What should I do - Abusive Instructor

RNNPICU, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2017

Fibroblast:

Yes, uniforms neat, ironed, shoes polished. You are representing your school and an image of nursing. In my school, one person had points taken off because her jacket was very crinkled. It actually did not look good compared to the rest of us. Guess what, next week, she was all neat and tidy. We had very specifics to follow. There are very strict guidelines in nursing. You have to follow policies, this is setting you up for success as a nurse, as crazy as it sounds. As a nurse you will have to follow very strict policies when adhering to medications, procedures, or processes.

meanmaryjean, DNP, RN · Mar 28, 2017

AGAIN OP:

Can you give us some concrete examples (beside you thinking the dress code is not something you should have to bother with)

Purple_roses · Mar 28, 2017

I don't speak to my professors this way, and I am trying to manage my responses or offenses. If Rocknurse really meant no harm, then I am sorry for responding in that way. I am not military style. I am just surprised that nursing school really is like the military. Hair, shoes, uniforms all in order and in inspection. This is new to me. I am very introverted or quiet and am dumbfounded when someone tells me 'if your hair is not up, you will be written up'. To the point of threatening you. This adjustment, I hope, I can get through.

Yes, these are very weird/hard things to adjust to at times. I was always a little miffed that I couldn't wear nail polish while in my program. Some of the rules just don't make sense. Some of them do, however. Nursing schools like you to tie your hair back so that it doesn't land in fluids. I know someone whose beautiful, long hair trailed right through poop while she was cleaning a dirty depends! But yes, some of the rules seem stupid. What I always told myself is "I need to pick and choose my battles." I never picked a battle with the nitty gritty dress code stuff. I did however pick a battle when an instructor gave me a 0% on an assignment, consequently dropping my entire grade in the class by 5%. Picking your battles and doing so respectfully (while using the chain of command) will make life much easier on you. It's worked for me throughout my entire program.

I think you'll realize eventually that most instructors aren't out to get you. My situation where I got a 0 on an assignment? It was a nitty gritty detail that got me that 0%. The instructor didn't realize that it was going to drop me that much, and when I calmly went to her (a half an hour after receiving the grade, when I was a lot calmer), we were able to work things out and I realized that she wasn't a horrible monster who enjoyed tanking students' GPAs.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Mar 28, 2017

I don't speak to my professors this way, and I am trying to manage my responses or offenses. If Rocknurse really meant no harm, then I am sorry for responding in that way. I am not military style. I am just surprised that nursing school really is like the military. Hair, shoes, uniforms all in order and in inspection. This is new to me. I am very introverted or quiet and am dumbfounded when someone tells me 'if your hair is not up, you will be written up'. To the point of threatening you. This adjustment, I hope, I can get through.

If you have a nursing student handbook, having your hair up is likely in the dress code. This is normal and kind of distills down to the idea that you do need to suck it up. You may feel that being told that is extreme and militant but I have never seen nursing students who don't need to have their hair up during clinical. Uniform, clean shoes, hair up and neat, these are all very common attributes of getting squared away for nursing school. By the way, nursing care did spring up out of the Crimean War so to think that there isn't some military tint to nursing care is extremely naive. You don't need to take legal action against your instructor. You don't need to take your vague complaints about favoritism and 'betrayal' (?) to the dean. You need to learn to adapt to what most likely only amounts to a very "rough around the edges" personality, especially given your admission to being an introverted type. Nurses have to be around the worst of human suffering -- sometimes getting a little salty and rough is just how we cope. It absolutely does not have anything to do with how we treat our patients and whether or not we have true compassion.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · Mar 28, 2017

I am very introverted or quiet and am dumbfounded when someone tells me 'if your hair is not up, you will be written up'. To the point of threatening you.

Wearing your hair up is an infection control measure, which protects the pts and you. Same thing with nail polish. They're not enforcing that rule to be mean. As far as the pressed uniform and clean shoes, do you agree it's important to look professional? Especially since not only is that first impression a reflection on you, but on your school and faculty.

I wonder if they have become more hardline about these policies from years of them not being followed? I mean if everyone shows up put together, with hair secured and nails smooth/short/clean, after hearing the expectations in orientation, why the threats? However if many students show up in manicures and flowing hair, or like they just rolled out of bed, yeah they might need to threaten with writeups.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Mar 28, 2017

Wearing your hair up is an infection control measure, which protects the pts and you.

::shudder::

Having your hair drag through something (i.e. blood, wounds, feces, etc.) because you either didn't have time to put it up or chose to wear it down that day definitely is a good way to understand and appreciate the mandate to put your hair up.

Also, I'm in peds and many sticky finger toddlers love to grab hair, especially when theirs has fallen out d/t chemo.

Purple_roses · Mar 28, 2017

I know you've received a lot of advice here, and I'm really not trying to beat a dead horse here, but I just thought of something else. The instructors who are enforcing these rules absolutely must enforce them because it's part of their job description. At my school, the dean of nursing literally makes random stops at clinical sites to ensure everyone is in dress code and that everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing. She makes these random stops even though she knows instructors are on the floor with us the entire time. So if the dean were to show up and I was out of dress code, I wouldn't be the only one getting in trouble--my instructor would probably be getting in trouble too. So next time something frustrating happens or an instructor seems like she's on your case, remember that she â€‹could also get in trouble when her students aren't complying with the rules.

It's also difficult for nursing schools to secure clinical sites. Think of all the (decent) hospitals in your area. Now think of all of the colleges within a 50 mile radius of you. They all have nursing programs. They all want their students at the best hospital. But there isn't room for all of those students. Nursing programs duke it out all the time to secure good clinical sites. This is another reason your instructors want you to be looking sharp all of the time--they don't want to lose those sites.

allnurses Guide · Mar 30, 2017

I don't speak to my professors this way, and I am trying to manage my responses or offenses. If Rocknurse really meant no harm, then I am sorry for responding in that way. I am not military style. I am just surprised that nursing school really is like the military. Hair, shoes, uniforms all in order and in inspection. This is new to me. I am very introverted or quiet and am dumbfounded when someone tells me 'if your hair is not up, you will be written up'. To the point of threatening you. This adjustment, I hope, I can get through.

Ok so now we are getting somewhere! What you are describing is completely normal for a clinical instructor to say you must meet all the standards of you program and grooming standards are especially Important. I happen to have hair that is like a wild horse that refuses to be tamed. When I was in school I ultimately just got a nice short cut. Now it's down to my waist and I can tie it in a knot when I need to.

GHppy

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 31, 2017

Sorry, it's nurses like you that I don't want to deal with. That attitude is precisely what I don't find attractive. To me that is what nursing has become. A profession that nurses 'lack compassion to other's'. I fear that your 'patients' have an personal issue or medical trauma, you may not respond in professional way. Poor patients! Nurses have become heartless, just as you have responded. Please refrain from responding to my posts if you can't make a better assessment.

Oh, how interesting. Right off the bat with the "You lack compassion and won't respond to patients in a professional way." And then with the "don't respond to my posts".

Once you post something and put it out there, you will get responses that you may not like. That doesn't make those responses unprofessional, lacking in compassion or wrong. In fact, the poster was nicer and more tactful than many (including me) would have been. Suck it up. It's not fair; life isn't fair. Head down, chin up and do what you're told. Nursing is tough and there are lessons to be learned here.

KrCmommy522, BSN, RN · Mar 31, 2017

Hello Fibroblast! I am a nursing student in my senior year. It would definitely help if we had more examples of your instructor being abusive. I get that it is frustrating when professors get made when things aren't done "their way." It is frustrating to learn how to do something from one professor, go to the clinical lab and practice and have instructors in there say it should be done a different way, then go to a clinical and have a different professor say to do it another way. It is very frustrating. However, you said, "I know instructors have experience, I do too (a little, maybe not 20 years), but I know things aren't done in the real world as they are done in nursing school". Just like you said, instructors have experience. Your instructor has been doing this for over 30 years, so she has picked up her "own way" of doing things. Other instructors have their own experience and they too have picked up their "own way" of doing things. The only advice I have for that is to learn how to adapt. Your experience doesn't amount to the experience of your instructors. So, rather than trying to speak up and tell them that you feel another way is better or why you feel your way works just as well, it is best to just learn the instructors way of doing it and do it that way. Unfortunately, when you move on and get another instructor, you are most likely going to have to adapt to that instructors way of doing things. It is just a fact of nursing school. It sucks but there isn't much you can do! You should just take it as a chance to learn. You are gaining more experience, and it doesn't hurt to learn different ways of doing things. I've had professors where I really felt like they were out to get me, or where I felt like they favored other students over me. As much as it hurt and frustrated me, I just kept thinking to myself that this class was eventually going to end and I just had to make it there to move on. You are going to have professors that you absolutely love, but other's might not feel the same way. In my last clinical, I had two students that hated the professor and felt like she was too strict and unreasonable and me and the other students absolutely loved her. She was strict. She wanted things done by the book. She wrote those two students up multiple times each and every clinical. They felt like she was out to get them. I didn't see it that way though. She just wanted them to do their best and put everything they had into each clinical. She didn't want them to waste a minute and she wanted things done by the book. I liked her because she was consistent. She wanted things done a specific way and she wanted the rules followed. She didn't have different rules for different students or change her ways over and over. I felt that when she was telling you that you did something wrong, I didn't feel like she was judging me and she didn't make me feel stupid. She also made sure to tell you when you were doing things right. Of course, those other 2 students didn't see it that way. But, I am sure the times I didn't like an instructor and felt like he/she was out to get me, not all the students felt that way. I am sure most of them felt the instructor was a great teacher. I guess it all comes down to opinion and experiences. In nursing school, we have to do things based on how we were taught, and often times we have to adjust that to the professor we have. Once you are a nurse, you can use your experience and adapt things as you like (of course, it has to still be safe and still gets it done the right way). Until you graduate and become a nurse with RN behind your name, as much as it stinks sometimes, you just have to adapt, adapt, adapt!

As for the dress code requirements. It can be frustrating to be so strict about dress code, but they just want you to look the best you can to make yourself and the school look good. I have dress code requirements at my school as well - no face piercings, only 2 stud earrings in each ear, hair up, white shoes, and our horrible uniforms. The class behind mine got new uniforms that are just like the scrubs and my class was all jealous. We asked if we could switch and buy those, but they said no. They said that they couldn't force the students who couldn't afford the new uniform or didn't want to get the new uniform for whatever reason to get them, and they didn't want some of our class in one uniform and some of our class in the other uniform. It sucks, but I understood it. We also had a few students in a clinical that didn't wear completely white shoes. The dean made a "stop in" at the clinical site and saw that some weren't wearing the white shoes and sent an email to my professor about it, so she had to send us an email instructing us to be sure to wear white shoes and everything else following the dress code because the dean had stopped in at our clinical site and saw we weren't "up-to-code." So because of a couple of the students who didn't feel like they wanted to follow the dress code, our instructor got in trouble. It isn't really fair for those who follow the dress code to the letter, even if they don't want to, to see other students not following the dress code and not getting in trouble for it. I hate the uniform, but I wear it. I needed new shoes and found a pair I loved, but they didn't come in white. It was frustrating, but I had to pick out a different pair of shoes that I could get it white. I didn't love them like I did the other one's, but I knew I had to follow the dress code. As other posters have said, it is important to wear your hair up because you don't want it to get into any fluids or to get your hair pulled if you are on the peds unit. In the end, it just comes down to rules. Your school has rules (I'm sure you can read all about the dress code requirements in your school's handbook). You have to follow them and so does your instructor. It is her job to write you up if you don't follow those rules, and if she doesn't, then she is at risk of getting into trouble and putting her job at risk.

As for going to someone higher up and discussing your issues with them. I would really think before I went and did that. You are going to need to learn to work with all kinds of people when you become a nurse - with any job really. You have to work with all types of people and you aren't going to like all of them and might be offended by some of them. Unfortunately, that's just life. You just have to learn to brush off what you don't like.

Nursing school is extremely stressful and very hard. But, it is very rewarding. When you get through a hard clinical, master something you've been having trouble with, ace a hard test, etc. you feel really good. It makes the hard times worth it! You are going to feel like, "Why did I ever decide to go into nursing school?", and you are going to have times where you think, "Going into nursing school was the best decision I ever made!" You just have to learn that when you are going through those hard times, to try and remember why you decided to go into nursing school in the first place and to think of all you've accomplished while you've been in school. Good luck!

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 31, 2017

It does indicate her attitude toward her patients. That's evident.

It does not indicate her attitude toward her patients, but your posts do indicate your attitude toward colleagues. Please learn to play nicely with your team members. Do it the teacher's way now and the preceptor's way when you've got your first job and the facility's way when you're on your own.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 31, 2017

Rocknurse,
Why didn't you read my second (?) post to you? I don't believe in a threatening environment. You are telling me to just tolerate it. Gosh, maybe I won't become a nurse. You showed a lack of compassion, that is your choice, and this shows you may be that way with your patients. That is all I was saying. I came for advice, and your responded in a non-chalant manner. The devil is in the details. I didn't 'attack' anyone, I questioned what I saw.
I saw a red flag, and I just responded. I am not attacking, just questioning.

Oh, good Lord! I see a lot more red flags in your posts than in the posters you are actually (yes you are) attacking. Please catch a clue and look at the little number in the upper right hand corner. I'm seeing far more posters "liking" the folks to whom you're being so disrespectful than I am seeing "liking" your posts. Perhaps you need to reflect upon that and what it might (probably does) mean. And it isn't that folks think you're right.