How to deal with a horrible clinical instructor?

[chinacatSN]

I'm in my second semester of my RN year. The school hired a new clinical instructor because they had one quit. I don't want to say too much and give away too many details. I followed her once, last semester before she became an instructor. She got in trouble because she failed to empty a catheter (I guess it was so full that it almost fell out of the patient when the patient stood up!) or even check on one of her patients - the oncoming nurse was the one who realized this and had to report her. I was unaware of these things - even though I was following her - because she kept sending me off to do other things like make beds or fetch drinks, so I didn't even go in these patient's rooms. Fast forward a few months, now she's our clinical instructor.

She teaches on the med-surg floor, but doesn't work on the med-surg floor - she works on a completely different floor. She's unable to instruct us on properly inserting an IV because she "doesn't do that" on the floor she works. We did a lab on IVs, but that was forever ago. When we have an IV to do, she just hands us the supplies, stands there, and doesn't say much of anything. One day, we were asked to do a blood draw and she said no because it made her nervous. Seriously? Then, she told one student that she was going to give her an unsatisfactory for the week because an aide told the nurse who told the instructor that the student was complaining about the aide in the hall and that she wasn't ambulating her patient safely. Instead of asking the student about it, she immediately became angry and declared she was giving her an unsatisfactory. Last week, she gave me a needs improvement because I was frustrated with the lack of help I was getting with my (very needy) patient and because I worked on my careplan too much on Friday. We're not allowed to work on them at all on Thursday at clinical - which I did not do - and on Friday we can add any new data to them (such as new lab results, new assessment findings, etc). All I did on Friday was write down my new lab data, new assessment data, and some new results from other tests. And I only did it when I was done with all my other duties at that time. She didn't say one word to me during clinical, I found out when she did my weekly review. She doesn't ask us what are meds are for, she doesn't ask us what they do, she has no clue when formulating a nursing diagnosis...she's a mess. I'm seriously thinking about going to the course instructor (who is above this clinical instructor) and talking to her about this. I really don't think I deserve a "needs improvement" for the week and I'm really sick of going to clinical and not learning anything. I had our course instructor as my clinical instructor last week and it's the first week of clinical that I learned anything, because I've had the other instructor this whole time. It's ridiculous - it's a waste of my time and money and it's hurting my education.

What do you think? Am I overreacting or should I say something?

Thanks in advance!

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

You CAN go to the course instructor.....you know what she's like. But there will always be people who teach us the most by showing us what NOT to end up like

[CrazierThanYou]

I feel for you, my classmates and I are in a similar situation. Of our 4 clinical instructors, only one of them seems competent at all and that is a stretch really.

[RedWeasel, RN]

My only advice to you is document all these things in case you need them later on (if she tried to fail you---don't document patient names etc.). Now for the other advice that I got when I was a student. Don't make waves, Lay Low, Get Your Degree. It worked for me. Scary I know. If you make an enemy out of a clinical instructor it can bite you later. Get support from other students, even other nurses on that floor. Remember someday you will need a job and believe it or not, she could be on the other end of offering you a job later on. Again, I know it is scary and UNFAIR, in a perfect world you should be able to go to your instructor and lodge a complaint, but trust me (at least at my school) it was NOT a perfect world. Good Luck!