Clinical Instructor Didn't Show Up

medicrnohio, RN · Oct 30, 2003

I would have waited the 30 minutes and then called the school, class instructor, or somebody in charge of the nursing program to let them know what was going on. It's possible they could have sent another instructor to cover or at least you would have had permission to leave from someone in charge.

2ndCareerRN · Oct 30, 2003

Thirty minutes. Seems like a long time, but is it really?. I agree with previous poster, someone should have stepped up and called the school to let them know. That way everyone would be covered. As it is now, you guys used your group reasoning and decided to take it upon yourselves to leave. There will probably be some direction come down from the administration to cover this in the future.

I am not sure I could be driving down the road, have a flat, or a minor fender bender and still be less than 30 minutes late to where I was headed.

bob

LydiaGreen · Oct 30, 2003

I agree... a half hour was not long enough to wait for the instructor. Perhaps she was just late due to a flat or something similar as an earlier poster stated. What if she arrived five minutes after you all left without notifying anyone in a position of authority? In my program, you would now have to make up those clinical hours at your own expense... our rate for make up time is $65/hour. If you had waited until a higher up in your program let you know what they wanted you to do... it would be no big deal. But, you didn't. You could have used the waiting time to double and triple check all of your patient info and blow the instructor out of the water with your preparedness! Then, when she did show up, you wouldn't have to make up the missed time on the floor, there would be no additional expense for you, and she may have been sufficiently embarassed by her lateness to go a little easier on your group that day. And, if your group had been understanding enough to wait around for either the instructor's arrival or official word from someone in a position of authority, your instructor may have been understanding if this should happen to any of you in the future.

SmilingBluEyes · Oct 30, 2003

geez hope the instructor is OK.....

did anyone bother to check????

Lecia · Oct 31, 2003

30 min probably wasn't enough time. I live 5-10 min from my current job and could easily be 30 min late if I left a wee bit late, got in a fender bender or just hit "accident traffic" due to some other persons fender bender... then if I have to park in the "far lot" and take the shuttle... well, you get the picture.

In the future you should probably CYA and check in with the school before leaving.

Please let us know if the instructor was okay and how it all turns out.

Lorus · Oct 31, 2003

"geez hope the instructor is OK.....

did anyone bother to check????" -SmilingBluEyes

-Haahaaha!!! For some reason i thought this was hilarious..

PJMommy · Oct 31, 2003

I have to agree with previous posters. I'd rather sit around longer or make the call to the college than have to come back at a later time to make up those missed clinical hours.

Does the instructor carry a pager or cell phone you could have contacted him/her on?

One more thought...you should be able to follow the RN and observe without a clinical instructor being there. You may even be able to do some basic cares such as giving patient's baths, etc. Further, if the RN is willing to work with you, you might even be able to do other things as well. I had an ER rotation where my CI wasn't even in the hospital but the RNs allowed me to insert Foleys, start IVs, etc. under their direction.

SmilingBluEyes · Oct 31, 2003

really ? funny, lorus, in exactly WHAT way?

i was serious. I guess the *nurse* in me was wondering IF possibly, the instructor was in a car wreck or had something go wrong, like get ill.

SILLY SILLY ME huh??????

colleen10 · Oct 31, 2003

Sorry, I have to agree that you did not give her enough time to get there and should have contacted another instructor or department head for your program.

At our hospital you could be stuck riding the elevators for half an hour.

After a half hour I probably would have attempted to contact my instructor via all the numbers she gave us ie, cell phone, pager, home number.

If I couldn't reach her I would probably attempt to contact someone at the school. Even though our clinicals are on Saturdays there is an emergency number you can call and get through to someone, plus we have the cell phone / home phone numbers of the lead instructors for our class and I wouldn't hesitate to bug them at 7:30AM on a Saturday if I could not find my instructor.

Lastly, I would have spoken to the Head Nurse for our floor and find out what they would prefer us to do, ie. shadow the nurses, do basic care to our patients, work directly under the supervision of the other nurses. I also would go in search of one of my school's instructors that were conducting clinicals on another floor of the hosp. to see if we could join her group or at least get some direction as to what we should do.

At the least I would have sat around in the conference room doing extra studying, etc. til someone told me it was ok to leave.

I know that my instructor would have chewed us out big time if we left after a half hour without approval from someone else in the program.

I hope you do not get into trouble.

chad75 · Oct 31, 2003

have to echo what the others here have said. I guess we were just closer to our instructors, we would have been worried, probably calling the instructor at home or contacting the nursing school to make sure our instructor was alright. It would be of course VERY unusual for an one of our instructors to show up late, I guess if it was the norm we would have still called the school to find out what we needed to do :/

geekymomma · Oct 31, 2003

When we left, it was with the blessing of the head nurse. She said our instructor has a habit of doing this. This morning all she told us was that she was sorry, she overslept. Hey, it happens. We do not have her phone number so we couldn't have called her. We could have called the school but no one is in the office until 8 - 9 am. We could have studied but no one brings their books, (per instructors' request). We are not even allowed on the floor without her, let alone do any patient care. So we did what we had to do.