Nursing

In the case that nursing school isn’t stressful enough, let’s add in some physical assault by a professor to spice things up…said no one ever. Yep, you heard that right, physical assault. Let’s first define that. According to Wiki… “An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in criminal prosecution, civil liability, or both.” What does that have to do with Dr. Black you ask. Dr. Black was one of my professors, one of the esteemed and highly accredited doctorate nurses who was responsible for shaping the minds and brains of new nurses. Dr. Black also has a temper problem. For my own privacy I am somewhat changing the story and leaving out some of the details.

One very early morning in the sim lab, me and my fellow classmates arrived to learn about how to move patients. By move, I mean transfer using wheelchairs, slider boards, Hoyer lifts, sera lifts, slider sheets. How to do a stand pivot transfer, how to transfer a person with AKA, how to transfer someone with left sided weakness, etc. This particular day, each station was being led by a different professor or senior student. The day was moving (pun intended) right along. I don’t exactly know how what happened did occur in the first place, all I can do is tell you the facts. I made the mistake of calling Dr. Black by an endearing nick name within earshot. Dr. Black heard said nickname and was PISSED. Within seconds I received a hard, closed-handed punch on my arm. I was in shock, I couldn’t move or speak. There was conversation going on around me between Dr. Black and my peers, but I didn’t hear any of it, I was reeling. When I finally came to, Dr. Black had left the room, and I then realized I had tears streaming down my face. I grabbed Katie and left for the bathroom, for a private space.

Once in the bathroom, Katie prodded…”Are you okay? What happened?” I didn’t know. It all happened faster than my brain could process. Even now, my memory has difficult recalling the details. After I composed myself, I returned to the sim room. Dr. Black, I learned, had left for the day. I finished with my skills training and went back to my dorm room. I did my best to calm my shaken self, I took a bath, picked at my dinner, watched some Netflix, tried studying, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a big deal. I had a big red swollen mark on my arm where he hit me, I was still in shock. I needed someone to talk to about this. I reached out to the senior student who was assigned as my peer advisor. Understanding the urgency, she met up with me within the hour.

I spilt my guts to her, all of the details I could remember anyways. I expressed that I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed to do something. This poor soul didn’t know either, she understood the weight of this problem, but desperately wanted to help. She pushed me to talk with the student advocate for the school. Later that evening, I met with the student advocate and told this story again, tears and all. I was an emotional wreck, this was traumatic for me.

What you need to understand about this is, Dr. Black was at this point a highly respected professor, very educated and accredited. Nothing like this has ever happened, or had never been reported. I was in a dilemma. I had a few options, I could choose to file a formal report, I would be removed from Dr. Black’s class and Dr. Black would most likely be placed on investigatory leave. Secondly, I could choose not to report it, I could simply just talk with the advocate about it and choose to let it go. Long story short here, I couldn’t. In my bone, I knew that if I let this go it wouldn’t be the last time it would happen. Hell, for all I knew this wasn’t the first time, this might have just been the first time it happened in public or the first time it happened to someone who wasn’t inexperienced in the workforce, someone who knew it wasn’t okay, someone who was educated on workplace violence.

I was the demise to Dr. Black’s career at this school. After my meeting with the advocate, I decided to send an email to Dr. Black, expressing my concerns, and giving an apology for my part in the incident. I received a rather cold shoulder and the opposite of an apology. Now, I was furious. I couldn’t believe that I was being brushed off, like what just happened was no big deal. Dr. Black fucked with the wrong person. I went back to the advocate and decided to have a formal meeting with the three of us to discuss the issue. Wanna know what happened next? You betcha…the tune changed.

I was a big bowl of anxiety spaghetti and I wanted to cancel last minute, but my drive to make sure that this didn’t happen to anyone else pushed me forward. Going into the meeting was very odd, Dr. Black completely changed his attitude, he was VERY apologetic in front of the advocate. He even cried, telling me how sorry he was. To me, it was all bullshit, I called Dr. Black’s bluff and he was paying the price. After the meeting a had yet another choice to make, do I make an official report to the Dean or do I keep this private?

I chose to keep in private, don’t judge me for that. The choice I had was hard. I knew if I made an official report, an investigation would be opened. All of my peers would be pulled in and asked to give their account of the incident. I would be removed from Dr. Black’s classroom, which would have sucked because it was nearing the end of the semester. I also, even though I lost my respect for this person, would have put a big BLACK mark on this professors file and probably professional life going forward and that was heavy on my heart. I finished the semester, having regular check-ins with the student advocate who was more like a counselor at this point. I was looking forward to having a break from school to be with family and to regroup.

I know this is a very long story, I know you’re probably very interested to hear the ending so I won’t skimp on the details. The week before classes restarted I moved back into the dorms. While I didn’t have any classes with Dr. Black, I was still very anxious to see him again. I was left very confused when I found out that Dr. Black had quit and left to a new job at a different place. I somehow felt cheated, I felt like I gave Dr. Black a chance to do what was right and he slipped away when I wasn’t looking. I just wanted to move on, so I tried to let it go. I went through the rest of my nursing school career without talking about it to anyone but the people who witnessed the original event. Until the week of graduation, when I had this terrible sense of doom. I thought to myself, what if Dr. Black knew I would be graduating and was planning on coming back after I was gone. What if I kept my mouth shut and someone else gets hurt because of it. I decided to contact the assistant Dean, who was also one of my favorite professors. Here, long story short. My email giving some of the details was highly concerning, and bought me a meeting with the assistant dean, the dean, and a representative from the schools human resources department. Holy shit, I’m sure you’re saying. Yeah, you’re right, holy shit. I was literally a ball of stress and anxiety. The meeting couldn’t have gone better, I received the support I needed and deserved. I received the comforting words I needed to help me heal, I received acknowledgement of my feelings, fears and concerns. This meeting let to an investigation and permanent record of Dr. Black with the school. The HR rep, who told me they couldn’t tell me all of the details, did say that Dr. Black had been contacted and a formal report had been placed in the professors file. After hearing this, I felt so much better. I felt like I did the right thing, even though it was so hard and all I wanted to do was crawl under a rock. I knew that I did what I had to, to ensure the safety of future nursing students.

I never heard from Dr. Black again. I went on through with graduation with honors recognition and a big, fat smile that I achieved one of my lifelong dreams.

Citations

Wikipedia contributors. “Assault.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Jul. 2022. Web. 29 Jul. 2022.