Nursing School Horror Stories...from those of us that survived!

Jackfackmasta, ASN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

I'm in nursing school but this scenario was yesterday day in the ER where I work as a tech. I was asked to do an EKG on a pt but he was in the bathroom. I noticed he had been in there a while and he said he was fine the first time. The second time he asked me to help him and he opened the door. Lord behold there was a 6'9 really tall lanky older man looking at me butt naked giving me a full frontal asking me to help him cath himself for the urine sample. I was like sure and helped him while holding the urine cup for him to drain the urine into.

nerkeynurse · Aug 7, 2011

I had a prof one semester that was terrrrrrible. I mean really. She couldn't even pronounce words from her own powerpoint. Anyway, our first test was coming up and we had covered Diabetes Insipidus, SIADH, Addison's, and Cushings. So we all studied the material we had covered. I remember this perfectly. There were 47 questions on the test, 7 of them were math, 15 of them were from those four diseases, and the rest were on blood transfusions. I know how important it is to know the right procedure for blood transfusions, but we weren't going to cover that till like chapter 5 or something. Anyway, I barely passed and I have no idea how. most people failed. I'm sooo glad that's over!! :smackingf

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

I went to nursing school PT and the entire beginning class started with basic skills the first semester. Second semester we were broken into 3 different clinical groups and on the first day of clinical there was an unfamiliar face in my group of 8. We all just assumed that this student transferred in from another school. But it was apparent VERY quickly that he didn't know the first thing about anything skill-related.

One day I was talking in the nursing lab at school with other PT students who were in a different clinical group than me and I mentioned this student and how he really didn't seem to learn things the way we all had. The lab supervisor overheard us and asked if we were talking about "John". We guiltily said we were and she made a prompt phone call to an instructor to come down to the lab. The supervisor said that she overheard a group of students talking (we were the only group in the room!) and what she was hearing was VERY disturbing. The instructor said that the student in question had an EXTENSIVE background and she PERSONALLY checked him out of the skills portion. (at which we were rolling our eyes to each other). The lab supervisor said that was all fine and well, but he was also supposed to in reviewing manuals and videos and she hadn't seen him doing any of those things.

Fast forward to the mid-way review: my clinical instructor asked how I thought clinical was going and I said "with me personally or overall?". She said that was an interesting response and what did I mean by it? That day in the lab was slowly relived for her and she was shocked. She had NO clue that this student in question had never taken skills--although it explained a lot. The school stuck him with her, where he was working under HER lisence without a basic grasp of the invasive procedures we were expected to perform.

He ended up not finishing the clinical, I not sure what the official reason was and who it came from, but as far as I know, none of us ever ran into him again!

AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN · Aug 7, 2011

Oh, mercy. Reminds me of the 30-something, able-bodied chap who stepped on a nail (his only injury, got staph) who rang the desk and asked for help with his bath. His assigned student refused, told our instructor he could do it himself (I found out later). The nurse at the dask asked if I minded, and all the poor man wanted was a basin of water and some soap. Not to be washed.

The assigned student threw a fit and told me I deserved to be written up. I fired back that she was the one that needed writing up, as he was her patient. The instructor told her to lay off, and if I remember right, gave her a small u for refusing to perform patient care.

tyvin, BSN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

Oh yes ... I have written about this before here on a similar post. I loved school. I am lucky that it came easy to me. In my senior year a new assistant professor was hired. Now we had all been together for years at this point so a new person comes in we try to make them welcome. This women took an immediate dislike to me.

I don't know why but I could see the disdain in her eyes when she would address me; real to the point blank hatred. She treated me like some type of mental invalid and would make fun of me in front of the nurses where we were doing evening clinical (not at school in front of the other students or professors). Like a Jekyll and Hyde type of deal.

I don't know what she told the nurses at the evening clinical but they grouped together and would come and get me to do all kinds of things. With a "shhhh ... come this way don't tell her but here this is how you do this ..." Eventually she had it out with the charge who decided to call her on her behaviour in front of all of us at the nurses station. Gosh I loved those nurses. They could see what she was doing to me and wouldn't allow it. It was their floor not hers and they made that very clear.

I guess she did me a favor because I did so much more then the other students. Of course I couldn't write about it or anything like that but the experience was priceless. I kept my cool and let her go ahead and hate me for what ever reason. Life is too short to get tangled up in Bravo Sierra like that.

She was just an unhappy person and that was that. I chose not to get involved and saved myself a lot of trouble (I know that probably irritated her more then if I would've reacted LOL!).

Don't feed the monsters .

Biffbradford · Aug 7, 2011

Had an instructor that was appropriately nick named: "Marge the Sarge."

Tough? Whooo ! :lol2:

tyvin, BSN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

I had a prof one semester that was terrrrrrible. I mean really. She couldn't even pronounce words from her own powerpoint. Anyway, our first test was coming up and we had covered Diabetes Insipidus, SIADH, Addison's, and Cushings. So we all studied the material we had covered. I remember this perfectly. There were 47 questions on the test, 7 of them were math, 15 of them were from those four diseases, and the rest were on blood transfusions. I know how important it is to know the right procedure for blood transfusions, but we weren't going to cover that till like chapter 5 or something. Anyway, I barely passed and I have no idea how. most people failed. I'm sooo glad that's over!! :smackingf

You made me remember this one supposed professor ( :rolleyes: ). He was the fiance of our maternal-child professor. Anyway the first class we just kind of looked at him as he made absolutely no sense at all. I would raise my hand to ask questions because he wasn't covering the material we had read for this class according to the syllabus. Long story short 6 of us went to the head professor and made a formal verbal complaint after he told us how to cheat on the physical we were prepping for. He was serious! He no longer works there. I don't feel guilty about ending this guys career as a teacher ... it was a disaster. Most times nepotism just causes problems.

LegzRN · Aug 7, 2011

People who are in nursing school now ask me about my experience and it's always the same. If I had to do it again... I wouldn't :)

umcRN, BSN, RN · Aug 7, 2011

One instructor sticks out in my mind. It was my maternity instructor. I remember we had our mid-term review. My clinical group was at a very small hospital, as a group we observed only ONE birth the whole semester. My first postpartum assessment I had to do on the mom, with her partner and mother in the room, my instructor and three other students. Needless to say I was nervous, the mom was chatting with my instructor and I was very task focused and didnt talk to the mother much. For my midterm review that was the ONLY mother assessment I had done and my instructor told me I had done awful, I had not been chatty with the mother and too task focused, she then went on to tell me that "some people just aren't meant to be nurses" :mad: I went home and cried for hours that night. She gave me a C for the semester. However I graduated nursing school with a 3.8 gpa, getting an A in every other clinical and most of my classes. I passed the nclex in 75 questions and I have since gone on to work in both NICU and peds CICU. I have received 5 daisy award nominations in my 2.5 years as a nurse and countless other verbal thank yous and appreciations from patients parents.

If I ever had the chance to see her again I would make sure she knew I proved her wrong. :rolleyes:

SimonJester · Aug 8, 2011

dw had one doozie of an incident…

it was three weeks before graduation during her last clinical rotation… dw was listing off the drugs her patient was being given that day in a report type situation to her clinical instructor. she misspoke and called a drug an anti-platelet vs anti-coagulant, it was a slip of the toung as dw knew she had use the wrong word and corrected herself… the ci however proceeded to scream at dw telling her how she was wrong for calling the drug an anti-platelet, and how she needed to know her drugs and so on for 15 minutes her tirade went on dw sort of froze up and didn’t respond…… the ci then proceeded to pick up a drug handbook and threw it at dw hitting a computer and dw with the book. this was all done in earshot of other nurses, students, patients…

after it was over dw went into the bathroom to compose herself and lost one of her contact lens, while searching for the lens the ci comes into the bathroom (sing user bathroom) and proceeds to yell and dw some more, the entire time blocking the entry way so dw could not leave the restroom. she tells dw that she will be written up for being disrespectful and will have a chance to add her comments at the end of the clinical day. end of day comes and no write-up, so dw goes home and emails the director of nursing to explain what happened and see what they want to do (mistake).

so the next day miss nasty ci writs up a statement saying dw was being disrespectful towards the ci and has several of the nurses working that day sign it, coincidentally ci happens to also work with these nurses during her day job… so director of nursing program calls dw into a meeting with miss nasty ci where they then pounce on dw with her disrespect offence, they produce the signed statement and so forth. dw refuses to sign statement and instead writes her own account of the incident. so a student hearing is to be held to decide what discipline should be handed down to dw. we are told by the school, no we cannot have any legal counsel at this meeting, no we cannot have outside parties attend (ie other students), and that the director of nursing will provide a third party mediator. this just floors me and upon checking into the schools policy handbook we found that indeed their policies for first level discipline meeting you are not allowed to bring legal counsel, not allowed to bring your own witnesses! dw does manage to get her own third party into the meeting a school guidance counselor…

so of course all parties except the school counselor backed the ci and told dw she should write an apology letter to ci and she would be allowed to continue with the nursing program! wow with 3 weeks left before graduation we had to contemplate what to do. on one hand the ci had committed assault against dw and trapping her in the restroom could carry a whole set of other charges. on the other hand a lot of this would be her word against ci since by now no one was willing to come forward for fear of ci wrath. escalating this to legal authorities would certainly mean dw would not graduate…

so in the end dw tucked her tail between her legs and wrote the apology letter. the remaining clinical days dw was assigned to the other ci and had no more issues, graduated and now work at the same hospital where this all took place…

ps. dw has seen miss nasty ci one time floating on her floor as dw was going off shift, dw smiled nicely and walk off, miss nasty ci pretended to not notice dw…

bsyrn, ASN, RN · Aug 8, 2011

It was our first day of nursing school and my classmates and I were so excited to be there. The first instructor came in and said "all of you look around the room". We all kind of looked around and smiled at each other, then the instructor finished her sentence with 50% of you will fail out....I was shocked...what a negative way to start out the program. I will never be that kind of instructor.