Nurses and Nursing Students: what was/is your biggest pet peeve in nursing school?

CinLPN2RN · Jul 14, 2005

I'm loving these. We have 2 people who have a story for everything. One's common statment was "Well, I worked in a podiatrist's office and...(insert long winded tale)."

My all time number one pet peeve: GOSSIPING STUDENTS!!

I mean, don't these students have anything else to do other than talk bad about everyone else? Just go to school and stop worrying about anyone other than yourself!

Ah, I feel better. Anyone else have catty/gossipy girls or guys in their class?

Cindy

sandiLa · Jul 15, 2005

This is so fun.

I think my biggest was one girl in our class who thought because she married money she was the most important person there. She was loud, obnoxious, dressed like a slut, EVERY day and stirred more #$%$ than anyone I've ever met. I so wanted to tell her that even if you have money it takes a little more to have some tact. Her famous last words were, "After I get my liscense I don't have to work". Well she got a job less than a month after getting her liscense. LOL

We had the one who knew everything too. She used to be an EMT and worked in the ER at a local hospital. I swear she'd seen every single thing our instructor taught us and preceded to describe it in vivid detail which only led to us getting out of class late.

And I agree with the different instructors teaching/grading all different ways. It's insane. We got a new instructor my last semester and this woman came straight from hell. I mean we were in the last semester and she wanted to watch us do every single dressing change, then she would leave the floor. We'd be set up and waiting. I even went so far as to have her paged and she still didn't show up. I finally did the dsg. change alone, she never said a word. Sad. She's no longer there, thank God for the other students.

Sandy

msmona · Jul 19, 2005

OMG!!!!! you totally just reminded me of one of my BIGGEST pet peeves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It drives me CRAZY when people bring their cell phone to class and dont turn off the ringer!!! I think it is soooo rude to interrupt the class when your tacky cell phone plays a really awful christina agulaira song...if i were the teacher id be less than happy if my lecture got interruped by a cell phone...oh and those who answer them in class..im not even going to go there...
oh and it also drives me crazy when...that one person who NEVER comes to class wants to copy YOUR homework or class notes!! I always feel bad and cant say NO but sometimes I want to!
lol...guess I had more to vent than I thought...keep posting guys so that I have more to vent about it feels good lol!

YOU are so right! But really I AM SOOOOO SORRY- IT TRUELY WAS JUST A MISTAKE AND I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER---PLEEEESE FORGIVE ME! Sometimes some of us just plain FORGET until it rings and then it is SOOO embarrassing! That happened today so I just had to let that out-thanks.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Jul 19, 2005

It's always truly a mistake. It's a good thing that it is embarrassing.

texas_lvn · Jul 19, 2005

My instructors cut out giving us the test back, so we never got a chance to argue points. We were able to see scantrons after we contacted a counseler, and that was all. Only a scantron.

Cellphones- we actually had one girl who stayed on her cell phone during an entire lecture. When she started to get agitated, Prof ask if she needed to teach class, or let all of our patients DIE because we were unable to learn that day. The very next day the idiot was back on her cell. She failed NCLEX. Hahaha

People wanting to have a pinning, but not wanting to contribute money, time, or merchandise to sell. Then complaining that the pinning could have been better, DUH. (School was not even involved in pinning, the class had to do it!)

Smokers being able to take their break during clinicals, but non-smokers had to work through breaks (because everyone left early.)

Jeez, thanks for letting me blow steam. You would think I would learn, but here I go again, back into school. Uggg GOD help me!

tramalady45 · Jul 20, 2005

What is your biggest pet peeve about being in nursing school or things that happened while you were in nursing school???
Don't you hate it when:
you study your *$$ off and still dont get an A!
when you hear nursing students say "ewww thats gross" or "it stinks in here, im gonna throw up" or "ew i cant chage a depends thats so gross" -that drives me nuts! i dont know how these students will make it in the world of nursing....
come on nursing students i know we all have something that really irks us about school (even though we all loooove it!)....

I really don't know where to start. So, I shall list a few. I appologize in advance for the rant!

1. There was actually a girl in my class that had the you know whats to tell me that she was smarter than me. My reply: If you really were that smart, you wouldn't have to go around convincing other people of this alleged "fact"

2. There also was a "woman" and I use this term lightly-that actually sat in class with head phones on listening to the previous days lecture while ignoring the current lecture!

3. People who lie about their grades to make you feel bad about yourself.

4. Hmmmm, then there was another girl who actually threatened to beat me up simply because she didn't like me yet failed to give me a reason why she didn't like me when I asked if I did something to make her dislike me.

5. Mean nurses in clinical sites. There is absolutely no reason any nurse should ever treat a student like dirt simply because they are students. Show me a nurse who was born a nurse with knowledge already implanted in her brain while growing and developing as a fetus and I will shut up. I will not tolerate any nurse being mean to any student under any circumstance ( unless the said student did something wreckless and careless that would place the patient in the path of dire consequence)

6. I had a teacher in my class that told every student in there that they were going to fail. Thanks for the encouragement!

7. Doctors handwriting. This should actually require a law. How on earth could it be safe for a patient- that a nurse or anyone else for that matter- not be able to read this guys writing. They spend a gajillion years in school and apparently they missed handwriting somewhere along the way.

8. Elitist attitudes because you work in a specialty area. Nurses are a huge team and if they would all draw from each others knowledge and experience, this would make for wonderful continuity in client care. Remember, we all started at the same starting point. Some of us just choose different paths to follow.

9. Nurses/doctors/students who ignore dental hygiene. It is appauling. I know if I were a client laying in a bed I would not want someone hovering over me with the worst "dead guy smelling like I ate a cat terd sandwhich for breakfast" breath!

There. I finally have it out of my system!! :rotfl:

jschut, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2005

I haven't been here in a long time d/t being in nursing school, so I have some of my own!

1) The girl who asks me every time what my grade was on the test or on the homework...

2) The same girl who laughs about bad grades or bad checkoffs:..."I never study!" and "I don't care!"

3)Or the "preppy" group who get their own way because one of them cries and runs to the Dean...and things get changed to make them (the click of the class) happy.

4)The cell phones in class

5) The girl who has had EVERYTHING happen to her and knows ALL about EVERYTHING we discuss in class and talks about it even while the teacher is trying to lecture.

6) 4 different teachers with 4 different expectations. We do a checkoff the way we were taught and the teacher checking us off says "That's not the way to do it" so we have to re-do it their way, causing a conditional pass, and a 15% decrease in our grades. The only response we get is that we "have to adapt". This happened to one of my friends.

Wow...so many to list! Haha! :uhoh3:

leopold · Jul 21, 2005

I hate that check-off thing. Every teacher teaches a different method and then when you do it you fail because you're not doing it "right." Not only that but there is a growing animosity between teachers because they are getting p-o'd at each other because they each think the other is doing it wrong. One time, a teacher was teaching us catheter insertion and I looked over at another teacher who was watching and she was rolling her eyes. The thing is, the teacher who was instructing us on cath had her RN but had never worked as a nurse but was in charge of the program while the teacher who was rolling her eyes had been an RN for 20-some years. And we know that because they don't like each other if you get trained by one and check off with the other it's a pretty good bet you're going to fail. :angryfire

GrnHonu99, RN · Jul 22, 2005

I hate that check-off thing. Every teacher teaches a different method and then when you do it you fail because you're not doing it "right." Not only that but there is a growing animosity between teachers because they are getting p-o'd at each other because they each think the other is doing it wrong. One time, a teacher was teaching us catheter insertion and I looked over at another teacher who was watching and she was rolling her eyes. The thing is, the teacher who was instructing us on cath had her RN but had never worked as a nurse but was in charge of the program while the teacher who was rolling her eyes had been an RN for 20-some years. And we know that because they don't like each other if you get trained by one and check off with the other it's a pretty good bet you're going to fail. :angryfire

that doesnt seem fair! I hate bad teachers...or better yet, teachers with bad attitudes! I had one before I trans programs, she was so awful! You could just tell she hated her job...when we asked her how she liked working in the ER, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "its a job" yup thats the kind of nurse i want teaching me!

Stella-Ohio · Jul 27, 2005

My pet peeves were

No alternative in scheduling classes (particularly late evening class when I had non-driving teenagers at home who needed to get places).

The school's DON basically gave a speech saying she now owned us. Really peeved me.

Along those lines, we were often told by the instructors (particularly adjuncts) that they were to flush out those they felt unfit for nursing either academically or hands on.

Now shouldn't it be the goal of the school to educate willing students and get rid of those who truly cannot handle nursing?

I scraped by with only one repeat (due to one of the adjuncts) who actually had the nerve to say I would thank her someday. NOT. Causing me to lose my scholarship, push graduation back 6 months due to no nursing classes in the summer, and depleting my earning potential for that time frame, having no health insurance (etc etc etc) is definetely NOT something I will thank her for EVER.

P.S. I was getting an A- in the classroom and thought I was getting along fine with the adjunct. One day in clinicals, she was having a bad day and threw 3 (out of 8) of us out on the same day. Later she failed 2 more. Guess who the DON stood by?

I never recommend my nursing school to the techs looking for a college. I learned alot, but only because I was a little older and more secure in myself to get through. Some of the younger girls never came back.

tencat · Jul 27, 2005

I hate the phrase "Put on your flexibility hats" which usually means someone in charge didn't get something done right or on time so the students have to deal with it. Is it usual practice for nursing schools to not have exact scheduled clinical times until right at the beginning of the semester? It's really annoying to not have times until the beginning of the semester!!!! My hubby needs to plan his schedule well in advance. He's a university prof, and he says that most college subjects have to have times planned well in advance, but he doesn't know about nursing. :angryfire

GrnHonu99, RN · Jul 28, 2005

first day of clinical. Why does it always have to be so unorganized?