>>> Sorry - this is a big vent and may be very long!!
Today we took a stand against our clinical instructor (and now I'm a little worried).
Our CI is new to the school and new to the hospital. She was a last minute replacement, but claims she has 10 years teaching experience. We are half way into our rotation.
The earliest she has arrived was 15 minutes late - and that was on the first day. Since then, she insisted that we start clinicals 1 hour early (which put a strain on some of our schedules), and has been at least 30 minutes late every day.
When she does show up, she only has a list of patients on the floor. She does not check with the head nurse about who is getting discharged. She does not check the medication chart about what kinds of meds (and what time) the patient will get. She brings in her list and randomly assigns us a patient... AFTER we have already been waiting up to 45 minutes for her to show up! We usually do not hit the floor for 2-2.5 hours after our clinical started. Sometimes we end up with nothing to do (due to discharges and no meds to pass). She told us to bring our books to study, and to hide in the conference room:banghead:
There are other frustrations - wasting time talking endlessly about herself, her family, every health problem she has ever had, etc, etc...
Although I would not say she is mean to us, she can be condescending to some of the patients (behind their backs), primarily the overweight or mentally impaired.
Our professors that teach the theory part of the class are aware of the problems (heard it from the grapevine, I guess), but can't do anything about it. They have been supportive of us, and have given us some advice.
The official school policy is that a student must wait 10 minutes for an instructor to show up. Our professor said that certainly after 20 minutes we can assume they will be absent.
So.. today, we waited 20 minutes, then as a group, got up and left. We all went home. I really wanted to talk to her first (as a group) and then leave tomorrow if she is late again, but I agreed to go with the majority.
Now I am really worried. This woman will be writing our evaluations. I know she will be angry, and have no idea what will happen tomorrow. I think we have enough documentation to put administration on our side, but this could get really ugly.
Anyone ever had anything like this happen to them???
i totally agree that you're PAYING HER SALARY! so wow... i wish my clinical group had the guts that yours did... and hey at least your other professors were sorta on your side... our professors and instructors stick together like glue NO MATTER WHAT... good luck! i hope that everythings works out in your favor! i'll be praying for ya
Really glad your group has gone through with the paperwork. Going through channels can be long and sometimes seemlingly powerless, but in the long run is the best thing to do for yourselves. I hope your proactivism survives into your career!
Matt48, students are not paying the CI's salaries. You are paying tuition to the school, in return for education. The school pays salaries and employs CIs. Very little of the overall budget is from tuition.
Matt48, students are not paying the CI's salaries. You are paying tuition to the school, in return for education. The school pays salaries and employs CIs. Very little of the overall budget is from tuition.
Yeah... while I totally support what the OP did (although I probably would have tried to persuade everyone to stay, because I'm a bit of a wimp), this statement bugs as much as a patient saying it to me. Or a private citizen saying it to a police officer. They haaate that.
Being the way I am, I probably would have mentioned something to the instructor first, but I don't think the way you went about it was bad at all! She should have been more concerned with getting you out there for your clinicals than anything else! Personally, that is how I LEARN!!! So for her to arrive that late every day is unacceptable!! My instructor is always there early doing her work to get us patients that will fit our agenda for that week...she is always in our pre-clinical meeting on time! And we are on the floor within 15-30 minutes of arriving! I hope something happens with this instructor...she should understand the importance of you guys getting out there - I doubt she'll be back next semester. AND...if she does fail all of you, I doubt you'll actually fail considering the fact that you have all filed a formal complaint against her...it probably won't stick and the school will review it.
Good luck the next few weeks and hang in there!! You'll be fine I'm sure...other than probably feeling uncomfortable around her. Hope it gets better...she needs to understand that she has done wrong, not you. Your paying for this education and in my opinion, that is not a good one when she isn't getting you as much interaction with the patients as possible.
In case she does try to fail people, the whole class needs to do some very good documentation on any interactions with this instructor (good or bad), save all of their assignments and do this until after the rotation is over, and maybe even save the papers for a long time.
If the class does this, it may save them a LOT of grief later on.
I just got a call from our Director of Nursing. Our Clinical Instructor has been replaced with another instructor, one that we have all worked with before. I know she is tough, but fair, and a very good teacher. I am thrilled!
I think because we all stuck together, had very good documentation, and followed the proper channel, it worked out well for us. We were all expecting to have to meet with the Dean, but it wasn't even necessary.
I appreciate all of the support that I have received from this comminity, and I hope that anyone in a similar situation will not be afraid to do the right thing. Sometimes the school does listen and respond!
I just got a call from our Director of Nursing. Our Clinical Instructor has been replaced with another instructor, one that we have all worked with before. I know she is tough, but fair, and a very good teacher. I am thrilled!
I think because we all stuck together, had very good documentation, and followed the proper channel, it worked out well for us. We were all expecting to have to meet with the Dean, but it wasn't even necessary.
I appreciate all of the support that I have received from this comminity, and I hope that anyone in a similar situation will not be afraid to do the right thing. Sometimes the school does listen and respond!
please keep us updated; I suspect this will be a strong lesson where people uniting as a whole can truly bring change--the change being her promptness to clinical from this day forth; remember this experience because it might be the last time you see such solidarity amongst colleagues; and I have to praise you and your group for taking this bold step to attempt to redirect inappropriate behavior
I hate to toot my own horn, but well, if I don't, who will; although I didn't think the change would be so drastic...:chuckle:D
so now that it's all said and done and you pretty much got the results you ultimately had hoped for, if you had to do it all over again, would you have gone to the instructor first, or would you do it all over the same way?
ilovematt48
27 Posts
i totally agree that you're PAYING HER SALARY! so wow... i wish my clinical group had the guts that yours did... and hey at least your other professors were sorta on your side... our professors and instructors stick together like glue NO MATTER WHAT... good luck! i hope that everythings works out in your favor! i'll be praying for ya