". It's very hard to understand what that means, we all are eager to learn and many things we haven't had much practice because this is the beginning of our second year. I received a stellar review for midterm and just a month later I'm told I'm not getting it? Another strange thing was we have this thing called team leader......We are to go around and help out the others with whatever and review things with them, I was held responsible for one girl who was missing a pill when she was scanning her meds in the MED ROOM with the instructor before she gave them, is this usual for students to be written up for the mistake of another? I was never informed that this was going to be on me or I would have counted her meds myself. very discouraged at this point by her inablitiy to examine her own lack of being through and explaining what she expected of us in the beginning

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one in this situation.

We had this bizarre, I would describe it as hazing, situation happen last week at school. We had a lab check with the senior LPN class running the checkoffs. After everything was done, the instructors brought in the senior class where we were berated by both the instructors and the students. Words can't describe how uncomfortable and inappropriate this was.

Instead of pulling the students aside who didn't do well, who didn't take this lab seriously, they nastily accused us all of being unprofessional, of being bad students. I was left feeling very angry.

I was angry and confused. What was the whole point of this? If I wasn't performing up to par, let me know--I need to know. This group punishment approach isn't an appropriate way to teach or to lead.

It's hard to explain, but the bottom line is, I lost respect for my instructors and the senior class. Maybe this sort of hazing works for kids, but I'm an adult capable of adult interactions. I'm just ready to get this semester over with; hopefully I can make it through without saying something I'll regret.

Good idea to just lay low and don't put your self in the line of fire by saying something you will regret. I have no idea why these things happen, but I do know that school doesn't last forever and when it's over you will have a choice weather you stay in an abusive environment or leave. I haven't experienced this kind of treatment in the hospital setting in 6 years I've worked in one. Bottom line is that most of theses people are immature and have a self esteem problem. They let the power they think they have over you go to their heads and many of them don't have what it takes to see the potential in others just the flaws or shall we say inexperience that needs nurture not spiritual destruction. Keep in mind why you came to this place and your calling in prospective, I really believe that you can turn this experience into something to your advantage, when you see this kind of behavior from people you don't expect it from you will say to your self "I've seen this before and I can handle it without it affecting me or messing up my day. I just wish that theses bullies would remember where they came from, but they just act like they have all been perfect with out a mistake. Mistakes now that are corrected mean less latter. You will overcome don't give into the pressure.