Anyone else had this experience... is the BSN program better

Published

My hubby and I are attending an LVN program together, this is the last couple weeks of our first semester - 2 more to go. We are both experiencing so much frustration that we have at many times considered dropping out. Not due to grades as we are both at the top of our class as far as that goes, but due to the instructors. We have a few instructors all of which are completely disorganized, don't communicate with each other, catty, and there seems to be no accountability. We spend day after day literally wasting time by waiting on instructors to arrive (often more then 15 minutes late to class), then waiting for them to figure out what we are doing today, then once one of them figures out what we are doing the other one comes along and gets on to someone for doing it that way and then we have to waste some more time for the instructors to tell us how we all never listen, are never organized, and need to do better. One instructor on occassion looses her temper and berates the students in front of each other telling them things like 'you are going to be a horrible nurse', 'if it were up to me i would kick you out'. OH and then there is the testing. We have never tested when we were supposed to, things are always changed at the last minute, and when you get the test there is a high likelihood that you will look on the bottom and see it is a test from 1997 and does not have any information from your current materials. ALL the materials are old. We paid for a syllabus that I swear is dated on most worksheets, study guides, and notes.. before 2001. It is insane the amount of chaos we have to deal with on a daily basis, simply because the instructors have no idea what they are doing, or what day it is for that matter. And if that is not enough most of them have the attitude that LVN school is just hard and we are just not coping well if we complain .. we need to be more flexible they say..

I am just wondering is this the norm for LVN schools. I mean I could kinda see why, as the pay is not lucrative in teaching therefore you are not likely to get a lot of stellar instructors. BUT does it get better in the BSN program.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in OB (with a history of cardiac).

Heh...do you go to my school? I swear those words have come out of my instructors mouth on more than a few occasions in some form or another...berating us and demeaning us. My school is just bad...the instructors are ok, but the administration sucks, the clinicals suck in that it seems that for all 3 clinicals we go to the same places: nursing homes, and for our peeds clinical we go to a day care. Maybe 2 or 3 groups get to go to a hospital for a rotation but that's pretty much a game o chance. Not much for variety.. I don't think all programs are that icky, but it certainly seems to be the case for our schools isn't it?

Find a way to file a complaint, see if any of the other students are sick of it and do something about it. It's what I should do, because if they tell us we're going to be crappy nurses they're creating a self-fullfilling prophesy by telling us that.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

This sounds exactly like my school...I'm in the LPN program and my clinical instructor sucks, gives you absolutely NO encouragement whatsoever, the woman who taught us Fundamentals and Dosage is on another clinical group and the woman who is with us now is EVIL. She is condescending, refuses to answer questions, and is downright rude. *sigh* I would drop, but the folks at my school would probably put me with the same *****. No decent clinical sites, unless you count nursing homes, a woman who is still on staff who cheated her son through the program, the list goes on. None of the people I complain to (including the dean) seem to give a **** though.

I also notice by talking to some of the people who were in this program prior to me say that many of the instructors change, so obviously they can't keep anyone quality.

I'm just counting down the days til Clinical one is over. 11 days to go... *sigh*

I dread going to Clinicals every day, it's that bad.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

hehe...strandysmommy....can't be your school HAS to be the one i went to!!! I went through the LPN program last year and it was the worst year of my life!!! Not course wise but the instructors. We had one that was a true teacher and one that i'm not really sure what she was...other than a drama queen.....but it wasn't a teacher! She knew her stuff but she couldn't teach it for the life of her...she said she left the hospital and all that money to teach but we suspect she was let go. They had tension between them and it was basically a control issue .... there was major favoritism shown and it was so blatenly obvious. I am now in an ADN program and chose to go straight through the entire program and one of my LPN instructors told me i was dumb for repeating the first half of the program...i was so glad to get to the end of the program...now i have wonderful instructors and i hate to see the semester end!

I don't really have much advice .... i am the type of person that holds things in and just eventually lets it go .... i would just deal with it from 7-3 everyday and go home and have a glass of wine and a long hot bath!

It will be worth it in the end....but don't change yourself to fit into their ways...go and get your work done and just grin and bear it...i wouldn't complain until the end of the program. Just my opinion...i would not want to be the center of their amusement for the rest of my time in the program. There was issues where a student complained about one of our instructors and she made comments the rest of the year that we knew was meant for the student that acutally complained.

Good Luck!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

This is all to familar. An no it doesn't necerssarly get better in the RN program. At least ours didn't. Midway through our LPN year we found out out school was on accidemic probation, and had been since 2000. The reason low board pass rate. They fixed that in 2005 they failed almost half the class. Aparently fed up half the instructors left for what ever reason. After scrambling to find instructors for the fall 2005 semester it began only to finish with a full third less that they started with. The ADN course equally lacking in instructors failed almost half of the class. I couldn't believe they could keep any kind of reputation with this quality of teaching. So I called the state board of nursing, the people who originally place them on probation. Funny thing, there rating is based on the number of people who pass the board not the number who start or graduate from the class. In other words the can graduate the top one percent of the class, allow them to go on to boards, and they end up with a 100% pass rate. And what happens to the other 99% of the class. Too bad they are out of luck. a year later and a few thousand poorer they might get to try again if they haven't upset anyone on the selection board. This appears to be all to common and it doesnt look like our state boards are willing to anything about it. I would imagine that the majority of us keep quiet and just dont say anything for fear of ramifications in the hopes that we will get that slim chance of making it thru next year.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

My comment might anger a few souls, and I apologize in advance.

There's an excellent reason why someone would take an $8 to $10 per hour pay cut to teach nursing. Either they truly love teaching, are physically handicapped, or were incompetent hospital employees. One of my instructors was being paid $45 hourly as an RN at a Southern California hospital, and she now earns $29 as a clinical instructor. She divulged that she had been fired from every hospital job she ever held. Two of my instructors were handicapped, with one being wheelchair-bound due to post-polio.

One of my instructors quietly admitted that he was an incompetent hospital nurse but has found his niche as an instructor. Another instructor had three children under the age of 18 and needed the steady daytime hours so she could be at home with her family during the evenings. The female instructors were catty and gossipy, and much of the trash-talk reached the ears of the students. I was dissatisfied with my experience in LVN school. There are, however, varying reasons for the bad attitudes of instructors.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Peds stepdown ICU.
My comment might anger a few souls, and I apologize in advance.

There's an excellent reason why someone would take an $8 to $10 per hour pay cut to teach nursing. Either they truly love teaching, are physically handicapped, or were incompetent hospital employees. One of my instructors was being paid $45 hourly as an RN at a Southern California hospital, and she now earns $29 as a clinical instructor. She divulged that she had been fired from every hospital job she ever held. Two of my instructors were handicapped, with one being wheelchair-bound due to post-polio.

One of my instructors quietly admitted that he was an incompetent hospital nurse but has found his niche as an instructor. Another instructor had three children under the age of 18 and needed the steady daytime hours so she could be at home with her family during the evenings. The female instructors were catty and gossipy, and much of the trash-talk reached the ears of the students. I was dissatisfied with my experience in LVN school. There are, however, varying reasons for the bad attitudes of instructors.

WoW!!! You are right...this post is so disturbing that it leaves me speechless.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NA, Stepdown, L&D, Trauma ICU, ER.

I don't think that it's a unique LVN school phenomenon. I'm an RN and it seemed like the teachers I had were either the old school "eat their young" type nurses, or the blithering idiot type. The few I had who didn't fit either profile had all gone back to the hospital by the time I graduated. The worst one had complaints written to the hospital about her. The patients son wrote that the student taking care of his mother had been wonderful, but the instructor was a mean spirited nasty old woman who shouldn't be allowed near anyone in need of kindness and compassion.

As hard as it is to do the care plans, meds, patho pages, for clinicals and studying in for class, some teachers still think they need to make it harder by calling students immature and telling them that they won't make it on the floor, even if the manage to graduate. Go figure!

I just made my mantra "I'm not going to let that ***** make me cry!" and concentrated on ignoring them. As long as your grades are good, and you don't make dangerous or blatently neglectful clinical mistakes you're gonna get through it. Good luck

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I just made my mantra "I'm not going to let that ***** make me cry!" and concentrated on ignoring them. As long as your grades are good, and you don't make dangerous or blatently neglectful clinical mistakes you're gonna get through it. Good luck
This is excellent advice.
Up Vote Up Vote ×
My comment might anger a few souls, and I apologize in advance.

There's an excellent reason why someone would take an $8 to $10 per hour pay cut to teach nursing. Either they truly love teaching, are physically handicapped, or were incompetent hospital employees. One of my instructors was being paid $45 hourly as an RN at a Southern California hospital, and she now earns $29 as a clinical instructor. She divulged that she had been fired from every hospital job she ever held. Two of my instructors were handicapped, with one being wheelchair-bound due to post-polio.

One of my instructors quietly admitted that he was an incompetent hospital nurse but has found his niche as an instructor. Another instructor had three children under the age of 18 and needed the steady daytime hours so she could be at home with her family during the evenings. The female instructors were catty and gossipy, and much of the trash-talk reached the ears of the students. I was dissatisfied with my experience in LVN school. There are, however, varying reasons for the bad attitudes of instructors.

Reading this was like listening to someone who had been eavesdropping on my previous conversations about school. I swear you said almost exactly the way I did. AMEN! I still have 8 months to go, (graduate in Aug. 06) and I dread every minute of it really, but I will not allow them to make me quit. However, I must admit if we had not already invested so much time and money into this both of us would have made the decision to just go for our BSN. If I were ever to be asked if it were worth it to go straight for the LVN/LPN and work your way thru the rest I would say "NO!, unless you only want to be an LPN then don't go thru the program it is way to frustrating and if you are not able to self teach you will not make it." I say that last part because we have seen so many be lost just because of the incomptent teaching ability of our instructors.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
This is all to familar. An no it doesn't necerssarly get better in the RN program. At least ours didn't. Midway through our LPN year we found out out school was on accidemic probation, and had been since 2000. The reason low board pass rate. They fixed that in 2005 they failed almost half the class. Aparently fed up half the instructors left for what ever reason. After scrambling to find instructors for the fall 2005 semester it began only to finish with a full third less that they started with. The ADN course equally lacking in instructors failed almost half of the class. I couldn't believe they could keep any kind of reputation with this quality of teaching. So I called the state board of nursing, the people who originally place them on probation. Funny thing, there rating is based on the number of people who pass the board not the number who start or graduate from the class. In other words the can graduate the top one percent of the class, allow them to go on to boards, and they end up with a 100% pass rate. And what happens to the other 99% of the class. Too bad they are out of luck. a year later and a few thousand poorer they might get to try again if they haven't upset anyone on the selection board. This appears to be all to common and it doesnt look like our state boards are willing to anything about it. I would imagine that the majority of us keep quiet and just dont say anything for fear of ramifications in the hopes that we will get that slim chance of making it thru next year.

This is the case with our school. On avg 35 students start and only around 15 graduate. They use a practice board to eliminate students at the very end. They have what they refer to as a clinical U and once the practice boards have been taken they start handing out clinical U's - deserved or undeserved - to those who do not fair well on the practice exam. They don't come right out and say this though, this is information I have gotten from previous graduating class members. I am not concerned as I am fortunate enough to test fairly well. However, it angers me because there are people in our class that I know in the end will not make it because they either do not have the previous educational background, or they are unable to self teach. In the end that is what it boils down to at our school. It is a self taught program with the assistance of instructors who will most likely misinform you (though their misinformation usually makes it's way to the test). Graduation cannot be soon enough :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Can the education departments in our state boards of nursing really be so dumb as to let this continue. Or is it they just dont care. This seams so easy to fix. If the state boards evaluated the schools on the number of students who completed the course, start thru passing boards rather than just the minority who were allowed to take the boards and passed then the schools would have to improve their teaching. There would be a lot more qualified nurses and a lot less inadequate instructors.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion