Help, I am at risk of being out of the nursing program because I am a smoker.
I really could use some advise on how to deal with a very unfair instructor. I am a first year PN student and we just started clinicals in Nov. I have an instructor that is absloutely against smoking. Of 18 students in the class only about 6 are not smokers. We were informed that if we as much as smelled of smoke during clinicals we would be docked in our grade.
One day another student and I got busted for smoking. Please no lectures on smoking and how bad it is. I really would like to quit. Anyway, our grade for the day was docked in every area it could. I would be fine with that. What I dont feel is fair is the way the instructor handled it after that.
A few days after the incident the instructor pulled me into her office when no one was around. She flat out asked me if I had smoked, and I said I will not lie, I did. She asked why after knowing her clear views on smoking I would do that, was I just that addicted? I told her yes, it is an addiction. This teacher than asked me about the other student and if she had smoked also. I felt uncomfortable about her asking me about another student, but I admitted she did also. I told her that I was sorry and would make sure it didnt happen again during clinicals. In fact I had just done another clinical the day before and told her in no way did I smoke before or during that clinical. This lovely woman told me that I need to think about what my punishment should be for disobeying her rules. Now remember my grade got docked for smelling of smoke. She also threatened to tell my mother about the incident. My mom works at the college but in a totally unrelated department.
A few days later she pulled me and the other student aside in a public hallway to lecture us and give us our punishment. She stated that we would write a 2 page paper with 2 references on how to quit smoking. Also we would write a 2 page paper on lying. Now I never did lie to her, she asked me if I smoked and I told her yes I did. If I wouldnt have confessed she wouldnt be able to punish us at all. Then to top it off she wants a 3 page paper on patient abandonment. She informed us, this is on the very last day of class before Christmas break, that we will have an incomplete in her class until she recieves these. I feel she is out of line and that she did this in a public hallway is just aweful. She wanted to make an example of us in front of the other students and I feel she handled this poorly.
I am furious. I have read the policies and procedures for the program I am in and nowhere does it say anything about smoking. In fact I dont think she can even assign extra papers because of it. My grade was docked as we were warned would happen. How can she make up extra punishment when I was punished by my grade? How can she make up extra assignments when we were told our grade would be docked. I earned a very hard A in her class. I got a 98% on her final.
Also this woman is a constant overeater and is constantly snacking on candy and other fattening treats. She flat out admits she cant live without candy. Yet she has the balls to judge anyone that smokes. She actually will pick out little things to dock grades on just because someone is a smoker when a nonsmoker can do clearly worse and recieve a better grade. I wrote in a letter to her that her behavior toward me and the other student was rude. In public to degrade us and ask us to write about effects of smoking and lying. How would she like it if she was asked to write about her eating habits and lack of exercise and how her fat butt is bad for her health? She can walk around with a jelly donut in her fat hand, but god forbid she smells smoke on a student.
She called me at home tonight to inform me that if she does not have these papers in hand by Weds of this week she will not let me continue in the program. I am considering taking her actions to her superiors and filing a greivance with the college regarding my grade.
Is it fair for a teacher to withhold your grade because of something like this? I have wrote her a letter pointing out how unfair it is and that I will not write extra papers for being a smoker. I admited to her I was wrong to smoke during a clinical, and said it will not happen again. My grade for that day was lowered because of it. I expect the grade I earned for the semester. I completed her course and than on the last day she throws 3 papers at me as a punishment!!!
I wrote her a letter that I expect the grade I earned and will not be treated like a child and will go to the board if she follows through on her threat. I feel I should add I am a president and deans list student. I have a print out of the points in her class and have earned a 96% fair and square. The class is over and I have an incomplete at the time deans and presidents list are being made, so she has taken that from me.
Please no lectures about smoking, if i could just quit I would. I want to know if her behavior is even justifiable? What are my legal options in this?
Specializes in med-surg, home health, hospice, LTC.
:yeahthat:
I would looove to tell you to take it as far as it goes with her administration, but am afraid you would only get the repercussions and no benefit. Gee, to remember back to my school days when we were all treated like second graders -had to move our desks apart for tests!!! Good luck!
I cannot believe some of the responses to this thread. Does anyone not see the real problem here? This instructor is using her authority to harass this person. This behavior is bullying and all too often condoned in this profession. This instructor is using the issue of smoking as an excuse and she should be reported immediately. As a non-smoker and a nurse, I have smelled worse things than cigarette smoke and so have all of you. Second hand smoke has been proven harmful but the actual odor of it has not. This student needs your advice and help dealing with this insecure, unprofessional bully, not a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco.
Thank you Brefni. I specificly stated I didn't need a lecture on smoking. I have heard them all. I need to know how to deal with this teacher. I have decided to not rock the boat too much, but I do feel that she was completely out of line. She doesn't see that she was. She justified the hallway talk with we didn't come by her office to speak to her. I dont know about the other student but I was by her office to speak about this and she was never there when she said she would be.
She said there are rules in the nursing program and she stands beside her punishment. My issue with this is she wrote it up as a critical behavior and a first offense on anything is to be an admonition notice. Two critical behaviors in a semester and you are out. This was the very end of the semester but I still feel it was thrown way out fo proportion. She also tried to say the incomplete was for a clinical paper she didn't have. I have the other student as a witness the incomplete is for the extra papers. She also said the threat of telling my mother is because she wanted me to know she would not do that. Well why bring my mother into it if it was not to intimidate me? She made that threat with the other student present also, so I would have her as a witness to the way it was worded and it wasnt a joke.
I know many nurses and nursing instructors are very much against smoking, but I still feel she is way out of line. I am going to keep track of everything from here on out and when I do have that diploma in my hand I am contacting the state board that regulates the program and telling them just what I think. I would stand up more now, but most of us have already learned it just causes harsher grading.
Actually here is an example. We were told we had to go to an all day conference out of town. We were given the option of Thurs or Fri to go. This choice was given by her superior. We all chose Friday. Well Friday would have been lab/clinical day anyway and it was for that class. This teacher pouted like a grade schooler because she had to teach that day and couldnt go. She blamed us and graded us harshly for a few weeks. She also threw in a paper on the conference. Now this is a large class of about 99 through out the state. Only our 18 had to go to the conference and we had to spend our whole day there instead of 4 hrs in lab. We left at 5:30 am to drive there by 8 and didnt get dismissed from it till 4:30 and still had to drive home. She made us write a 2 page paper on the event to top it off. No other site was required to do anything like this. She is instructor over all 99 of us, but only her students at my site had to go through this. We, all 18 of us, wrote her a letter stating her attitude toward us about the day chosen and the harsh grading and treatment. She pulled all of us aside and said we were being immature. I think she was immature to pout about day chosen, if it was an issue we shouldnt have been given an choice. We chose the day over a month in advance so we could make plans for daycare and school for our children. She expected us to change it just over a week in advance and we refused. Over 3/4 of the class has children, half of them single parents, and to find someone else to take mom's spot for a day is not easy. People had taken the day off from work and were scheduled to work the day she wanted to go. It just wasn't an option to change the day with little notice. This is the kind of mature woman I am dealing with.
It sounds like she's on a power trip, making up the rules as she goes along.
I'm sure a student smelling of smoke is not a good thing and follows under some hygeine policy. But to make you write papers on quitting smoking, etc. and with holding your grade doesn't seem like she herself is following proper p&p.
Good luck. Sometimes you have to choose your battles just to survive and get out. Other times you have to risk and stand up and fight.
I'm so old, I actually had a nursing instructor who would ask "who wants to go smoke with me" and take a group of students who smoked with her.
I cannot believe some of the responses to this thread. Does anyone not see the real problem here? This instructor is using her authority to harass this person.
I'm with Brefni. I also think the OP is handling the situation well. She's standing firm. And she's been very clear about smoking: She wants to quit. That's not the issue.
The issue is this instructor's bullying behavior. When you decide to put your head down and "get back to business," as one poster put it, you are simply enabling that behavior to continue. The OP will do herself and all future students a behavior by calmy and carefully bringing this attention to the instructor's superiors. Why is "rocking the boat" equated with negativity? Why is someone branded a "trouble maker" for standing up for herself?
Another poster suggested that she "consider (the) dynamic" of the number of people who want to be in nursing school versus the relative scarcity of instructors. The instructor, the poster suggested, is more valuable.
I suggest we consider this dynamic: When you pay thousands of dollars in tuition to attend a college program, you have entered into a contract with that institution. That's why such schools have harassment policies and other standards clearly spelled out -- that's part of their end of the contract. If the OP meets her end of the bargain, asking the school to meet its own standards isn't causing trouble.
I suggest that the instructor's threatening to call the student's mother -- regardless of the infraction -- is harassment, and that is an issue separate and apart from the student's smoking.
One other question for the OP: How old are you? I wonder if this instructor thinks you won't challenge her behavior because of her age.
I cannot believe some of the responses to this thread. Does anyone not see the real problem here? This instructor is using her authority to harass this person. This behavior is bullying and all too often condoned in this profession. This instructor is using the issue of smoking as an excuse and she should be reported immediately. As a non-smoker and a nurse, I have smelled worse things than cigarette smoke and so have all of you. Second hand smoke has been proven harmful but the actual odor of it has not. This student needs your advice and help dealing with this insecure, unprofessional bully, not a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco.
I absolutely agree. This is so high school. Reminds me of when the princepal took the doors off the girls bathroom because they were all in there smoking between classes. Come on. The thread starter knows that smoking is bad. This instructor is doing the same thing to this young future nurse as many nurses do...eating her young!
I don't know if the instructor can do what she says or not. Today during classes, there is a girl (wanting to be a nurse) that smells of cigarette smoke so bad it almost made me gag. No one would sit close to her. I don't know what will happen if she makes it into the program. I'm sure the instructors will say something to her about smelling like smoke that strong. I didn't really see any other students outside smoking today. I did see an instructor though. I believe I would go ahead and do the papers and still pursue the grievence just to be safe. I would not take a chance on throwing your career and hard work away. Good luck.
Actually, there has been research showing the harmful effects of second hand smoke breathed in from people's clothing. I work in perinatal and give my smoking lecture and cessation info to all the dads and relatives that come in from their smoke breaks smelling of smoke. Picking up babies and cradling them to your smokey clothing is just like smoking into their faces. I would assume it would be similar to have smoke all over your uniform and then be leaning into patients faces to help or assess them. I see the angle on the bullying and I do agree. It is just that you can't not "get it" about smoking and be a health care professional. I am very impressed with the descriptions of the schools that have policies against getting even a trace of smoke on your uniform.
I cannot believe some of the responses to this thread. Does anyone not see the real problem here? This instructor is using her authority to harass this person. This behavior is bullying and all too often condoned in this profession. This instructor is using the issue of smoking as an excuse and she should be reported immediately. As a non-smoker and a nurse, I have smelled worse things than cigarette smoke and so have all of you. Second hand smoke has been proven harmful but the actual odor of it has not. This student needs your advice and help dealing with this insecure, unprofessional bully, not a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco.
The student really didn't seem to understand the harmful effects of smoking where patients are concerned. If she did, she wouldn't have compared her situation to the teacher's eating too much junk food.
I agree that the smell of smoke is not harmful, but where there's a smell...
I am allergic to cigarette smoke. It makes me sneeze, cough and gives me a horrible headache almost instantly. Sometimes, my body reacts to the smoke before I smell anything. In fact, it happens pretty often! I could care less about the smell, itself.
old rural nurse, RN
36 Posts
:yeahthat:
I would looove to tell you to take it as far as it goes with her administration, but am afraid you would only get the repercussions and no benefit. Gee, to remember back to my school days when we were all treated like second graders -had to move our desks apart for tests!!! Good luck!