I think my professor is making up stuff.......not sure what to do.

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So, I think one of my professors is making up statements. One in particular: 90% of allergies are caused by drinking milk-based formulas to babies.

OK, so I asked her about that statistic and where I could find it. She told me it was on the AAP site. Searched 45 minutes and found nothing. Looked thru medline....nothing. She makes other incredulous statements... and I am beginning to think she's fabricating them (other students found alternate truths to her statements before).

What would you do? I'm thinking about going to my advisor with this.

Thank you for your response based on your own experiences.

Specializes in med/surg, TELE,CM, clinica[ documentation.

Be very careful in any situation where you got up against faculty. My friend did and down the line that teacher failed her for clinical 2 weeks prior to graduation and she did not graduate or become an RN. She fought long and hard and even in court and still lost the battle.

This woman sounds like the anatomy and physiology instructor I had this past winter. Not only would she pull some information out of nowhere, but she would also mispronounce words (and, no, they weren't 'regional differences') and confuse the heck out of everyone.

She also typed up notes for us and lectured off those (yet another $100+ book gone to waste...) and there would be misspellings and grammatical errors. She was the most annoying and horrible instructor I have ever had. Her tests rarely matched the information she taught us, and she was constantly giving straight up WRONG information. When I confronted her about it (and citing page numbers of where I found the incorrect information) she said that her book and my book have slight differences. She had the same book I did (not an instructor book or something) so I have no idea where she pulled that b.s. from. After a while, I just gave up and tried to learn things to the best of my ability.

(Thankfully, because that class won't transfer to the nursing school I want to go to, I have to take it over. Maybe this will give me a chance to learn the CORRECT information. But I digress.)

I filed a complaint about her, but to my knowledge nothing has been done about it. I think you should try to do something about this woman, especially if you can get others to back you up, and cite a variety of situations where she's been wrong and/or letting her personal beliefs affect the material she's (suppose to be) teaching. You don't need that crap; You're paying good money to be taught properly and accurately. That's an obligation that your school has to you and should be kept.

The thing that is consistent about our profession is that you will ALWAYS hear a lot of stuff - some true, some not. If it doesn't sound or feel right, it probably isn't. People, even professors, have their opinions. Unless your professor is obviously incompetant, let it go. If you get hung up on stuff like this, your gonna have a difficult time in the profession. The way stats change now days, that stat very well could have been true at one time. I've seen lots of kids with milk allergies. Stats are like the weather, give them a minute, they'll change. Furthermore, life/clinical experiences do not necessarily match what the books (or stats) say and it is a fool who ignores the wisdom of life experiences.

The lactivist I am still says making up stats is not cool! There's plenty of proven research to show that formula isn't healthy, so there's no reason for her to make up stats. I personally don't know off the top of my head what the % is. I have plenty of sites saved on my computer but it's PMS'ing right now so I'm on hubbys laptop. However I don't think it's 90%.

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I have dealt with opinionated professors and believe me, you DO NOT WIN!! I agree with others, if she is not testing on this material, let her do what she wants. You just want to graduate, move on with your life and then, do your patient teaching properly. Going toe to toe with her can stop that...have seen it done. And, it is even worse when the professor fails a student and that poor person has to retake the same class with the same professor. Talk about post traumatic stress syndrome...

I have to go with the rest that advise leaving it alone. I know its annoying. But after going through LPN school and now RN school, I have yet to see anyone win against an instructor. I have seen many instructors inject an opinion contrary to mine and give facts (distorted) to support that opinion. But unless was on the test, I let it go.

The best was to win is to graduate!!!

First of all...what semester are you in? Just curious. I am nearing my graduation and your post caught my eye. There are a couple of things I'd like to say, and please forgive if they've been stated already.

One, what exactly are you trying to learn here? Are you trying to teach yourself that instructors who are opinionated give misinformation? Or are you trying to understand the pathophysiology of what she's saying?

She says that 90% of allergies in babies are caused by cow's milk. That seems unreasonable to you. Did you bother to ask why? What is it in the body of infants that creates this allergy? It might have made more sense to you...however, this is also something she should have taught you. Food allergies ARE the biggest allergens to babies. YOu are upset about the 90%? Okay, critically think through this now...of the foods that cause allergies...fish, nuts, eggs, wheat, and soy...what do you think the infant is going to receive most of? Nuts? Don't think so. In this perspective, does it make a little more sense that the percentage is so high? Learn about the IgE response in the body, why babies can't mediate it, and why they are 'allergic' to the protein found in cow's milk which commercial preparations alter tremendously so they do have fewer allergic responses.

Secondly, since your issue seems to be more about her opinionated statemets and this gives you reason to just dislike her and doubt whatever comes out of her mouth...this is your problem, not hers. You will meet tons of people like this. Deal with it, or you are in the wrong profession. Certainly if you don't understand something...have it clarified. But, when I read what she said and nearing the end of my 'time'...it didn't sound ridiculous at all.

Instead of spending your time trying to prove she's wrong...try to prove why she might be right. You might actually learn something...and then be able to teach someone else.

Good luck

I have learned that you never take anything from any instructor as gospel unless they quote a reliable source. The same with internet research, or anything that you read in the news or a magazine. Even then, be wary because statistics can be a game also. Take her opinions seriously- she is an educated person who probably has based her opinions on things she has learned over time, but do not assume them to be true. She wants you to understand that there is a relationship between breast feeding vs bottle feeding and children with allergies, etc. A great deal of research supports this according to what I have read.

I recently read that rural children who are exposed to farm animals have fewer allergies. So I could state that we could eliminate allergies in children by having farm animals at home such as a pet chicken or pig. It is an exaggeration based on something I read. I would never test you on it because it is not scientifically proven, but it has shaped my opinion. I might very well share this with students if I were teaching too. I would try to explain that it was my opinion though. She may not realize that students do not have the ability to sort fact from opinion at this early level in your education. Maybe she has not been teaching long, or perhaps she has been teaching too long!

I had professors who read material and took notes and posted them on power point and that was our lecture (regurgitation). There were a lot of mistakes-content, grammer, spelling. some of it was incomprehensible. I spent so much time teaching myself from the books, even goin back to A and P text to understand the underlying physiology for what we were learning because the profs couldnt explain it on such a basic fundamental level. But they are like Gods and you have to be the sheep and suck it up and let it go and hold on to what is valid from the lectures, focus on what it good. Acknowledge what is wrong and injust, and save it for the evaluations and dont count on them doing any good. All that matters to many of them is the money they get for the NCLEXs that are passed. You cant do what I did and consume yourself wiht anger and indignation, it really gets in the way of your learning and happiness.

Teaching from the book is one way to get students to pass tests. Maybe they were having trouble with scores so they resorted to spoon-feeding students the material in the book. If they don't teach from the books students complain "That wasn't in the book!". I can see it from both points of view. I would rather have facts from the book than just opinions to take notes from though. I have also bought expensive books that were never used as my instructor taught from handouts.

you don't do anything. you study the chapters that are to be used for the test like a good student does. you will get screwed over so fast you won't even know what hit you. Never, ever start a battle with a professor. YOU WILL LOSE. and honestly... who cares what she says... your tests are based on the reading material.

how to survive nursing school: do the work, study hard, do what you're told, and speak when spoken to. :)

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