So I am an older male nursing student and I just failed a clinical course in pediatrics. Prior to this course I had great grades and very good clinical evaluations. Because this was a semester course and the Peds portion was during the 1st half, I went on to complete my OB clinical during the 2nd half and received a great evaluation. Therefore I know this Peds evaluation was bogus and biased. Unfortunately though, the department's policy is if you fail a clinical you are out of the program.
An acquaintance of mine talked to a nursing professor from another nursing school with a BSN program and told her about my situation. One of the comments that the professor made was that it is typical for males to have problems with clinical instructors in Pediactrics and OB clinicals, especially older males.
I definately believe this was the case in my situation. Without going into a lot of details, it was apparent on the first day of class that my instructor had issues with me and even stated that, "we have issues that we need to work on or we aren't going to pass the class". This culminated in her making many factual falicies on my final evaluation. Bottom line was, among other things, she did not like that I spoke up for myself when she accused me of doing something wrong or, more rightly put, she wrongly accused me of doing something I didn't do.
Anyway, I am defending myself based on the many different factors and not just on the gender bias and/or discrimmination I felt occured. I wanted to know though, if any of you on this forum ever faced any discrimination or gender bias in your clinical classes? What happened? What did you do about it? Do you have any literature that details statistics about gender bias/discimination in nursing schools (I'm having a hard time finding any)? Did any of you seek legal help for it? Who did you handle it with your school/department? How did they handle it?
Any help, info, input, discussion, encouragement you can offer would help.
