In my school a fairly large number of students, including me, have been failed in our clinical courses by arbitrary decisions made by instructors. By "arbitrary decisions" I mean that the instructors are given unrestricted power to fail students without the use of predetermined standards.
In addition, these decisions seem to affect males disproportionately. This is just based on my observations, not statistics, but males appear to make up 10-20% of the students at the school while more than 90% of those failed in these arbitrary decisions are men.
I'm pretty sure gender discrimination is at work here, particularly considering that this school decides which students to admit purely based on academic standards (meaning that the disproportionate number of men being failed cannot be explained away by suggesting that men are simply weaker than women, academically speaking.) All students at this school have about a 4.0 GPA at the start of the program.
In my own experience, the instructor who failed me was very unprofessional, rude, and nasty towards me. This behavior started literally on day one, which I think disproves any possible claim that her ill will towards me was based on anything other than some sort of prejudice. She proceeded to seek out opportunities to misrepresent events in order to make me look bad, presumably so she could build a case against me to fail me.
As an example, on the paperwork with which she officially failed me in the course she vaguely stated that she had a conversation with the RN I was working with that led her to the conclusion that I "lacked initiative." What is interesting is that she made that same accusation to me in person moments after the conversation in question (which I estimate lasted about 15 seconds.) When she made the accusation to me in person, I asked her to clarify what exactly she was basing this assumption on, and she stated that the conclusion that I "lacked initiative" was based on the fact that it had come up in this conversation with the RN that a procedure had been done on my patient and that the RN had done the procedure instead of me.
I only had one RN that I was working with that day, I only had one patient that day, and my patient only had one procedure. At the time of that procedure, the RN asked the patient, "Would you rather have a female [the RN] perform this procedure instead of a male [me]?" And the patient said, "Sure. I guess I'd prefer a female." So this was an example of explicit gender discrimination that was actually cited as a reason for my instructor failing me.
I find the arbitrary nature of these decisions strange. These decisions are made against people who have invested years of their time and thousands of dollars of their money and against people who have succeeded at every step of the way in their educational career, and it is odd to me that all of their hard work can be thrown away purely based upon what appears to be an individual's personal dislike of them.
Can anyone relate to these kinds of experiences? Is this typical of nursing schools?
The fact that you are pretending it is about one situation says something about you lot.
Ahhh here we go. ^this, Capp, would be considered both passive aggressive and a personal attack. Sheesh say what you really wanted to say why don't you. What does my post say about me, really? (That is a rhetorical question)
I answered your original question, I think many of us have answered it and pretty much said the same darn thing in many variations but your still in this conspiracy theory, using cloaked words like "secret" and "almighty" nursing instructors.
Im going to bow out gracefully here because I've come to terms with dealing with people who stick their fingers in their ears and spin about singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while everyone wastes they're breath trying to explain things. I truly hope things work out for you and that you find some peace in this school journey and in your nursing career if you choose to forge on.
Why was it too ridiculous to address? It is the nearest to what he perceives his situation to be....
However, the OP has to respect the nursing instructor "perception" as well; maybe the instructor is without malice; we do not know and we don't to make an opinion on the matter; however that is something that ANY nursing student has to realize that perception is REALITY-excluding any fringe nursing instructors...they assess the behaviors and have to make a nursing judgement on the criteria; I don't know what at the OP's actions were; however I can't state that he was discriminated against; no one can, because we weren't there.
And yet, the OP has to respect the nursing instructor "perception" as well; maybe the instructor is without malice; we do not know; however that is something that ANY nursing student has to realize that perception is REALITY-excluding any fringe nursing instructors.
So . . . usually it is the student's fault for not realizing what (besides being a good nurse) the instructor is looking for. If the student is doing everything that is asked of him or her and being a good nurse and there is something "missing" because they lack some vague "political skills" than that means that their instructor is the one who should get fired.
Political skills isn't part of nursing.
The ability to correctly interpret situations, expectations, people's emotions, etc. are DEFINITELY a big part of nursing. We nurses work with PEOPLE in complex, stressful environments. The patients may be having the worst experience they will ever have in their entire lives. Everyone involved (both patients and staff) have separate agendas, preferences, etc. A good nurse can read the situation well -- part of what we call "assessment" in the nursing process.
I've been in Nursing Staff Development for more than 25 years -- longer than many allnurses members have been alive. I have seen many new nurses succeed in the hospital environment and I have seen many fail over the years. The vast majority of those who fail do so because of their lack of PEOPLE skills (i.e. political/interpersonal skills) -- and not because of their lack of knowledge or technical skills.
Actually, very few have addressed his original question, they including you, have addressed what YOU (the collective) THINK is the question. and I don't think your quote from the OP is either passive aggressive or personal attack!
Ahhh here we go. ^this, Capp, would be considered both passive aggressive and a personal attack. Sheesh say what you really wanted to say why don't you. What does my post say about me, really? (That is a rhetorical question)
I answered your original question, I think many of us have answered it and pretty much said the same darn thing in many variations but your still in this conspiracy theory, using cloaked words like "secret" and "almighty" nursing instructors.
Im going to bow out gracefully here because I've come to terms with dealing with people who stick their fingers in their ears and spin about singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while everyone wastes they're breath trying to explain things. I truly hope things work out for you and that you find some peace in this school journey and in your nursing career if you choose to forge on.
I'm thinking he did argue with her. In the original post he mentioned asking her to "clarify what she based this assumption on". Now...going out on a limb too lol...but I'm willing to bet a dollar when she said he lacked initiative he said word for word with some look on his face "um. what are you basing this assumption on". As a nurse who deals with orienting new people to the hospital, don't talk to me about assumption when I give you feedback. If I give you feedback and say you lack initiative and spoke with the nurse about this, there is no assumption. That's what nurses call an "assessment".
Based on what the OP said "letting patients do whatever they want"...I'll tell you that's a bad mindset to have. You have to take initiative when patients don't willingly agree with you. If the patient said "I guess", that means take the initiative and do the procedure! I can't think of one nurse who said patients will always do what you ask when you ask. And why are you talking like you're in court? Always more to a story. Now regarding the comments about "I heard about a girl who was failed because the teacher didn't like them, or my friend was failed because the teacher was unfair". Of course when MANY people are failed they will cry foul and say it wasn't their fault. Or when a few people fail a test, they will say "NO ONE PASSED"...come on
again, were is the passive aggression? and if he is in the right, why should he "try differently?"
Holy good God. A part of me was really identifying with you OP from having issues with unfair instructors myself. To answer your original question, yes, some instructors are unfair and arbitrarily will try to mess up your life, livelihood, finances, etc. Just like it will happen with jobs and bosses, as others have mentioned.
But geesh...the more you respond, the more I think your obvious attitude and tendency for passive-aggressive lashing out is at least a big part of you failing. If you spoke like you have on here, to people who have been there, done that, to people who have genuinely tried to help you, then I can't even imagine how you interacted with someone who was doing anything less than licking the soles of your nursing shoes.
Seriously, if you really feel this strongly about nursing, then back off, relax, try to look deep inside and figure out where this attitude comes from. Then dust yourself of and try again. Just try...differently.
The fact that no one argued the statement about a female being kicked out of med school for being female didn't imply we thought it was ok, it implied the statement was too ridiculous and irrelevant to even address.
Madras
270 Posts
Ahhh here we go. ^this, Capp, would be considered both passive aggressive and a personal attack. Sheesh say what you really wanted to say why don't you. What does my post say about me, really? (That is a rhetorical question)
I answered your original question, I think many of us have answered it and pretty much said the same darn thing in many variations but your still in this conspiracy theory, using cloaked words like "secret" and "almighty" nursing instructors.
Im going to bow out gracefully here because I've come to terms with dealing with people who stick their fingers in their ears and spin about singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while everyone wastes they're breath trying to explain things. I truly hope things work out for you and that you find some peace in this school journey and in your nursing career if you choose to forge on.
And Ixchel, I really dig you