good nursing instructors wanted!

dolphinRN · Dec 2, 2004

Sounds like you wound up with a school full of "instructors". We had a few bad apples, but not all of them in the program.

The one funny thing I do remember is working as a NA at a hospital and while I was in school, one of the instructors began working there. It really put me on edge....until the day she was helping me make an occupied bed and she threw the dirty linens on the floor: a no-no in school.

So, do as we say in class, but not as we do in real life? :confused:

maplebunny · Dec 2, 2004

Sorry to hear about your instructors - I thought we had a monopoly on them at my "institution". Hang in there.

Maplebunny

llg, PhD, RN · Dec 2, 2004

Just keep these experiences in mind when you go to vote in the future. It's the voters who choose the politicians -- who in turn decide how much to support higher education -- which determines faculty pay and benefits -- which determines the quality of the people schools can attract.

So ... when you vote in the future ... remember a vote for "tax cuts" is a vote for "bad nursing instructors." That may be a bit of an over-simplification, but there is a definite connection between the support given to schools and the quality of what they can provide.

The same is true for paying tuition.

I'm sorry you have been going to a school with such bad instructors. I hope there are better teachers and role models in your future.

llg

classicaldreams · Dec 2, 2004

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I know I'm not the only one dealing with poor instruction and modeling. Ilg, thank you for helping me with that connection. I think there is some validity in your statement, however, I found the science and math departments at this same community college to be very different. The nursing dept., however, seems to operate under their own rules. Such a sad reflection upon the nursing profession in my little corner of the world.

Classicaldreams

llg, PhD, RN · Dec 2, 2004

Ilg, thank you for helping me with that connection. I think there is some validity in your statement, however, I found the science and math departments at this same community college to be very different. The nursing dept., however, seems to operate under their own rules. Such a sad reflection upon the nursing profession in my little corner of the world.
Classicaldreams

People with graduate degrees in the sciences, math, social science, etc. are a dime a dozen and will work for peanuts. There are usually dozens of applicants for every job available at a respectable university. Every morning, I read The Chronical of Higher Education and read stories of how hard it is to find a job as a college faculty member in those other disciplines. There are people who send out 50 applications for 2 or 3 years in a row hoping to land a job as they finish their doctoral disertation and use up whatever temporary post-doctoral positions they can find.

Nursing is in a different situation. There is a shortage of people prepared at the graduate level and there is a lot of competition among employers to attract the best people. The compensation packages from hospitals are much higher than schools provide. Yes, some great people go into teaching -- but they usually make a financial sacrifice to do so. Therefore, some schools are desparate and will hire people who are not so great ... and they are afraid to give those who are willing to stay a hard time about their quality for fear they will leave. To make matters worse, this has been going on for years ... and now, many of the top administrators making the decisions for the schools are simply those former mediocre teachers who have risen to the top from attrition.

Part of my job is to be my hospital's liaison with the local schools of nursing. Some of the schools and the their instructors are good: some are frighteningly underqualified and should not be teaching. But until those schools start paying competitive wages, me and most of my friends will keep our hospital jobs where the pay and working conditions are much, much better.

llg

PJMommy · Dec 2, 2004

I would add another opinion on this problem. I've been interested in teaching since I attended school. However, when I last inquired, I was told that the only faculty positions were full-time only. In other words, if I actually wanted to work in a clinical environment/at-the-bedside to keep my skills current - I'd need to do that on my own time. Add a couple 12-hour shifts to a 40-hour workweek -- no thanks.

Institutions should be encouraging their staff to maintain clinical skills. I've only been out of school for less than a year and recently had to teach several skills to nursing students on our unit because their instructor didn't "remember how" to do these skills. What's wrong with this picture?!?!

llg, PhD, RN · Dec 2, 2004

I would add another opinion on this problem. I've been interested in teaching since I attended school. However, when I last inquired, I was told that the only faculty positions were full-time only. In other words, if I actually wanted to work in a clinical environment/at-the-bedside to keep my skills current - I'd need to do that on my own time. Add a couple 12-hour shifts to a 40-hour workweek -- no thanks.
Institutions should be encouraging their staff to maintain clinical skills. I've only been out of school for less than a year and recently had to teach several skills to nursing students on our unit because their instructor didn't "remember how" to do these skills. What's wrong with this picture?!?!

That's a great example of what I meant when I said that some of the senior administrators at schools are simply the bad instructors who have risen to the top of their school's administration because they are the senior people there. They were mediocre instructors who got seniority and became mediocre administrators. They are not capable of solving serious problems.

Thank's for sharing ...

llg