I had a situation in class yesterday where i was the victim of bullying by a number of other students. Briefly, they were making fun of my level of class participation. It was not in fun - it was nasty!
I have a class presentation due next week and am considering making class bullying my subject. The tutor has been advised.
So, all you students and new graduates out there, I'm doing a survey on whether you've been bullied in class and, if so, how did you deal with it?
I'm hoping that I can get my message accross to these people without having to involve the Institute and without confrontation.
In my school most of the students are older students with most being between 30 and 40. It is so infuriating to sit in class and hear the 3 "women" behind me belittle and pick on other students. Sometimes they even pick on the teachers. One of our teachers (OB) is new this semester. She is awful in lectures but great as a clinical instructor. You can see she is really struggling during the lecture and my heart goes out to her. Her lectures are really ineffective but in time they will get better. These students make snide remarks about her and it is so rude. Some students go as far to say "I don't like anyone on the other side of the room". They always have a comment about others. I can not believe these people are going to be nurses.
I find a lot of people who are in nursing schools have "strong" personalities to put it in a nice way. I don't understand this need to be mean to others. We are put here on this earth to help one another. We need to be kind towards others. I don't know where these student's minds are at.
I myself try not to associate with these "types".
There is hope though. I work as an aide on a cardiac floor and the nurses there are great!!!
Specializes in Nursing Ed, Ob/GYN, AD, LTC, Rehab.
I feel pretty lucky and have never been bullied before in nursing school or by nurses in clinicals. My class is like a family and we look out for eachother.
I had a situation in class yesterday where i was the victim of bullying by a number of other students. Briefly, they were making fun of my level of class participation. It was not in fun - it was nasty!
I would appreciate your input. Thanks.
I would do the project for sure. I would also advise the instructor of the behavior and remind her/him that you are paying for an education which doesn't include this type of behavior. I would also remind her that there are several nursing forums on the Web and the school wouldn't benefit financially from negative publicity. I would also remind her/him that nursing schools are closing because of lack of nurses.
I am a firm believer that if a person behaves unprofessionally, that his/her supoervisor or instructor should immediately be notified.
Because of women's lib, women can by anything they want to be. Hence, the nursing shortage. It's unfortuneate that low lifes are entering the profession.
Also, be advised that people who exhibit this behavior are low lifes and you are not.
during class/clinical one day a small group of them tried that crap with me. every time i went to speak one of them kept bantering me...challenging me...you know being really-really immature and rude! i finally turned around and looked at her...i never said a word...i just stared at her. she started to get so nervous...she finally yelled out directly in my face what! i said without skipping a beat..."oh, i am truly sorry. i was just stunned by your immaturity...i have never seen someone behave so childish. i do apologize for making you feel uncomfortable. i would never purposely try and make someone feel uncomfortable and i would never purposely be so rude"!
she never spoke to me again or bothered me again. she also failed out of nursing school...as a matter of fact she was kicked out for cheating and plagerism.
good for you. bravo!!! idiots who enter the profession and attempt to turn it into blue collar world have got to go and i am so happy that you stood up for yourself
Specializes in Tele Step Down, Oncology, ICU, Med/Surg.
Hello:
Am a older student, and had a woman who sat across from me in who was in her early 20's. Lovely, tall, commanding blond girl with a forcefull voice/attitude. Her family immigrated from some slavic country (I'm Italian and she could understand some of my conversation when I was talking to my brother--a police officer who was sharing some sensitive information with me, hence the Italina, that she was able to figure out).
She apparently received lots of lay-training while she was a pre-teen volunteering in hospitals that treated war injuries as she would talk back to the teacher as if she knew everything. She was a decent and smart student, but very immpatient and unfocused and seemed to have difficulty with more abstract concepts.
I saw her once behind the wheel of her car while walking with kids downtown, and she looked like she was ready to get violent with this other person that had pulled up next to her--she could swear like a truck driver and did so constantly. She overloaded herself uneccesarily--as she was still living at home--and would end up dropping a couple classes every semester. This made her even more annoying in classes as she would act like the expert in everything for the first couple weeks.
I had had her in anatomy, but she sat far away from me. She always wanted to copy off my anatomy labs, and I did offer to help her a couple times but not to the point of direct coping. She made it a point to sit next to me in physio. At that point, she became obsessed with my life and my grades and would pressure me to share my scores with her and the class. She was very domineering yet wasn't very good at labs--and she was my lab partner so it made things tense.
She would make loud, disparaging comments about the fact that I was "only" a stay at home mom (raising three kids, one still in diapes and one with special needs, while fighting breast cancer, while in litigation with the local school district, while helping my parents die of cancer, while running my house, cooking, cleaning and car pooling my kids to their three different schools all while holding down at least 12 units a semester--try that little 20 year old baby girl with mama doing your laundry and stocking your fridge).
I managed it by ignoring/disengaging as much as possible from her. When I was forced to communicate with her I kept our conversations as short and factual as possible. When she was in full swing, I would breath deeply and and try to understand where she came from--ignorance, youth, pridefullness--and not letting her get to me. Treating her rude comments from a place of love and understanding, yet not allowing her to bully me--saying, "no, I don't work that way" when she wanted to copy off my labs an hour before they were to be turned in was hard--she had a hissy over that one and did not let it drop for weeks after.
I offered to help her with her labs in the future, but she treated me so rudely that I didn't think to include her in the study group I was hosting at my house. Well, she felt really slighted when I formed a study group that did not include her. Oddly enough, this started her acting better towards me.
At the end of this class, we were to do a presentation on some medical/physiological syndrome we had personal experience with. Of course I did mine on seizure disorders due to my son. She did hers on head injuries, as she apparently suffered one due to a major car accident. She shared how it seemed to have affected her personality and academics, and how she was prone to having a short fuse and being rude....and will probably need to live at home all her live becuase she needed scaffolding....she went on to say that she probably owed a few students in our class an appology for how she had treated them...all while looking right at me. My heart went out to her poor sweatheart. In retrospect, I treated her exactly as she needed. With love and patience, but with firm boudaries.
On a personal level, I believe that a bully is the one with the weakness and they are put on this earth to teach us strength. As a freckeled red-head who is a touch ADD and highly verbal and excitable, I've been an easy target all my life, but I've also gained a lot of strength.
Bertilozi - when I was working in Saudi Arabia there was a woman in the HR department who was known for being a real - well, b*(ch is the only real way to put it. She drove the entire base crazy and her reputation had apparently spread to HQ in Germany, where she was also known for being quite unpleasant.
I was working in another office across the base at the time, and she came in to process paperwork for leaving the country. I asked her if she was excited to be returning to the US (no need to be rude in return, right?), and she said in a way she was, but she was going home to take care of her terminally ill daughter and care for her grandchildren. You can imagine my thoughts at that moment.
No wonder she was a pain.
Some folks deal with things in what can only be said to be an ineffective way sometimes, but perhaps they're doing the best they can. This does NOT excuse rude or bullying behavior; it does sort of explain it. An adult is fully capable of recognizing maladaptive behaviors (although maybe not) and can adjust their reactions accordingly. But I try to remember that woman whenever I encounter someone who's, shall we say, less than pleasant. We don't know what's happened to folks. I think we should all work on being more conscientious when it comes to people and their actions/reactions.
I'm no saint in this department, but I think it's something everyone should consider. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
HOWEVER, with that said, an idiot is an idiot. Sometimes you have to read people their fortunes, so to speak - sometimes people are asking to be told off and should be. I'm hearing about a few from people on this board that I would personally love to get a hold of myself.
In my school most of the students are older students with most being between 30 and 40. It is so infuriating to sit in class and hear the 3 "women" behind me belittle and pick on other students. Sometimes they even pick on the teachers. One of our teachers (OB) is new this semester. She is awful in lectures but great as a clinical instructor. You can see she is really struggling during the lecture and my heart goes out to her. Her lectures are really ineffective but in time they will get better. These students make snide remarks about her and it is so rude. Some students go as far to say "I don't like anyone on the other side of the room". They always have a comment about others. I can not believe these people are going to be nurses.
I find a lot of people who are in nursing schools have "strong" personalities to put it in a nice way. I don't understand this need to be mean to others. We are put here on this earth to help one another. We need to be kind towards others. I don't know where these student's minds are at.
I myself try not to associate with these "types".
There is hope though. I work as an aide on a cardiac floor and the nurses there are great!!!
Uhm, sounds like a bunch of insecure biddies to me....
Daft people come in all ages, shapes, and sizes....
I think as a result of bullying me these four girls are being kicked out of the program we are in. My instructors from this term AND last term (4 of them) witnessed me getting bullied in clinical and went ballistic on the girls. Today I had to sign some paper saying what happened and just wow... Something is actually being done about the unprofessional behavior I have had to deal with finally. Its nice to know the people higher up really do care.
Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.
She would make loud, disparaging comments about the fact that I was "only" a stay at home mom (raising three kids, one still in diapes and one with special needs, while fighting breast cancer, while in litigation with the local school district, while helping my parents die of cancer, while running my house, cooking, cleaning and car pooling my kids to their three different schools all while holding down at least 12 units a semester--try that little 20 year old baby girl with mama doing your laundry and stocking your fridge).
Ah you had one of them too. I was told to "shut" my mouth because I was a "stupid f'in stay at home mommy". Nice. She failed. I didn't. She's not in the program anymore. I am. Sure I may screw up down the road but she screwed up the semester she said that. She's not even attempting this program there anymore.
I don't have quite as much going on as you but I have enough. I have 4 kids...1 gifted (which honestly is rough because he has social issues because he can't come down to the level of the kids in his grade so we contact the school a lot about him), 1 Asperger kid who right now isn't giving me any grief in school (we were told the grief is coming as the grades progress and change), 1 with mild CP (possibly a myopathy also) and a feeding tube with leg pain that doctors don't want to deal with and then my 10 year old who wanted to give live with her dad (grass is greener, right?) so I let her so now every other weekend (the non clinical ones) I drive 1 hour there and 1 hour back (without traffic which is unusual and can change it to an 8 hour drive on a bad day) on Saturday and Sunday. Not to mention what while I'm married, my husband does nothing around the house. He doesn't get it at all. He also works late a lot. So he's here to watch the kids when I'm at school (most of the time anyway) but beyond that he's actually more work for me.
Some people will never get it. The putting down a stay at home mom just amazes me. How degrading is that to their own mother? My "bully" failed to realize I actually have medical background/experience but she ASSumed I didn't.
It's not uncommon for bullies to get bit in the butt in time. They think they have it made and then one day something happens to them and they are alone.
Wow... after reading all of your posts, I'm just sitting here shaking my head. I guess that I'm lucky because everyone in my class is great; (a mix of 20s, 30s, 40s from all walks of life) we all get along, help each other out, and are like family.
I thought that kind of behavior ended in high school. Apparently not. That's very sad. For those of you having to endure that crap, just remember that karma is a b*tch... :-)
It would seem to me that it would all end after getting into the program, being that the competition is now over. Go figure. As some have already said, that is so elementary.
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As some have already said, that is so elementary.
nursewannabee
72 Posts
In my school most of the students are older students with most being between 30 and 40. It is so infuriating to sit in class and hear the 3 "women" behind me belittle and pick on other students. Sometimes they even pick on the teachers. One of our teachers (OB) is new this semester. She is awful in lectures but great as a clinical instructor. You can see she is really struggling during the lecture and my heart goes out to her. Her lectures are really ineffective but in time they will get better. These students make snide remarks about her and it is so rude. Some students go as far to say "I don't like anyone on the other side of the room". They always have a comment about others. I can not believe these people are going to be nurses.
I find a lot of people who are in nursing schools have "strong" personalities to put it in a nice way. I don't understand this need to be mean to others. We are put here on this earth to help one another. We need to be kind towards others. I don't know where these student's minds are at.
I myself try not to associate with these "types".
There is hope though. I work as an aide on a cardiac floor and the nurses there are great!!!