#but anyway after being pushed over the edge i'm finally on the upswing

[lady-harrowhark]

so for better or for worse, it seems like things might be reaching a flash point with my previous supervisor.

context, for the uninitiated: as part of my phd program, i have a clinical practicum placement in the community, and last year my supervisor (at a local hospital) was awful in just about every way you can be awful (and she has been for years, my program has decided avoiding confrontation is more important than student wellbeing though), and while these are meant to be year long placements, the cumulative toll of her abuse got bad enough that after ten months, i ended the placement early. which is pretty much unheard of.

but they still sent another student there this year, and some other programs have students under the same supervisor, and things have continued to be Not Great. after i left, i found out i’d been misled about the extent to which my program was addressing things (i.e., they were not), so like idk what they expected. this week, one of the students from another program also left the placement, not even a full semester in.

aside from some very unproductive meetings with one of my advisors and the director from my program, i’d already been working on drafting a formal letter of concern with the support of my other advisor, and have recently been looking into options for opening a case with the department’s grievance committee over how this has been handled. this other student reached out to me today and it sounds like we’re going to work together as much as we can in hopes that both of our departments will respond more seriously to a united front. they’re also looking into filing complaints with the state health and human services department as well as with her department at the hospital.

it’s obviously exceedingly frustrating that everything i went through couldn’t prevent future students from suffering, and i would never trade another person going through that for anything, but i am finally feeling my first bit of optimism that maybe this is the point where they can’t ignore it any longer.