ADVENTURES
IN NURSING
THAT “OTHER” INSTRUCTOR
I don’t remember her name, and that’s okay with
me. She was a substitute instructor my
clinical group was subjected to during our month-long summer clinical at the
hospital. Thank God we only had to deal
with her for one day. She was just plain
old rude! She seemed to think it was her
personal mission to whip us all into shape in one day. We were not impressed.
A little
backstory to this is that my then-fiancee had a daughter who had already been
through the two-year program in the class one year ahead of us. However, she hadn’t been able to attend her
summer clinical, since she was busy having a baby during that time. Consequently, she and I found ourselves in
the same clinical group that summer.
Once she got through that, she was eligible to graduate. She was most eager to finally put it all behind
her, and begin her career.
Well,
Mrs. Rude Instructor seemed to zero right in on this perfectly lovely young
woman. Lee (not her real name) had long
blonde hair, which she wore up in a ponytail as required by the program. She did, however, have corkscrew curls that
hung loose on each side. Well, Mrs. RI
was not gonna let that go by unnoticed.
Before we even hit the floor, she informed Lee, with a flick of her pen
on the aforementioned curls, that “those have to go.” There would be no loose tendrils on HER
watch, by gum and by golly! Lee’s face
turned bright red, and I was thinking, “Oh, sh**, here we go!” I had witnessed Lee’s temper when she believed
she had a righteous rant, and I was concerned that Mrs. RI was about to witness
it, too. Good for you, Lee! You didn’t let loose on her, even though she
probably had it coming.
Mrs. RI
was like those pesky little yappy dogs that latch on to your ankles and won’t
let go, no matter what. She dogged each
of us all that day, watching and waiting for someone to screw up. She criticized every tiny little thing she
could find. I seem to remember getting
grilled about why I wasn’t wearing my nurse’s cap, which was required. You’ll hear more about that in a future
blog. We were so happy to see that day
end.
I really
don’t know why people have to act like that.
I’m all for making sure that students are well trained before being
turned loose on the world of nursing. I
don’t, however, think it’s necessary to just be a bitch to people who are
trying their best to learn what they need to know – students who want to learn,
and want to do things properly, and want to be proud of their skills and abilities. The program was tough enough without throwing
catty instructors who seem to have their own agendas into the mix.
Here’s
the dress code for our clinical experiences:
1-
our nails had to be short, no nail polish;
2-
no dangly earrings, no visible
necklaces, plain wedding bands only (no stones, no engraving, et cetera), a utilitarian
watch with a second hand;
3-
our regulation uniform dress with
the much-hated blue pinafore attached for the ladies; our nursing cap; white
stockings and regulation nursing shoes;
4-
as mentioned above, hair longer
than collar length had to be worn up WITH NO LOOSE HANGY-DOWN CURLS!
Points
were taken off our clinical grades for anything less than all of the above. I get the concept, but many real-life nurses
don’t follow these rules, obviously. I
was actually amazed when I began my career at how some nurses dress. I continued to keep my nails short and
unpolished. The few times I wore even
slightly dangly earrings, I regretted it.
If I didn’t lose an earring in some patient’s bed or clothing, someone
with dementia would latch on to that sucker and convince me dangly earrings
were not a good idea at work.
I don’t
know how many hundreds of times I worked with nurses whose hair was hanging all
in their faces, were wearing all manner of multiple rings on both hands, and
bracelets on both arms, and necklaces right out there in plain sight, just
begging for some unruly patient to grab hold and try to choke the life out of
them. It happens, and it’s not much fun!
I seem to
have digressed from my original topic, but you’ll have that when I get up on my
soapbox, which I usually carry around with me.
My point, if you’ve been able to follow this at all, is that nursing
school isn’t really much like the real world of nursing at all. Some of the rules of nursing school seem to
be fairly arbitrary and perhaps even unnecessary, but we had to abide by them
or pay the consequences.
By the
way, B and I, and our friend R, threw those damned blue pinafores in the
bonfire at our graduation party. That
was one of the highlights of my life.