Weeding out of nursing students

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jul 22, 2005

OMGosh you are too funny TWeety! What a great post and a great thread. So glad you started this. When I get to nursing school I will hit the ground running! (hopefully not the other way :chuckle )
I love the way you use "Sweetness" awwwww! so nice
FW

Deb and I go waaaay back and are down like four flat tires. I love and admire Deb, and she's my sweetness. :chuckle

Good luck in clinicals. Don't let the trolls get to you. :)

Hoozdo, ADN · Jul 22, 2005

Hi all,

I am currently in the last semester of the ADN RN program, yeah! There is weeding and I have witnessed it. The weeding that upsets me the most is at the beginning of every semester we have a med calculation test with 10 questions. Passing is 100%. Probably 4 out of 10 people pass it the first try. If you fail you have 2 more attempts; of course the questions are different. The test is given on three consecutive days so there is really no great amount of time for remediation. Usually 1 out of 10 flunks the third and final attempt. If you fail, you have to take the ENTIRE SEMESTER you just completed over again! Oddly, no math remediation course is required - just every single class and clinical you just finished! All of the students are really anxious at the test, personally, I always pass the second one. I hope the trend continues.

Probably the most outrageous thing I have ever seen, and this is worse than the IV hand slap in front of the pt, is an instructor flicking a student's ear with her fingers! The whole class was mortified and dumb struck. The student was talking when he should have been listening BUT the rest of the class viewed it as assault! Someone left the class and went to the dean and the teacher was yanked out of class for about an hour. She came back and apoligized :rotfl: We always sort of cringed when she came around us after that

I had a clinical instructor who was also a problem too. On the first day of clinical I asked her: do you like to be called Deb or Deborah? She said, "I liked to be called Ms. _____". Now, I was 48 years old at the time and this statement really floored me since I was about 10 years her senior. She was a care plan monster, nothing was ever good enough. Then she tried to do something similar to staff splitting with us - there was one student who she continually, constantly, praised. It was really rather sickening and her whole goal was to cause strife and confusion to the clinical students. She was a real wack job but I sure could right a flawless care plan with a million interventions and nursing dx's after having her. On the last day of clinical she suddenly decided one of the students wasn't doing well and flunked her. This student had no idea she was doing poorly. It was very unfair. I can see failing if you are told you are deficient first but Ms. ___ waited till the last day of clinical! I felt so bad for the student who was young and didn't stand up for herself.

My story and I'm sticking to it,

Lu Ann

chattypattyCRNA2B · Jul 23, 2005

With bad profs, the best thing is to find out if they have kids. Assume they have kids who are younher than yourself, then bear down and study your head off and commit yourself to be a professor in the future in the hope you will teach your prof's kid one of these days :)
-Dan

:rotfl:

gwt · Jul 23, 2005

Weeding out is the least of my worries. Jumping through hoops is just part of the process. The best was listening to two girls talking about a chem text last year and one of them said "Holy ---. Do you see all the words on this page???!!!" I think they got weeded about then!

G

glittergrl1998 · Jul 23, 2005

Do nursing instructors deliberately try to weed out students, by doing things like testing on material they haven't gone over yet, deliberately making it hard, picking on students?
My opinion was the "weeding out of students" was a myth.
The weeding out process seems to occur naturally, and the reason so many people don't make it through the program that started out, is that it's a tough, demanding, time consuming program, and whose eyes are on graduating top notch nurses who can pass NCLEX.
I do know teacher eyeball students they don't think are good clinicians and many of these cry "the teacher doesn't like me, and is out to get me". Or eyeball students that need a kick in the butt, or need a confidence boost and they feel picked on as well.
I don't think insturctors play games and try to weed students out.
I know there are bad insturctors and bad schools.

I completely agree with the whole weeding out thing. My story: I started out at our local tach school in the ADN program after leaving a four year college majoring in Journalism. I had well over 90 credit hours and enough sense to how college works, how to study and a vast knowledge in biology. Because the ADN program at the tech school was competitive, we started out with 72 students in a 30 student class room. I think that should have been the give away. I knew how to test very well, and I performed wonderfully in clinicals, but I got so tired with the instuctors claiming I wasn't going to pass if I didn't spend more time doing this or that. My grades were undeniably perfect though. After my Fundamentals and Nutrition I got out. I went to a four year school to just get my BSN because I wanted to be CNM anyway. After moving I realized that ADN programs are more competitive than BSN programs in that the space availablity is crazy in demand. I learned more in my BSN than in my ADN classes, because we concentrated on the material not on whether or not the teachers could talk us out of learning it. And that is what it seemed like happening at the tech school... the instuctoirs almost tried to talk you into quitting. That sure as hell doesn't make a nurse a nurse. I 'd rather have a competent nursing studnet see me in a setting rather than

one who kisses butt just to stay in and not get weeded out. It just seems as if the ADN programs around here are after graduated students who aren't prepared skill wise, but are prepared testing wise. Oh and yes, there is a difference between knwing and doing.

chadash · Jul 23, 2005

I dont know
I dont care
As long as Im wearing
clean underwear

I find your poem disturbing,

yet strangely...

I LIKE it!

I better go to bed...

chadash · Jul 23, 2005

WHY? I wish I knew.
I think these are basically insecure, unhappy people who are under great stress; they seem to be professionals who are horribly underpaid and under-appreciated and are taking out their frustrations on others. It happens. They apparently are NOT in the majority. For that, we can all be grateful.

Ever heard of dominant codependence? Oh now I have said too much!

Old Broad · Jul 23, 2005

In a few weeks I was supposed to be starting my 3rd semester in an ADN program in a very rural area. During the 2nd semester I was told by one teacher that I wasn't going to make the semester after the 2nd exam - we still had 4 exams and 1 final left! I was passing until the final - and then I "flunked" by less than one point - along with about 1/4 of the class! They would not change their minds on any of their answers - even though we showed them in our textbooks where OUR answers were correct! :angryfire :flamesonb

I asked the division chair if the rumor was true that they had to flunk so many students because they didn't have enough teaching personnel for the 3rd semester. She told me, "no", that it was because they didn't have enough spaces in the local medical facilities for all of the students! :nono:

Of course I have appealed their decision to flunk me - but true to form, they haven't followed their own code of conduct in the appeal process. Guess I'll be talking with the BON and press shortly. And, I'll have to switch to another field because I sure won't be treated fairly. They've already proven they aren't fair. :crying2:

By-the-way, the doctor's daughter who aced all the tests but shouldn't have passed her clinicals had no problem. Typical! :banghead:

Spatialized · Jul 23, 2005

There has to be some weeding out, of one variety or another, to make sure that quality nurses are the ones who make it through school. I have seen some people that got weeded out who I would let do a single thing to my worst enemy. To me this is a good thing. I see the other side though where instructors relentlessly go after people who they don't like, even if that person is a quality student.

In my program, the pre-reqs are the weeding ground. We have to be certified CNAs to even apply to the program. Now, in my class of about 35 (CNA Class), we had about 17 finish. I'm sorry, but those people who didn't finish should in no way be in nursing school. They were either not ready from a maturity aspect or were just not cut out to be a nurse or CNA. Because being a CNA is a pre-req, those classes are a feeder for the program and 95% of the people are going on the nursing school. For instance, there was one girl who had been accepted to the program, contingent on her obtaining her CNA. Knowing this, she partied, came to class hung-over, slept through class and ultimately failed, opening a spot for someone with the drive and desire to become a nurse. Another instance was out A&P instructor. Once again, his classes were feeders for the nursing program. He was a monster in A&P 1 and weeded many a person out. Sure he eased up a little for 2, but he was still a hard difficult teacher that you had to study to get through.

This kind of weeding out is useful, like someone above noted, it's like natural selection, or in the words of many football coaches, "OTSS!" (only the strong survive). Luckily in my nursing classes the instructors are there to facilitate our learning, not wash people out. Now it is a new program so they want to show a good face, but still they're not actively weeding people out, as it has really been done for them before we even make it to nursing classes. That being said, I still worry about it. I know already that I do not like my 2nd year instructor and that our learning/teaching styles, politics and religion (which she brings to the classroom), are at odds. So I will keep my head down, not draw attention to myself, bite my tongue and finish out my schooling.

Hoping this made sense...

Cheers,

Tom

finchertwins, BSN, RN · Jul 23, 2005

Went to nursing school orientation today, and saw and heard the beginning of the weeding out process with my own two eyes and ears. Guess the best thing to do is just keep my head down, my mouth shut, and work my a** off! ---- Which was what was conveyed to us more times than I could count.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!/B]

If you feel there is a weeding out section to your nursing class stay the heck away from it. If your goal is to become a nurse endure what needs to be endured so your goals are met.

finchertwins, BSN, RN · Jul 23, 2005

Like many have said there is a weeding out in nursing school. It could be the AP classes or other classes that feed the nursing program. Some nursing programs actively do this within the program itself. I went to one that did not actively do "weeding", but I did see them wash out several that bucked the system and caused waves. For the most part if you are willing to take their advise put it to practice and follow the path that they paved for you, you will make it. And that advise goes for most anything in education. Just don't practice nursing by doing what others are doing especially if you feel its wrong and violates rules that govern nursing. To do it in school is called survival!

memily2000 · Jul 23, 2005

The nursing program at the college is harder than any other in the area. It also has the highest rate of NCLEX passers (at least per capita). It is proud of that, and I am sure their pre-reqs weed on purpose. The 3 hardest pre-reqs are Chem, AP, and Microbiology. I used to be agitated that we had so many more than other schools, but I am glad now. The reason why is we have a lady who is getting 2 years of education, an appartment, and who knows what else paid for by unemployment and has no place being in the program. She has taken AP twice and failed. She only passed Microbiology because she begged another student to tutor her. He basically took the class for her. She tried to beg me and I simply don't have the time (full-time job, married, 2 kids). I am so glad I didn't help her. I don't know how she passed Chem, must have begged some poor sap there too. She's not going to make it, and although cruel I will be glad. Who wants an incompetent nurse who basically cheated their way through the program?