Hello All!
Now, whether you are entering your first semester of clinical or you're ruling the school as an upper classman it is always proper etiquette to form relationships with your professors. I, for one, have found that when a professor can put a face to a name it makes the nursing school struggle a little more bearable.
Believe it or not, nursing school instructors actually care about their students - they just try to kill you on exams because they want to produce competent future nurses.
Of course it's only natural that you have your favorite professors and the ones you'd rather not run into in the hallway. But no matter how you feel about your professors it's always important to maintain professionalism - it's practice for the future.
Now, my school has gone through several faculty changes throughout the past two years (finding clinical faculty that are good teachers is hard to do!), which meant a lot of miscommunication about expectations and a lot of unhappy students when test scores weren't initially up to par. This lead to students going up the chain of command to complain about the quality of faculty that they were encountering.
The lessons I learned through dealing with difficult faculty and handling multiple situations different ways has given me a new appreciation for faculty-student relationships and for the process of professionally handling drama.
The first lesson I learned is that it is always best to go to the source. Sometimes professors don't know that they are doing something wrong. If they are a new faculty member, they probably really do not know what they are doing wrong. It is the student's job to politely and maturely converse with them about changes that can be made. This lesson can be transferred to the real nursing world in terms of dealing with management or drama between nurses. If there are problems within the unit a conversation must be had in order to fix any tension, drama, or miscommunication.
The problem that you are dealing with might clear up after a conversation is had. However, if you are still facing challenges I would try to have an updated conversation with the individual in question before going to the chain of command. If the issue does not resolve after that, I would certainly turn to my chain of command. If you are in nursing school that would be your assistant dean of your nursing program.
I feel as though a lot of students will want to automatically jump to discussing things with the head dean of the nursing program. I think that is a mistake because dealing with student issues is really the assistant dean's job - at least it is in my nursing program. If the issue requires the attention of the head dean, the assistant dean should not hesitate to bring them into the conversation at the appropriate time.
Through talking with the assistant dean all of the faculty issues in my particular program were eventually resolved.
A problem that I have seen through handling issues "publicly" in the school is that everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Now, nursing students tend to have a lot to complain about, and their complaints are often times expressed in a very fervent manner because they are all extremely stressed. The problem with a group of overworked, overly tired and frusterated nursing students all coming together to complain about one issue is that it can be a little overwhelming and frusterating to those that are on the recieving end of the complaints.
The tactic that I have found that works best when dealing with a large group that has the same problem is to have one "spokesperson" to represent the class. Have the spokesperson write out their argument in clear and concise terms, also being sure to list suggestions for improvement. It is not good in any argument to only come to the table with complaints - suggested resolutions show desire for improvement through both ends.
Throughout the many instances that I have either been a part of or witnessed I started to take a backseat approach. I no longer wanted to be on the front lines of the "what can we change in this program" debate. To me, the fight was no longer worth the hassle because
1. Either things were already set in stone and were not going to change
or
2. The issue was already blown up and I did not feel like the discussion was calm enough
During those times I tried to do what I do best. I put my head down in my nursing book and read. I read until I knew the information backwards as well as I did forwards - just to prove my professor wrong and show myself that I could earn a solid nursing exam grade in "adverse conditions".
That lesson is also an important lesson to learn. Sometimes you cannot change things in your school or your nursing unit, and you have no other choice than to plow through the dark clouds. There's always light at the end of the tunnel.
No matter the school you attend, the classmates you have or the professors you are taught by - drama is just a part of life, especially in nursing school. The best way to handle the situation is to simply do what you think is best for you. The adversity you face in nursing school is merely practice for real life situations when you are out in the working world as a RN! Nursing school is difficult in many ways, but so worth the challenge. With every dramatic moment you will have 50 inspiring moments to look back on, and have a large nursing school family to celebrate with when you finally graduate and earn those letters after your name.
I hope that you found this blog post interesting and informative. Maybe it will help you this semester as you begin a new chapter in your nursing journey!
- Michelle
#BSNbabe
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