Issues with Nursing Instructors

[miss_pitty_pat]

I am in my second year of an ASN program. We are in Complex Med/Surg. Our instructor for the lecture class is the program chair in our area. She is very unorganized! According to our calendar, we were supposed to take Exam 3 last week and we actually took Exam 1. Our class (there are 10 of us) feel that we are behind. She says we aren't. Myself and 3 other students were supposed to be in an observation last Friday as part of our clinical hours. We e-mailed her, called her, and texted her (texts is the communication method she prefers) and she didn't answer us all week. Finally, Thursday night at 8:45pm she e-mails us and says that there won't be an observation on Friday and we will have to make it up another time. Also the exam that we took was "open book" but was timed so we had to know the stuff before we took the test. The highest score was an 88. The questions were completely random and did not focus on what we read at all! We don't know what to do. We actually had issues with this same instructor our first semester and her superior was brought in and it was us vs. her and her boss took her word over the 10 of ours. We feel we have nowhere to go and no one to complain to. I am afraid I am not going to be prepared for NCLEX.

To top everything off, we have a new clinical instructor. She is 3 semesters away from her Master's degree. We are her first class she has ever taught. So, keeping that in mind, we try to cut her some slack and give her a learning curve, but things are getting ridiculous. She has never observed me doing anything, as well as several others in the class. I don't know how she can grade me when she hasn't watched me. We are split up between 2 floors so she has to go back and forth but I have never seen her on my floor for longer than 5 minutes. She tells us and the nurses we work with that we are to do an assessment, vital signs, baths, and I&Os. As a group, we do not feel like we are getting the experience we need. We have voiced to her that we graduate in May and want as much experience as possible, and she tells us she is only one person and can't be everywhere at once. Here's the kicker...she disappears for long periods of time and comes back reeking of cigarette smoke! It is against our school's policy for ANYone to smoke during clinical hours for respect to the patients! She works at the hospital we are at and when she sees someone she knows, she stands and talks to them way longer than what is appropriate. Yet she doesn't have time to help us get the procedures we need? Luckily the nurses at our clinical site are absolutely amazing! I am so thankful to them for taking time from their busy day to help us and show us things.

So, I guess my question is, How do we handle both of these instructors? We feel limited in what we can do. Several people in the class will complain, complain, complain, but refuse any idea of how to handle what's going on. Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks for letting me vent!

[miss_pitty_pat]

Oh, she is reviewing the exam. She said that with the grades that everyone got, she knows there was some sort of mistake somewhere and she is going to make it right. She is a lovely lady. I enjoy her lectures and feel like I learn from her and that she wants us to learn. It's the lack of organization that is the problem and places a lot of stress on already stressed out students.

[goodstudentnowRN]

Just hang in there, you will be okay.

[dozndawg]

Yep just hang in there is right. If you read all the post about problems people have you'll see that everyone seems to have some sort of problem with an instructor along the way. Be proactive, learn more than expected, and use negative experiences to your advantage!