Bullying by Professors in Nursing School

Dear Meeks 08,

It is with personal interest that I respond to your request for information on nursing school professor bullying. You see, I am one of countless students who each year experience the type of abuse which you are trying to document.

Last semester was an eye opener for me, I was previously a straight A student with a 4.0 GPA. I had the misfortune to be accepted to an absolutely horrid nursing program at a small community college in Arizona. The director and some of her staff (not all) are extremely abusive and I question how they can even be in a healthcare profession. They leave more disease in their wake than Typhoid Mary...

You should know your quest for bullying documentation with instructors is only scratching the surface of what is already well known and documented to be a rampant problem within the nursing profession. Here is a link to a sentinel event alert from last year by The Joint Commission that you should read. http://www.jointcommission.org/Senti...ert/sea_40.htm

I was flunked out of that substandard nursing program based on purely subjective evaluations in retaliation for not keeping my mouth shut in the face of absurd instruction and inconsistency among teaching staff who didn't even bother to read their own textbook. While most other students shared my opinion, they were all too scared to stand up to these thugs who don't even deserve to be called faculty. While my battle with these cretins is just beginning, chances are it will evolve into the subject of a book detailing the very topic you struggle to find documentation on.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share with you some related information I uncovered in a city not far from that miserable excuse for a nursing school I recently attended. This story comes to us from the nursing department on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/Sout...sity.shooting/

As you see, the topic is shooting... Please follow this next link to read 22 pages of the gunman's own words detailing just what drove him to such desperate acts of violence. You may be surprised to learn that Mr. Flores was already a respected nurse and a Gulf War veteran. I don't condone what Robert Flores did, but after my own experiences with the BS you are researching, I more than understand his frustration with a system that lacks accountability from those who wield it's authority.
http://www.azstarnet.com/specialreport/

Meeks08, there are no easy answers to complex problems such as those you are attempting to address. My first thought was the nursing shortage has enabled nursing profession washouts another opportunity to belittle and demoralize an even weaker variety of young nurse, the student. Yet this problem with nurses "Eating their young" has been ongoing and is nothing new. My second thought was that those who can will do, and those who cannot will teach. Obviously, not all nursing instructors are losers like the group I just experienced, but sadly this band of thugs is all I know of the healthcare profession's educational system.

Good Luck to you Meeks08!!!

Jakesdad

This is a topic I would love to talk people more about. I began nursing school this past spring and had serious problem with my clinical instructor. I realized she was clearly going to flunk me regardless of what I did. Feeling that I was being treated unfairly I went to the director of nursing who suggested I either have some sort of negotiated intervention with the prof or retake the 8 hour fundamental course the following semester. Under the college's normal policies I would have to sit out a semester and reapply if I dropped but the director offered to put me on a special list which would allow me to retake in the fall. Given that my psyche had unraveled by this point and I had not faith in the negotiation would work out (clincial instructors have all the power), I decided to drop. I contacted the director a few weeks ago to confirm that day for registration to find out she had changed her mind. So now I'm out of the program figuring out my next move.

Do you have any ideas on how I might go about telling my story? Who can I complain to?

Frustration does not justify the murder of three nursing professors. I am so glad you don't condone it, but would feel better about your ethical stance if you had not put a "but" behind that statement.

For you to suggest that Robert Flores was a "respected nurse" shows a breathtaking lack of research on your part. Robert Flores was mentally ill, and a murderer. Period. What he saw as "bullying" was a legitimate evaluation that he was mentally and emotionally unfit to care for vulnerable patients. Employers and instructors both came to that conclusion, and their decision to remove him from the academic and work environments fueled his anger and need for revenge.

http://wc.arizona.edu/papers/96/47/01_1.html
"At least two of the three professors murdered Monday expressed concern about Robert Stewart Flores Jr.'s "anger," one as recently as Saturday night, according to several sources.
Assistant professor Robin Rogers, Flores' first victim, told friends and family she had fears about Flores when he failed her class last semester.
Rogers reportedly voiced her concerns at a church service at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church last Saturday night, according to nursing professor Joann Glittenberg.
Rogers asked that church members pray for her to be protected from Flores, Glittenberg said.
Roger's husband, Phillip, recalled that she had anxiety about Flores during the term.
"She had him last semester and she expressed concerns then," Phillip Rogers said. "And this year, when he failed the critical care course, she had concerns · She was concerned that he might act out in some way; but she didn't have any fear or premonition that he would do something this drastic."


I have always made it a policy to stay out of the student side of allnurses....students need somewhere to vent...but your assertions are too outrageous to ignore. Robin Rogers, Cheryl McGaffic, and Barbara Monroe...remember their names.


http://www.journalofnursingeducation...sp?thing=35380

To get the links to work in the preceding posts, just right click the link and select "Save link as", and select a directory. It will save a hard copy on your hard drive that you can read at your leisure.

Dunno if anyone has mentioned it yet, but 'Google Scholar' may also help you with your search.