Venting

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I'm typically not known to complain about much because I know that Nursing school requires time and tons of work put into it to be successful.... Now my lovely school of mine moved campuses this september which is great because now we have a bigger campus and tons of parking (only street parking at the last campus, leads to tons of parking tix)....

Ok so the semester began a week later than it usually does because of this move.... so we are shorted a week of academics... OK fine... Classes began on 9/9 and clinical began on the same day (never happened before)... Why am I heading to clinical without knowing what a fundus feels like or how to complete a physical assessment on a newborn (we didnt have a lecture yet at this point) WE all go in blind including my instructor because she didnt know that we had clinical until noon of that day. Theory is on Tuesday evenings for 4.5 hours... All in all we had 2 lectures, 23 chapters and then an exam.... How is one able to retain 23 chapters of new information???? Almost all of the class fails.. Wait can I just tell you that my instructor is teaching the wrong information in class and we got some exam questions and we all answered the questions wrong based on her lecture and nothing was done.. The other faculty sided with her...

MY FRUSTRATION LEVEL IS THROUGH THE ROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feel a little better now that I've got it out....

Specializes in Hospice.

Isn't the syllabus correct as far as what chapters you are being tested on? I think the syllabus is a type of binding contract so if they taught chapters not on the syllabus and most the class failed, seems like they would fix that by offering to scratch that grade and retest on the correct material.

Lorin, my wife is a college instructor and I am in my 4th year of college classes and a syllabus is not a "binding contract". I have yet to take a class in which the syllabus was NOT changed in one way or another during the semester.

Bajan, your first step is to complain to the Department Head. If you are not satisfied with the result there, then see the Academic Dean.

I'm typically not known to complain about much because I know that Nursing school requires time and tons of work put into it to be successful.... Now my lovely school of mine moved campuses this september which is great because now we have a bigger campus and tons of parking (only street parking at the last campus leads to tons of parking tix).... Ok so the semester began a week later than it usually does because of this move.... so we are shorted a week of academics... OK fine... Classes began on 9/9 and clinical began on the same day (never happened before)... Why am I heading to clinical without knowing what a fundus feels like or how to complete a physical assessment on a newborn (we didnt have a lecture yet at this point) WE all go in blind including my instructor because she didnt know that we had clinical until noon of that day. Theory is on Tuesday evenings for 4.5 hours... All in all we had 2 lectures, 23 chapters and then an exam.... How is one able to retain 23 chapters of new information???? Almost all of the class fails.. Wait can I just tell you that my instructor is teaching the wrong information in class and we got some exam questions and we all answered the questions wrong based on her lecture and nothing was done.. The other faculty sided with her... MY FRUSTRATION LEVEL IS THROUGH THE ROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Feel a little better now that I've got it out....[/quote']

Isn't that part of clinicals? To learn things like that? There are tons of things that you won't experience in a classroom that you cannot learn unless you have the hands on experience. Did you really think you would be feeling a fundus in the classroom?

We typically have at least a week of sim lab prior to going out into clinical so we learn those things so I am not learning to do them the first time on a patient... thats like going into Fundamentals not knowing how to give am IM or Subq injection and Im learning for the first time out in clinical... We do have pregnant mannequins in sim lab to feel for those things...

The syllabus is correct however, 23 chapters and 2 lectures is insane to me and everyone in class... The content was all over the place and vital information for us... Its a maternity and Pedi course... That first exam was strictly maternity which is important information, so why is exam 3 only 5 chapters of breast, respiratory and hematologic... thats not logic to me.... First exam should have been broken up into 2 exams and all other content broken up to be the last 2 exams...

Is what Im saying making any sense??

23 chapters that's insane

What you are saying makes sense to me. Unfortunately, I don't think the 23 chapters in 2 lectures sounds crazy. Most of the time I don't feel like my instructors teach what ends up being on the test. I've learned quickly (I'm in my first semester) that it is up to you to learn the information on your own. Nothing about the way the tests are set up seems logical.

That's weird you went to clinical without practice. Or lecture on it.

Lorin my wife is a college instructor and I am in my 4th year of college classes and a syllabus is not a "binding contract". I have yet to take a class in which the syllabus was NOT changed in one way or another during the semester. Bajan, your first step is to complain to the Department Head. If you are not satisfied with the result there, then see the Academic Dean.[/quote']

Agreed..at the bottom of every syllabus that I have been given in college has stated at the bottom that "the instructor has the right to make changes to the syllabus" or something of that matter

We typically have at least a week of sim lab prior to going out into clinical so we learn those things so I am not learning to do them the first time on a patient... thats like going into Fundamentals not knowing how to give am IM or Subq injection and Im learning for the first time out in clinical... We do have pregnant mannequins in sim lab to feel for those things...

I learned how to feel a fundus for the first time on a patient.

We typically have at least a week of sim lab prior to going out into clinical so we learn those things so I am not learning to do them the first time on a patient... thats like going into Fundamentals not knowing how to give am IM or Subq injection and Im learning for the first time out in clinical... We do have pregnant mannequins in sim lab to feel for those things...

I understand what you are saying. But I also think you need to understand that not everything you do in clinicals has been already covered in lecture or in a sim lab t hat is why you have an instructor there with you. They will explain these things to you, show you how to do them, and answer questions. We have a sim lab but we only use it one semester, Peds and OB. Everything else is in the hospital. If we waited until we had talked about something in lecture before doing patient care, we would never get to do anything in clinicals.

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