If you could have an open, honest conversation with your instructors - classroom or clinical - what would you tell them?
Here are some of my thoughts:
(1) Please make sure that everyone follows the rules & meets the requirements. Don't let some students make their own rules while others work hard to follow every rule! While there are always times exceptions must be made, the same students are often getting away with everything.
(2) When I'm in clinical, please just step back and allow me to do the task I have to do. Don't stand over me asking questions! Your running commentary makes me a nervous wreck. As long as I'm doing my task correctly, observe & keep quiet! If I do something wrong, please explain it to me and give my another opportunity to prove I can do it.
(3) Please ensure your expectations are clear and consistant. If you want our weekly patient write-ups a certain way, tell us. Don't change your expectations without letting us know!! The bottom line: most of us are working so hard to do our best! Tell us what you want from us and we'll always do what we can to get a good grade!
I am getting a BSN not an "RN degree." Besides, half the class has no intention of spending a second on a floor as an RN. Everyone is bound for grad school. Figure it out.
Funny, because I was of the assumption that most nurses were Registered Nurses. The BSN just means you happen to have a bachelors degree, as opposed to having an ADN degree. We all take the same NCLEX. Oh, and I happen to know just as many nurses who work on a "floor" who have BSNs as I do those who have ADNs. Do you honestly think that having a few more classes under your belt rises you above having to take a blood pressure now and then?
"Funny, because I was of the assumption that most nurses were Registered Nurses. The BSN just means you happen to have a bachelors degree, as opposed to having an ADN degree. We all take the same NCLEX. Oh, and I happen to know just as many nurses who work on a "floor" who have BSNs as I do those who have ADNs. Do you honestly think that having a few more classes under your belt rises you above having to take a blood pressure now and then?"
I am sorry. I think you took that the wrong way. The point ISN'T that it matters what type of degree you have because you are right, it certainly does NOT. My point is that I get tired of feeling like I am in some type of prolonged review course and that anything else outside of what might appear on the NCLEX is irrelevant. A degree of any type should not focus on a single exam. Nurses are scientists too. Its an important part of the curriculum.
As for grad school, I was trying to say that my instructors hyperfocus on ONE type of role for Registered Nurses and ignore the rest of the possibilities. My class seems to have a lot of folks interested in grad school and I feel like the profs should take that into account when they start removing stuff from the curriculum because "it won't be on the NCLEX."
You assumed that that meant me but I have no current plans to go to grad school. I am open to all kinds of things. By the way, I am also not ABOVE doing anything. Only fools go to nursing school thinking they will never [fill in the blank].
Oh, ok, I understand a little better. And I do know where you are coming from -- hey, I want to be a nurse practitioner and go to a flight nursing academy. Definitely a lot different than a med surg floor. ;-)
Please don't make yourself so unapproachable that we are more terrified of you than the patients, staff, or our other teacher. Please don't make us feel as though we are stupid or wasting your time every time we ask you a question. Please focus more on teaching us and less on whatever it is that you do when you are not teaching us. Please learn better time management so that we may get more out of our classroom time, and spend less time talking about how x's cousin's cousin's brother's sister's mother's friend had some obscure disease that doesnt even relate to our chapter. Please don't teach your entire nursing class that "in the effort of holistic nursing" you should strongly encourage your labor and delivery patients to have an epidural. It's their choice, but not one that should be forced upon them by nurses, and not one without great risk. Teach us instead the risks and rewards and allow us to pass that on to our patient. Don't brag about how you would never consider birth without an epidural like only a crazy person would do that when we all look to you for guidance on how we should be, as nurses.
Don't change the rules, or make up your own as you go along. Get on the same page as the other instructor (we seperate out into two teams). Its not fair that we chose you, because you seemed so nice in orientation, only to find out that you expect ten times more from us than the other instructor, give ten times less instruction, and are ten times less approachable. Its quite unfair and makes us wish we had been more intuitive and had chosen not to be your students.
And most importantly... PLEASE stop having your favorites. I understand that we don't have a lot of boys in our class, and that some students were with you last year, but the favoritism really messes with the dynamic of the group, and with the respect students have for you as well.
"Oh, ok, I understand a little better. And I do know where you are coming from -- hey, I want to be a nurse practitioner and go to a flight nursing academy. Definitely a lot different than a med surg floor. ;-) "
We have very similar goals with regards to trauma/flight nursing!
To Prof. A: Thanks for being strict with grading our quizzes. It's the reason why I get perfect scores on the exams.
To Prof. B: You asked for suggestions on how you can make the class understand the material better, you were given suggestions, then ....NOTHING...Why did you even ask?
To Prof. C: The assignments are 2 pages long. How many weeks does it take for you to grade them? Can I take those same number of weeks to hand them in? The semester is about to end, and I'd would like to see and calculate my expected final grade, TYVM.
You told us our grades would be posted in 2 hours. That was 4 hours ago! You are so strict about us getting things in on time, so why are you slacking on posting our grades??
Why did you make us buy PDA's for this semester? They don't have half the information we need for clinical and they don't work half the time. I now have a $400 paper weight.
DO NOT READ THE POWER POINTS WORD-FOR-WORD FOR 4 HOURS STRAIGHT....really nothing will prepare me for your ridiculous tests.(something is wrong when only 3 students pass with 75+....and its not the students!)
and why does it take five days to grade a multiple choice exam on the computer????
and thank you for posting the powerpoints for the class the morning of class or late the night before...good way of being on top of your game (and why are the student ppts different than yours?)
OK....now that I have that off my chest
For my clinical instructor
Thank you so much for being there for me this semester, it means so much when you are not belittled for not knowing all the information that pertains to a certain drug or procedure...also you went out of your way to ensure I had a productive clinical experience (which I truly appreciate)....I always left your clinicals feeling like I will make a good nurse!
"Contrary to your belief, there is nothing magical about the sound of your voice reading powerpoints that makes us understand them better. If you have absolutely nothing to add to the outlines you've already posted online, why not make this an online course so that we can sleep in and save gas money? Also, if we can be on time, YOU can be on time. Also, please please proofread what you give us. When the page numbers on your handouts and assignments are from two editions of our book ago, and bear no resemblance to the edition WE have, it not only makes it hard to know what to study, but it makes it clear just how much you don't give a crap about us. Also, if you change a clinical date, it's NICE TO ALERT THE CLINICAL GROUP affected by the change. You screwed up in a way that severely inconvenienced a dozen other people and made us look awful in front of the hospital- own up to it like you're always demanding that we do. Finally, if you lose one more assignment I'M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND."
To another:
"Thank you for taking the time to actually teach us, and sticking with a job where you're treated poorly because you're an advocate for the students rather than for the rest of the staff. We love you and you've given at least one student nurse the will to stick with it when the rest of the instructors were busy making life hell."
Ma'm, please give us poor students a clear idea of what you expect from us. Your goals are too lofty and your standards inconsistent. Your attitude changes by the day. You expect us to know things we've never been taught about. I understand that you've been a nurse for donkey's years... but that doesn't negate the fact that you're simply unapproachable and rigid.
And your comment that "I can't imagine why you as a man would ever want to do OB nursing" certainly doesn't help.
To my "Basic assessment" instructor:
When you first told me in class that "a good, complex assessment usually takes about 15 minutes or less"; I thought you were insane! All them reams of papers and books I'd crammed in... and I was expected to apply that in 15 minutes or less?! Lady you're nuts!
Oh how wrong I was! And you showed me too!
I still follow your "assessment pattern" to this very day - and it has never failed me!
Thank you believing in me :)
To my Pediatric clinical instructor:
You were simply the most awesomest, greatest instructor I ever had. You pushed us to do procedures on patients. You were more comfortable about our nursing skills than we were of ourselves - and that confidence rubbed off.... be it inserting an NG tube in a 6 year old or cathing an infant! Your words of encouragement and criticism still stand fresh in my mind. You encouraged us to think for ourselves. You didn't punish failure - you used it as leverage to make us work harder at correcting our mistakes.
I owe a lot of my success in my nursing career to you.
Thank you! :)
To my ortho/med surg instructor:
You might have been a little reserved in theory but you shined in clinicals. You were flexible and approachable. You weren't pretentious.
You made us work hard - and I thank you for that when I began my job on an ortho-med/surg floor.
:lol2:
lemonaidangel
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