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Episode 3: When Your Instructor Wants You to Fail

You're prepared. You know your meds. You practice your skills. You do everything right.

And somehow, you're still getting destroyed in evaluations.

Your instructor tells you you're "not ready for this." That you're "not cut out for nursing." They find fault with everything you do. And you're starting to believe them.

This isn't about having high standards. This is about an instructor who has decided you won't make it—and who is actively working to prove themselves right.

In this episode, I'm giving you the exact strategy for surviving (and fighting back against) an instructor who's targeting you.

You'll Learn:

• How to tell the difference between a tough instructor and one who's targeting you
• The 5 twisted reasons instructors target specific students
• The 8-step survival strategy that protects your grade and your future
• How to document bias in a way that actually holds up in appeals
• When to go to the program director vs. when you need a lawyer
• What to do if you're actually at risk of failing out
• Why instructor bias has nothing to do with your ability to be a nurse

The reality: Sometimes the instructor has more power. Sometimes the program protects faculty over students. But you can survive this. You can fight back. And you WILL become a nurse.

Resources mentioned: Visit NURSING.com for documentation templates, communication scripts for difficult instructors, grade appeal processes, and a community of students who've been through this and came out the other side.

We tell you the truth about nursing education—including the ugly parts nobody else wants to talk about.

Keywords: nursing instructor problems, nursing school failure, clinical instructor bias, grade appeal, nursing student rights, toxic nursing instructor, nursing education bias, student nurse, nursing school survival, academic discrimination

Connect with NURSING.com: 🌐 NURSING.com
📋 Download documentation templates 💬 Join the community of students who survived this

#NursingStudent #NursingSchool #StudentNurse #ClinicalInstructor #NursingEducation #GradeAppeal #StudentRights #ToxicInstructor #NurseLife #FutureNurse #YouBelongInNursing

The Nursing Brain Sheet That Actually Works (PLUS FREE DOWNLOAD)

GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD AT: https://nursing.com/cheat-sheet

It's 10am on your first clinical day. You've got four pages of notes you can't make sense of, vital signs written on your hand, and you just forgot to chart that your patient went to the bathroom. Meanwhile, that beautiful color-coded brain sheet your instructor gave you? Completely useless.

The problem isn't you. It's that academic brain sheets are designed for perfect theoretical patients who don't exist.

You need a brain sheet for chaos. For the real world. For keeping your patients alive and yourself sane.

You'll Learn:

• The 3 reasons most brain sheets fail (and why instructors keep giving them to you anyway)
• The only 6 sections your brain sheet actually needs
• Why time-based organization is the difference between success and medication errors
• The "pro move" for end-of-shift documentation that protects you legally
• The 3 biggest mistakes students make with brain sheets (and how to avoid them)
• Why your instructor will hate your brain sheet—and why that's totally fine

The truth: Your brain sheet isn't about making your instructor happy. It's about keeping your patients safe when you're managing four people who all need pain meds at the same time.

Resources mentioned: Head to NURSING.com for downloadable brain sheet templates, videos showing exactly how to fill them out, and examples from real clinical shifts. We built an entire section on clinical organization skills because nobody teaches you this in nursing school—they just expect you to figure it out.

Keywords: nursing brain sheet, clinical organization, nursing student tips, clinical nursing, shift report, patient care organization, nursing documentation, med-surg clinical, student nurse, nursing school tips, clinical survival

Connect with NURSING.com: 🌐 NURSING.com
📥 Download free brain sheet templates 📹 Watch step-by-step fill-out tutorials

#NursingStudent #BrainSheet #ClinicalNursing #NursingSchool #StudentNurse #NursingTips #MedSurgNursing #NurseOrganization #ClinicalRotation #NursingDocumentation #FutureRN

You're doing everything right in clinical, but your preceptor is setting you up to fail. They humiliate you in front of patients, refuse to let you practice skills, then write that you "lack initiative." When you report it, you're told to "build a better relationship" or "be more confident."

This isn't about being tough. This is abuse. And it's happening in nursing programs everywhere.

In this episode, I'm giving you the exact survival strategy for getting through a toxic preceptorship without tanking your grade—or your mental health.

You'll Learn:

• How to tell the difference between a tough preceptor and an abusive one
• Why some preceptors specifically take students to bully them
• The 6-step documentation strategy that protects your grade
• When to fight for reassignment vs. when to just survive
• How to build evidence that actually holds up in grade appeals
• What to do when your instructor gaslights you about the abuse

The hard truth: Sometimes the system protects the preceptor over you. But you can survive this. And you will become a nurse.

Resources mentioned: Visit NURSING.com and search "clinical survival" for documentation templates, communication scripts for difficult preceptors, and a community of students going through the exact same thing.

We're the resource that tells you the truth about nursing education—including the parts nobody else wants to talk about.

Keywords: nursing student, clinical preceptor, toxic preceptor, abusive preceptor, nursing school survival, clinical instructor, nursing education, preceptorship problems, student nurse, nursing clinical

Connect with NURSING.com: 🌐 NURSING.com 📧 Search "clinical survival" for free resources

#NursingStudent #NursingSchool #StudentNurse #ClinicalRotation #NursingEducation #PreceptorProblems #ToxicWorkplace #NurseLife #FutureNurse #RNtoBe

View the full lesson here: https://academy.nursing.com/lesson/nursing-care-plan-ncp-for-pressure-ulcer-decubitus-ulcer-pressure-injury/?quiz-view=open

All right. Let's work through an example Nursing Care Plan for a patient with a pressure ulcer or pressure ulcers, right? Let's look at the hypothetical patient. Let's think just about what we might see on this specific patient regarding the pressure ulcers. So subjective data, if I have a patient with a big wound, whether it's on their sacrum or their shoulder or their leg, they're probably going to be pretty uncomfortable, right? They might actually have some pain, right? Or they could potentially have some tenderness over the area, especially over those bony prominences. So that's something to think about for sure. Then you might actually see it, right? We're actually gonna see the pressure ulcer. So depending on the stage, stage one to stage four, make sure you check out the lesson on pressure ulcers inside of the med surg integumentary course to know how to stage these pressure ulcers.

Find the full lesson here: https://academy.nursing.com/lesson/nursing-care-plan-ncp-for-encephalopathy/

This here is the nursing care plan for encephalopathy. So, the pathophysiology. Encephalopathy is a general term for disease of the brain tissue. It's a syndrome of brain dysfunction caused by damage to brain tissue and failure. This damage can be done by atrophy, lack of oxygen, edema, or toxins. So some nursing considerations, there are a few things that we want to consider when taking care of these patients, we want to consider putting them on seizure precautions. So we want these patients to be protected. The best way to do that is with seizure precautions. We want to do vital signs. We want to monitor their vitals.

We want to do frequent neuro checks and if available and if necessary, we would need to monitor their ICP. And we want to draw labs; more importantly, ammonia and finding levels to see if that is the root cause. The desired outcome for these patients is to treat or reverse the cause in order to restore proper brain function, it returns the patient to their usual baseline mental status. So when this patient comes in to you, this encephalopathic patient comes in to see you. There's going to be a few things that we see, but there's going to be some things that either them or their family tells us. Some of the subjective data that we see is that they are going to complain about mood or personality changes.

Find the full lesson here: https://academy.nursing.com/lesson/nursing-care-plan-ncp-for-abdominal-pain/

First, we're going to collect our data. Remember, our data is just our assessment, so subjective from the patient and objective from the nurse. A patient with abdominal pain, that's having symptoms, the subjective data for this patient is likely going to be the pain, maybe they have a decreased appetite, and how about some nausea? Those kinds of things are going to be all their subjective data.

For objective data, maybe they feel really restless. This is what the nurse is observing. Let's say we see on this patient, that the patient is having some guarding of the abdomen. Maybe some rebound tenderness when they're pushed down. Maybe we see, or assess the patient and realize they're constipated or have constant vomiting or diarrhea. These kinds of things will be our objective data.

My hypothetical patient for our care plan will say that they're having abdominal pain and it's from excessive vomiting. We have to analyze the information. This is going to help us to diagnose and prioritize. So what is the problem? Well, the problem is the pain and the problem is that they are having some excessive vomiting. So, what needs to be improved? What can we do to improve or what needs to be improved to help the patient, is going to be the pain, right, but more than that, we need to, for this patient, we need to fix the vomiting, so that can help fix the pain. What is our priority? So, our priority is going to be to stop the vomiting and to help that abdomen just not be so tender right, so stop that vomiting, which is going to help with the pain for this patient and relieve that pain.

Working as a nurse in the ICU, I cared for many patients who are burned into my mind and heart forever.

One of those patients was a young mom, in her early 40s with children in their early teens, who had suffered from cancer that had metastasized to her brain.

She was incredibly sick, and this cancer was extremely advanced.

One night as I cared for her, she was feeling exceptionally sick.

Just a couple hours into the shift, I was preparing her for bed. Her family stepped out and went home for the night. I could see that this night she was very upset - more so than other nights.

She was low on energy, she was sad, she looked weaker than normal.

Within moments of her family leaving for the night, she passed away quietly.

Nursing is hard, find hope at NURSING.com

❤️ Happy Nursing!

Jon Haws, RN