Was my unsatisfactory in clinical unfair?

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I received a clinical unsatisfactory based on hearsay. A nurse I was shadowing spoke lies about me and told my instructor a bunch of mean things that I honestly would have never said to anyone. (I’m thinking she had a super bad day because she was sweet to my face) I’m just wondering if this is unfair since it’s hearsay and my instructor never actually saw me say it or saw my performance. I can only have so many bad points and this is borderline me being removed from the program...

Specializes in Community health.
4 hours ago, JKL33 said:

Well, I'm just going to say it.

There is one too many people in this equation. Period.

This is such bunk. There was a post here I just read the other day about a student who was reported for the way s/he performed a first-time-ever female catheterization* with a staff nurse present who said nothing in real time and offered no feedback and seemed pleasant and then turned around and reported that the student either asked too many questions or needed too much reassurance or something like that.

Here's the problem:

1. The staff nurse is the one present, but doesn't know anything about any student's skill or what they are studying that week or what they have practiced in lab and has zero relationship with or duty to the particular student.

and

2. The instructor should, in theory, know those things and does (in theory) have a relationship and a duty....but isn't there.

How did it come to be that, although nursing instructors used to be able to keep up with 10 students on different floors/different units, helping everyone get good experiences and making sure they are doing things as they have been taught and encouraging them, giving them feedback, etc., they now no longer can do so? How is that?

I definitely would not make it through nursing school in 2020 if this is what is going on. How does anyone defend themselves against any of this?? That's another problem!! When the instructors were the ones directly observing and assisting and evaluating, they had some responsibility to the student, and their employer has some interest (real skin in the game) as far as not pissing off every student in this way. When you give that responsibility to a random staff nurse, all of that is GONE and everyone can just freely shrug.

No nurse should support this.

*I just re-read the other post I referred to. There was an additional context but the basic problem still stands.

Please remember that the people who get on Allnurses to complain are the people who have bad experiences. I graduated last year and my clinical experience was great. I don't want you to leap to the conclusion that "this is what is going on." This is a handful of people who are irritated and/or have been treated unfairly.

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I understand. Yes, the people who come here to complain may have had bad experiences. I don't think this type of bad experience is acceptable.

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We are also only hearing one side of the story. It's impossible for any of us to know what actually happened.

That said, I agree totally with the comments about how nursing school clinical instruction is being foisted onto staff nurses who are not paid, have zero association with the school, have not been vetted as educators, etc. Students are paying tuition to a school-the school has a responsibility to hire adequate numbers of instructors and task THEM with the job of teaching students. It's not fair to the students OR the staff nurses for the nursing school to abdicate their responsibility in this regard.

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6 hours ago, JKL33 said:

If someone lied about me right now at work (actually I've had it happen a time or two from a couple of separate individuals who didn't know what they were getting themselves into) - - things would immediately become serious. In both instances I knew exactly why the person lied and I demanded proctored meetings and confronted them successfully.

The student has none of these options. They have zero options here except to become initiated into the groveling, blame-taking, responsibilty-accepting, I'm-sure-I-must-have-done-something-wrong craptastic martyrdom known as "nursing."

? Dang! This is so REAL! I'm screaming and cheering you on for this one! I agree with your posts, JKL. Yes, of course we hear about the "oh, but there's two sides of the story!" But let's be honest... instructors can fail students for anything and especially over "hearsay". This happens more often than not for what I've experienced. If it's not a complete fail, they will be berated to no end. It's not supportive. I was lucky to have ONE friend out of maybe 30 for my class. Truth? I did not trust anybody, stuck mostly to myself and that same one friend who steered clear from the others and kept my mouth SHUT. It was my second rodeo in a program and I was doing things different all because of a negative impact from my first experience. I cannot say my second time was all great and supportive either. I just happened to keep quiet and just endure the BS, roll with punches... kind of like the jobs I've done! Ha! Anyway, long reply! Good day to you! ?

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Specializes in Long term care.

I will say this, many instructors are doing it for the money. I’ve seen instructors not even pay attention to some paperwork and graded satisfactory and they forgot to do half the paperwork. Not ALL instructors but there are some who do it for the money. Some also do let the coworkers babysit.

I find it unfair that if an instructor doesn’t like you they get to determine your fate in nursing school. You can try all you want but you’ll never change their mind. Judging by behavior and self away from patient care shouldn’t be involved in grading. You should mainly be graded by performance.

My unsatisfactory was graded on my “behavior”. NOT my performance. I was not supposed to receive an unsatisfactory considering my performance was good. I didn’t sit on my phone or be disrespectful. My other instructors agreed and it’s under investigation.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
10 minutes ago, Ashestoashes said:

I will say this, many instructors are doing it for the money.

Instructors do not do it for the money. Academic pay is far less than pay anywhere else in nursing. Calculating it out by hours spent in the classroom, in clinical, grading, and everything else, it will frequently end up being less than minimum wage per hour.

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6 minutes ago, Ashestoashes said:

I find it unfair that if an instructor doesn’t like you they get to determine your fate in nursing school. You can try all you want but you’ll never change their mind. Judging by behavior and self away from patient care shouldn’t be involved in grading. You should mainly be graded by performance.

A comment to temper my other comments:

Behavior is important in nursing. The caveat is that the person judging it should at the very least be the one who is teaching the values (or employed by the institution responsible for teaching the values) and who has a specific duty to the student.

Although confidential reporting mechanisms have their place (and where they do it is very important that those exist), I almost never support the kind of reporting that is more the nature of tattle-taling, where the tattler has nothing to lose; is not required to participate any further in the process or substantiate their claims or allow for the accused to rebut the accusations or defend him/herself. The unfairness of it and the toxicity it causes is the exact reason why many nursing managers choose not to entertain "reports" of this nature, or at the least definitely don't encourage them by penalizing the accused without enacting some of the other elements I am advocating.

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On 2/18/2020 at 11:31 AM, Ashestoashes said:

I will say this, many instructors are doing it for the money. I’ve seen instructors not even pay attention to some paperwork and graded satisfactory and they forgot to do half the paperwork. Not ALL instructors but there are some who do it for the money. Some also do let the coworkers babysit.

I find it unfair that if an instructor doesn’t like you they get to determine your fate in nursing school. You can try all you want but you’ll never change their mind. Judging by behavior and self away from patient care shouldn’t be involved in grading. You should mainly be graded by performance.

My unsatisfactory was graded on my “behavior”. NOT my performance. I was not supposed to receive an unsatisfactory considering my performance was good. I didn’t sit on my phone or be disrespectful. My other instructors agreed and it’s under investigation.

Possibly for resume purposes, if anything. If they want to pursue a job higher than an instructor, such as program director, I assume the teaching experience will be a gold star on their record, no matter how well or horrible they did in their teaching job... I've experienced first hand, not just to me, but to others that if the instructor just simply "doesn't like you", it's downhill from there. Sad to say, but mostly true. I say "mostly", just in case anyone jumps on me. I realize not everyone has had a bad experience in school like we have, Ashes. I'm just glad there are students who are willing to vent and bring light of what can be experienced in nursing school to this day. Anyway, I hope the best with your investigation!

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2 hours ago, CommunityRNBSN said:

Please remember that the people who get on Allnurses to complain are the people who have bad experiences. I graduated last year and my clinical experience was great. I don't want you to leap to the conclusion that "this is what is going on." This is a handful of people who are irritated and/or have been treated unfairly.

The fact that most students have a good clinical experience doesn't negate the fact that some have horrible ones. They should be able to tell their story and get feedback from us. Trust me, we have a finely tuned bullshitometer. If a student deserved the correction/consequence we will let them know in spades.

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On 2/18/2020 at 9:49 AM, Wuzzie said:

The fact that most students have a good clinical experience doesn't negate the fact that some have horrible ones. They should be able to tell their story and get feedback from us. Trust me, we have a finely tuned bullshitometer. If a student deserved the correction/consequence we will let them know in spades.

One of our clinical instructors took great pride in her role in eliminating students in their final semester. She finished a very long career doing this to people. I met more than two nurses in the community who were forced to finish at a different nursing school because of her. I came to the conclusion that her assertion that she was “given” this role by the school must have been true, otherwise how could she have done this for well over twenty years? And I have no doubt that there was something drastically wrong with someone who never said a word that a student was “failing” until she had that person in her final conference, with no witnesses, as she lambasted them with her sick rendition of how much pleasure she got in failing students days before graduation. So yes, there are students who do not have rainbows and unicorns during their clinical experiences. They, too, have a right to tell what they had done to them.

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