We took a stand against our Clinical Instructor...

[NightOwl0624]

>>> Sorry - this is a big vent and may be very long!!

Today we took a stand against our clinical instructor (and now I'm a little worried).

Our CI is new to the school and new to the hospital. She was a last minute replacement, but claims she has 10 years teaching experience. We are half way into our rotation.

The earliest she has arrived was 15 minutes late - and that was on the first day. Since then, she insisted that we start clinicals 1 hour early (which put a strain on some of our schedules), and has been at least 30 minutes late every day.

When she does show up, she only has a list of patients on the floor. She does not check with the head nurse about who is getting discharged. She does not check the medication chart about what kinds of meds (and what time) the patient will get. She brings in her list and randomly assigns us a patient... AFTER we have already been waiting up to 45 minutes for her to show up! We usually do not hit the floor for 2-2.5 hours after our clinical started. Sometimes we end up with nothing to do (due to discharges and no meds to pass). She told us to bring our books to study, and to hide in the conference room:banghead:

There are other frustrations - wasting time talking endlessly about herself, her family, every health problem she has ever had, etc, etc...

Although I would not say she is mean to us, she can be condescending to some of the patients (behind their backs), primarily the overweight or mentally impaired.

Our professors that teach the theory part of the class are aware of the problems (heard it from the grapevine, I guess), but can't do anything about it. They have been supportive of us, and have given us some advice.

The official school policy is that a student must wait 10 minutes for an instructor to show up. Our professor said that certainly after 20 minutes we can assume they will be absent.

So.. today, we waited 20 minutes, then as a group, got up and left. We all went home. I really wanted to talk to her first (as a group) and then leave tomorrow if she is late again, but I agreed to go with the majority.

Now I am really worried. This woman will be writing our evaluations. I know she will be angry, and have no idea what will happen tomorrow. I think we have enough documentation to put administration on our side, but this could get really ugly.

Anyone ever had anything like this happen to them???

[MaryAnn_RN]

you all got up and left clinical? so she came and no one was there? is this after you spoke to her about being late ? does she know why you all left ? i hope everyone spoke with her first about how she is late? ooh man she is going to mad with capitol letters.... ooh when do you have clinical again? have you heard from her?

see i would of waited for her wether she was late or not.. and spoke to her w/ 2 other students and not ganged up on her.. not that you were ganging up on her.. but she will see it that way....

keep me posted, i can hardly wait to hear

We had a lecturer that was always late for theory sessions. One day people had just had enough; we phoned the university and told them that we were going, having waited for an hour. The lecturer was as mad as a box of frogs and the remainder of the semester was interesting to say the least.

[4rom2bRN]

Wow. Not another story of horrible instructors. When is all this going to end? Nursing programs are not cheap. When can the instructor or school be held accountable for their deficiencies???

I don't think is fair for the instructors to be allowed to given such power.

Read my posts... and hopefully your situation turns out better than ours did. I have moved out of state to start over my second year. My classmates are still fighting the fight. The problem with fighting the fight, as I learned, you start out with all of your classmates fighting the fight.

Than each time you turn around your classmates fighting the fight... dwindles because they decided to kiss the butts of the administrators. Although, I am not in chicago anymore, I am still supporting my classmates.

I hope you and your classmates the best. Document everything and don't give up the fight.

I strongly feel that their should be some sort of support group for student nurses who face such related issues as ours.

Having malicious instructors and school administrators advocating such behaviors should be dealt with in a serious manner. Providing an environment that is not conducive to your learning needs is appalling.

[luvschoolnursing, LPN]

Just gotta get in on this one so I can follow the outcome. I think if we had done that (20 years ago) they would have failed us all. Most of my instructors were EVIL. Wish you the best of luck.

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Poor example set by the prof for sure and totally unacceptable!! Not sure I would handle the situation the same way. Hope you have been following the golden rule of nursing-DOCUMENT and DOCUMENT. Best of luck and hope it gets settled asap!!

[ontocrna]

We had a group of students at our school that had a bad clinical experience due to a poor instructor. They went together to the head of the program, discussed it, and asked for their money back, no grade and a class retake over the summer with a different instructor. There were so many students in the group that stood up that it worked. They said they paid for a service that wasn't provided and expected the college to make good. The college did!

[squeakykitty]

I hope that every student is willing to document things. Please keep us all updated. Being late once in a while is one thing, but all the time is a problem.

[RN BSN 2009]

i am dying to hear about what happend.. sounds like an instructor i had at eastern

[justrissy]

WOW good for you all taking a stand, but I too think I might have talked to her first. You all will either have a great clinical from here on out or she will make your life a living HE**! Can't wait to hear the outcome!

[Gauge]

Man this is awesome! I can't wait to hear how it turns out. I'm on pins and needles already haha. I can't say I've had this experience before, but I understand your frustrations. I'm not too sure I would have left though, I probably would of just chilled out in the conference room or wherever you meet. I don't want this to come off as me being a lazy student, but I would kind of enjoy not having to do anything for the first couple of hours. Don't get me wrong, I love all the stuff I do, but we are utilized as CNAs more than anything. The CNAs also like to boss us around (on patients that we don't have) while they sit at the nurses station talking. I understand the importance of the work, but I can't stand getting bossed by someone when it's their job to do it and they are too lazy to do it and view us as free help.

Hope it goes well for you, at least you all did get up and leave together, one person behind could ruin it all. Good luck to you.

[Flames9_RN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I hope it goes well, i truly do! But where I can see it biting them (students) in the butt, is that they didn't follow the chain of command! (ya sorry, 15 yrs in the military will do that to ya,lol) yes they did approach a few professors, but more than likely they should have went higher, as to the asst dean for guidance and continue up the chain. No different if ya had a problem as a nurse at the hospital. One has a chain of command to consult with. You just don't walk out. I hope their is a workable solution to the problem. best of luck

[SandraJean]

Just gotta get in on this one so I can follow the outcome. I think if we had done that (20 years ago) they would have failed us all. Most of my instructors were EVIL. Wish you the best of luck.

Nursing school sounds very different now than when I went 28 years ago! The students did not have "power" then. I wouldn't have had the guts then to walk out.

Wish you the best!

[4rom2bRN]

After reading post thoroughly, I have come to realize why this has become a systemic problem. We have allowed instructors to push their power on their students for decades. Students were afraid to speak up. This will not get better unless we speak up and not tolerate anyone to minimize our intelligience, yes even our instructors.

I was raised in a very strict puerto rican houselhold. My grandmother to this day will tell you to listen to your teachers even if you think they are wrong or hard on you.

Where is the priniciple here? I know one thing regarding this issue, you can bet that the instructors know based on their years of experience in the field.... Students do not stick together for long. Instructors feel they have the power and they will use it against you.

Who advocates the students??? Besides attorneys? Educators need to be held accountable for their actions. No hard working nursing student deserve to be treated like they are insignificant as a human being.

We need to create a support group for other students who are being treated unjust by their instructor(s). When my instructor retialiated against us, no one in the school advocated us. We were lost, my confidence was gone. I was and still is depressed. I was supposed to graduate this month, now I have to start all over again because the school administrators decided that our grievance was not important enough to be acknowledged.

I have posted my experiences with this school. I would not recommend this program to my worst enemy. I wish Mayor Daley would know what is going on with City Colleges of Chicago. Or inform the investors that they are wasting their monies with the City Colleges of Chicago. I heard Daley and Wright college are okay. But the rest, like ours is substandard. No wonder they have alot of lawsuits pending. I wonder if the investors are aware of that.

Please support our fellow classmates even if you don't know personally who they are. We need to put a stop on instructors who are abusing their power. They need to focus on teaching and inspiring their students. My instructor taught me whatever she does wrong, she can get away with. Even if it does involve discriminatory comments, defamation of characters, and pure humilation. Welcome to nursing where you are suppose to be compassionate.

Lets stick together and support one another. The nursing shortage is not getting better. The instructors' who lack inspiration and has malicious agendas should not be allowed to teach. They should be reported beyond the chancellor. Does anyone know who can create a pathway beyond chancellor?

How should we go about creating a support group for all of our classmates who need us most?

Any suggestion?

God Bless everone!