angelo's journey

Angelo Lopez is a 32-year-old registered nurse (RN) who recently earned a master’s degree in nursing from Western University. He has worked for 10 years as an RN in the Emergency Department at Hamilton General Hospital. Last fall, Angelo accepted a part-time clinical teaching position at McMaster, instructing a group of second-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) students on a medical unit. He believed that his first semester of teaching went well, but was surprised by some of the negative tutor evaluation feedback he received from his students:

• Angelo is knowledgeable but also a “very intimidating” instructor. He tends to put students on the spot and provides feedback in the nursing station and sometimes in the hallways, where others can hear. He should really share his feedback with his students privately.

• I know that he is an experienced ER nurse and all, but sometimes his knowledge and skills are just way beyond our current level of practice as students. As we told him a few times, “We haven’t had our class in IV medication administration yet, so we cannot administer IV meds—that content is taught in year three of the program.”

• His expectations for our learning plans and clinical worksheets sometimes conflict with the course expectations. It’s so frustrating!

Angelo takes his nursing education job seriously and aims to improve his clinical teaching and supervision approaches. He is exploring available online and in-class teaching and learning resources before he begins his next clinical teaching rotation.