NursingZen

Today was my last class of the fall quarter. For the next 4 weeks, except Thanksgiving, I will only have clinicals. Winter break will then be three weeks long. It’s still hard to believe that I won’t be back in lecture until Jan. 2.

The best thing about this quarter was the continuity between Intro to Nursing in the summer and Med Surg in the fall. Having these classes and clinicals back to back have been critical to helping build my confidence, skills and perspective as a student nurse. The continuity also has helped some of us strengthen our rapport with nurses on our units, so much so that many nurses now know us by our names and acknowledge our progress and contributions.

The downside is that some of the teaching continued to be shockingly bad and inappropriate. Since the beginning of MEPN I tried to keep a level head about one of our key instructors. I tried to understand that she simply has a different communication style, personality and background. Unfortunately, she proved time and time again that she truly doesn’t know how to teach nursing to 2nd and 3rd career changers like us and doesn’t know how to communicate with people like us who have had valuable life and work experiences that were not necessarily related to health care. Furthermore, she gave us no direction (or gave wrong direction) about her expectations for exams and assignments and focused on petty details instead of what was really key to our understanding of nursing.

During the summer quarter, many in the class tried to give constructive feedback about her teaching and communication skills, but still nothing changed this quarter. I understand change can take time, but some of us fear that the school might not take our instructor and course evaluations seriously.

It may seem petty of me to focus on one instructor, to let one person have such an impact on my experience, but it’s not something to be belittled. The MEPN curriculum is so compacted and the experience so new and intense that one person makes a bigger impact than in a more normal situation. My hope is for the faculty to listen to our feedback and believe that it comes from our desire to become good nurses and not because we don’t “get it” or because we want to be a pain in the ass.

That’s my venting and I’ll try to leave it at that. Life is good and vacation is coming soon!