How did she/he get through nursing school?

[Emergent]

I have more than one coworker that I'm amazed that they got through school. I really like them, but marvel at their cluelessness. These are not new nurses, to say the least.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I doubt it. People always say that. Then, when you approach them, they get defensive and PO'd.

People don't know how to accept negative feedback gracefully. It would be wonderful if there was a class in nursing school about how to give and receive feedback!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I have no idea why the OP would get any kick back on this vent. It is obviously true, and can be frustrating.

Q.- What do you call the guy who finished last place in medical school?

A.- Doctor

There is no getting around it. In every field, there are people at at bottom. A guy with an IQ of 130 may sound pretty smart hanging out at the TGI Fridays bar, but over at the Mensa meeting, people wonder who let him in.

Look at it this way: About half the nurse out there are below average. Here is another scary statistic. Think of a unit with 10 nurses- One of those nurses is in the bottom 10%. (Technically, s/he is the bottom 10%.) And, this nurse is responsible for the same level of work as everybody else.

As far as confronting or educating these folks- generally ineffective. Some people simply lack ability, or ambition, and no amount of constructive feedback will change that. And, there is a complete lack of recognition. In fact, the worse you are at something, the better you think you are. This has been studied, and referred to as the Dunning Kruger Effect. This is not a situation amenable to constructive feedback.

If you talk to those folks, the ones you wonder how they even got through school, about school, I can pretty well tell you how most will respond. They will tell you what was wrong with their school, the unfairness of the tests, and the teachers who were out to get them. A lot of focus on external forces. Pretty rare to find somebody who says: "Honestly, I am as dumb as a box of rocks. Also, I am truly lazy. And, come to think of it, I am really self centered."

Of course, I could have this all wrong. Assuming the Dunning Kruger study has merit, and I think it does, I could be one of these people, and there is no way I would know it.

Which means that if you're constantly worried you don't know enough, aren't skilled or astute enough - - you're probably in the top 25%!

[Susie2310]

I have found that contrary to conventional wisdom it's not at all universally necessary for a person to be an astute, highly competent, hard-working, student to get through nursing school or to be selected for nursing employment, nor is it necessary to be an astute, knowledgeable, highly competent nurse, to be a valued employee. Far, far, from it. Excellence is definitely not always valued or rewarded, in fact, many people, including some nursing instructors and employers, are threatened by the possibility that a student or employee could be excellent, and will prefer the lesser able person for a multitude of self serving reasons. We are taught to strive for excellence; the reality is that if we strive conscientiously to be excellent in what we do and we succeed in becoming excellent, it may well work against us.

[aceboogieman]

We all know a few of those. Almost like they cheated their way through.

[bgxyrnf, MSN, RN]

To me the answer is in part related to the fact the nursing school just isn't that rigorous academically and the licensing exam is a joke.

[Susie2310]

Nursing is talked up as being a profession that requires intelligence, high levels of competence, ability to handle high stress, make good clinical decisions quickly, prioritize superbly, etc., and all this is true when it comes down to providing very good quality patient care, but providing very good quality patient care is not what is universally most important to employers. Many employers primary concern is employing sturdy, malleable, reliable, workers, who are bright enough to do the job even marginally without getting into trouble, but are not too bright; bright enough that is to really understand too much of what is really going on, at which point they are perceived as an increased threat and liability to their employer.

[caliotter3]

Nursing is talked up as being a profession that requires intelligence, high levels of competence, ability to handle high stress, make good clinical decisions quickly, prioritize superbly, etc., and all this is true when it comes down to providing very good quality patient care, but providing very good quality patient care is not what is universally most important to employers. Many employers primary concern is employing sturdy, malleable, reliable, workers, who are bright enough to do the job even marginally without getting into trouble, but are not too bright; bright enough that is to really understand too much of what is really going on, at which point they are perceived as an increased threat and liability to their employer.

Well said. It also helps if the individual assists in driving down the wage scale set point.

[macawake, MSN]

Which means that if you're constantly worried you don't know enough, aren't skilled or astute enough - - you're probably in the top 25%!

I do believe that you are correct Ruby Vee

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance ~ Confucius

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge ~ Darwin

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool ~ Shakespeare

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision ~ Russell

(Completely irrelevant factoid - I have one of the above quotes tattooed I'm tall. It works )

[broughden]

Honestly, I still wonder how did I make it through undergrad accounting for vicious antiintellectualism of some of my classmates, professors and colleagues.

Being smarter than the majority of people around you sucks, plain and simple. It doesn't make life and job any easier, and there's pretty much nothing to be done with it.

I don't know you but I think we may be soul mates.

I can so relate to this post!

[broughden]

Excellence is definitely not always valued or rewarded, in fact, many people, including some nursing instructors and employers, are threatened by the possibility that a student or employee could be excellent, and will prefer the lesser able person for a multitude of self serving reasons. We are taught to strive for excellence; the reality is that if we strive conscientiously to be excellent in what we do and we succeed in becoming excellent, it may well work against us.

I can relate.

I'm a non-traditional, 3rd career, nursing student.

This week we had a research paper due. We were given a choice of topics and two sources by the professor. Wanting to excel at the class and assignment I took it upon myself to research my thesis and the topic and generate 4 additional sources to cite in my paper.

I was docked nearly a full letter grade for this and I quote...

"I can appreciate your desire to explore additional source material to support your well developed analysis; however for the exam you should have used only the two I identified in the prompt."

NO WHERE in the printed assignment did it say to only use the two sources provided, and in fact my "well developed anaylsis" would have been impossible with out the additional cited sources. The professor simply didn't want to be bothered with reading the extra research material to make sure I was right.

Idiots. We have lazy idiots teaching classes.

[Alex_RN, BSN]

To me the answer is in part related to the fact the nursing school just isn't that rigorous academically and the licensing exam is a joke.

Nursing school and actual nursing are very different animals. Plenty of people are great with books and tests but dangerous at any speed once they show up on the unit.

[Alex_RN, BSN]

Which means that if you're constantly worried you don't know enough, aren't skilled or astute enough - - you're probably in the top 25%!

And if you are worried that you might be crazy, then you definitely are not crazy.