Dilemma with the instructor

Be_Bodhi_Pure · May 9, 2004

Hi,

Sorry. I post the same message in the thread titled "instructor woes". I hope I can get more feed back to create a new thread, which is what I am doing.

I am a first year nursing student and I am in my second semester of nursing program. I am having a dilemma lately with one instructor. She is the last instructor that I have in this semester for my last clinical rotation. Instead of playing her supervision role in the clincal days with me, she gave me a lot of hard time. She documented all the little mistakes that I did in the clinical area, and threaten me that I would fail the clinical if I didn't improve (that's mean fail the whole semester of program, even if I pass the tests in the class). She picked all my grammer errors from my holistic assignments and told me that my English is not good (English is my third language) and if I don't get improve during her rotation, she wouldn't think that I could pass her rotation. She told me about all my weaknesses during my clinical day (we were in the hospital starting from 7am-12am. At 8:15am, She asked me to go to a private room. When I reached to the private room with her, I saw there was another instructor, who was never taught me for the clinical rotations, in the room too. They started to talk about all my little mistakes that I did in the clinical area. They said that I tried to slip through the program. To me, this kind of statement was not fair toward me and also toward the other 5 clinical instructors that I had before.), and I was very upset. I explained myself to them, and I cried in between the talk. I told them that it was not fair which they could document all my mistakes and tried to fail me without giving the chance for me to improve. They said they looked out the safety for the patients. I told them that I have never harm any patient, and all the patients like me very much. Then, they said there were trying to help me, that's why they gave me 3 days to show my improvement. I was very upset during that time. I asked the permission for me to leave the hospital and to make up a clinical day later, because I was so upset and stress from all the things that they told me. They wouldn't let me. I explained myself that I wouldn't think I could take care of the patient since I was so down emotionally. They said they could help me to go through the day together with me. I believed them, and I asked the permission to stay in the private room for another 10 minutes to calm myself down. They left. I cried as much as I wanted just to hope to relief the stress inside me. My eyes were red and puffy because of all the crying. When I went back to the floor, I saw my instructor was talking to my nurse. (She was telling her I have problems with my English)(I got this information from my nurse. She told me not to give up). After that day, I thought she gave me chances to improve myself, but I was wrong. During that afternoon, she showed all her documentations about me to the nursing director (without me present), and they all agreed to fail me.(I only know about that at the end of my following clinical day) On the following clinical day, she told me that I showed some improvements, but at the end of the same day, she told me she had talked to the director about me and failed me. I was totally disappointed about how she treated me and how she handled her supervision role in the clinical days. I want to appeal. ( I am not the only one in the class that feel this way about her) Can any one of you help me with my situation? You can email me if you like ([email protected]). Thanks

nightingale, RN · May 9, 2004

Be Bodhi:

I merged the threads.

English sentence structure and grammar is an expectation of your curriculum. Focus on improving that.

If you want to appeal, do so. Personally, I would not waste what little energy I had in Nursing School on proving myself right. I would focus on what the Instructors recommendation of what I needed to do to get through "it".

I have met more then one nurse who could not make it through the NCLEX; it was the same type of problem they had in a weak area that they had in school. I also had a dear friend, Pharmacy PhD who could not pass the boards because of his poor English Language Grammar and sentence structure. For the NCLEX, a lot of the answering is in understanding how to read word problem questions. YOu need to figure out what is the best "right answer" of two or three that sounded pretty good but only one is the right answer.

Good luck to you and let us know how we can help.

night

suzanne4, RN · May 9, 2004

Have you met with the director of your program? What type of errors did she state that you were making? Are you in a two year or four year program?

Unfortunately, because English is your third language, it is not the responsibility of the instructor to let you slide because of that. To go to the US to attend school you are only responsible for having a minimal passing score on the TOEFL exam. If you were to graduate from a nursing program out of the US and wish to work in the US, you need a minimum for 540 on TOEFL, plus very good scores on the TWE and perfect score on the TSE.

Communication skills are at the top of the list for any nurse.

Will they allow you to retake the semester? There are American nursing students that actually fail clinicals also. You are functioning under the license of your instructor when you are on the floor, and it is up to her/him to deem if you are safe or not.

My suggestion would be to have a talk with your director, and see if you can

be re-evaluated on your skills in a week or two, if that would be at all possible. That is about the only choice that you have at this time. Did your instructor ever say anything to you earlier in the term, or just this final time?

Had she given you any previous warnings?

Be_Bodhi_Pure · May 9, 2004

I will meet with the director on this coming Tuesday. I only knew about the failing decision that they decided on me last Friday (4pm, after the end of that clinical day). They didn't give me chance like what they promised me. I have 600 in my TOEFL. 5/6 in TWE. I took Speech Com class and got A. I took whole full year of ESL classes. I didn't fail my tests. I am pretty much very independent in doing my study. I have never planned to slide through the program. I asked a lot of questions and I put my effort to learn. The previous 5 clinical instructors rated me good in my clinical performance.

Be_Bodhi_Pure · May 9, 2004

She gave me warning on Wednesday, and said that she would give me chance so that I could show improvement for the following 3 clinical days. Instead, she went to talk to the director on the same day and decided to fail me. She even let me do my clinical on Friday (although she already decided to fail me on Wednesday), and only told me at the end of my clinical on Friday that I would fail no matter how much improvements I could show to her on the following clinical days.

suzanne4, RN · May 9, 2004

First, it was wrong for her to take you aside and have another teacher there that you never had any clinicla contact with.

Not sure which country that you are form, but perhaps your instructor is harboring a grudge for someone from there. Unfortunately this happens.

Meet with your Director and let us know how it goes..................let your previous record speak for itself. Have you tried to meet with any of your previous instructors, where you did well in their clinicals, and see what they have to say? That would be something that I also would do.

Again, good luck and please keep me posted. :balloons:

hopefully · May 9, 2004

Hey why does she worry about your English? It seems to me that your English is good enough. This is not an English class your taking but a nursing course. I find that odd. Your instrutor kind of sucks then. Anyway, you probably took your English courses to get into the nursing program anyway. It is good enough.

suzanne4, RN · May 9, 2004

Hey why does she worry about your English? It seems to me that your English is good enough. This is not an English class your taking but a nursing course. I find that odd. Your instrutor kind of sucks then. Anyway, you probably took your English courses to get into the nursing program anyway. It is good enough.

I am not sure if you have ever worked with foreign students or have any foreign friends. Words can be pronounced differently because of different letter combinations in other languages. Some of ours are not used in their language and it makes it harder for them to pronounce them. Communication skills with patients are of the utmost importance, acutally number one on the list. I am not sure which country the poster is from but this can make a big difference. I actually work with foreign nurses seven days per week.

hopefully · May 10, 2004

I am not sure if you have ever worked with foreign students or have any foreign friends. Words can be pronounced differently because of different letter combinations in other languages. Some of ours are not used in their language and it makes it harder for them to pronounce them. Communication skills with patients are of the utmost importance, acutally number one on the list. I am not sure which country the poster is from but this can make a big difference. I actually work with foreign nurses seven days per week.

I am looking at how she is communicating in this thread about her intructor. Her communication skills are good. If you did not understand all that, I did. I got the message. Anyway, she took her English courses plus her previous English instructors gave their approval when she passed the English classes. I think her nursing instructor is prejudice in some way to people who are not native speakers.

Catma63 · May 10, 2004

But you can't base assumptions, hopefully. None of us know this instructor...indeed, none of us know this student. My heart breaks for you, Be_Bohdi_Pure, but at the same time, it's hard to know what to think, what to say, because we only have your side of the story. Too, like another poster says, you're practicing under your instructor's license....they HAVE to be very VERY picky and very strict.

I had a classmate in my first semester who was from Germany. She ended up failing the first semester and, though she at first said she'd be back, she's since changed her mind because she feels that her English is not good enough to aid her in exams. I felt if she worked hard to improve on her English (more classes? Anything?) then she should come back; she was soooo good with the patients during clinicals.

Anyhoo, don't give up....these last fews days have obviously and understandably been very devastating to you but you can get through it.....positively. Just work hard, think success, and move forward.

EMTtoRN · May 10, 2004

The thing that bothers me about this post is that the instructor brought this up to you 3 days before clinicals ended. I am sure that if she saw a problem with your language she could have said something to you in the beginning of the semster. I will be interested in seeing what the director said since the teacher has already met with her. I think it is important that in medical care there not be language barriers. This can end up being a life or death matter. Let us know how your meeting goes!