Sent home from clinical :(

[marin8campy]

Hey, I have never posted on a forum before about anything. I'm so heartbroken right now, I need someone to listen to me that understands what I'm going through.

Today was my second day of clinical, and this is my second quarter in nursing school. I currentlh work as a pharmacy technician, and have never worked in a patient setting before. I have a 3.6 GPA and have always held myself to the highest standard of work.

Today, I was sent home from clinical. I missed 1 intervention on my careplan, and was sent away. Another student in my group omitted 4 problems from his care plan and was able to stay. This is my third careplan that I have ever completed, but this is my first careplan done with an actual patient. I spent 6 long days and nights making sure that this thing was perfect, but I had accidentally overlooked that I had missed that 1 intervention.

I was identified last clinical as "unprofessional" for asking too many questions, but I just wanted to make sure that I understood what I was doing. But I guess even after asking so many questions, I am still just an idiot and just as confused. I am absolutely devastated. I am going to make it up, but my school requires $400 to reschedule. I believe that I will be the only student in my cohort this quarter to fail the easiest clinical of the program.

I am embarrassed, frustrated, currently crying my eyes out, and beyond disappointed in my self. I'm not sure what do or what to think. I feel like there aren't many people that have failed a clinical before, and I feel like an utter failure. I'm not sure if posting here will help, or if anyone will bother to read this. I suppose I'm rambling a bit, but I hope this will make me feel a little better about myself in the end.

I intend to pay the $400 to make it up, and pass this quarter. Failing a clinical does not mean that I fail this quarter, thankfully, but it stays on my school record as a clinical fail for the rest of my life.

I'm heartbroken and I feel hopeless right now. I hope someone is reading this and will talk to me. My boyfriend is great support, but he works for an insurance company and doesn't really understand how tough this is. So I'm hoping another student nurse will give me some peace of mind or advice or anything. Sorry for the ramblings... thank you for taking the time to read this if you have.

[LadysSolo]

I like questions from my students unless I feel like they are asking to try to get me to do their work for them (depends on the student, in other words.) If it's something they should know (been already covered) I will try to get them to think and tell me. We give one clinical make-up free, then we charge (to partially cover the instructor's pay.) We used to have some students call off every nice day that there was a clinical until we started charging for make-ups.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

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I would suggest that the main reason you were sent home from the clinical was not for missing a point on a care plan. Most experienced nurses wouldn't get every point a text book would list. It seems to me that you need to look at how you are expressing yourself and how others are perceiving you. I would suggest you should make an appointment with your clinical instructor to ask for some honest feedback regarding your overall performance on this clinical and some pointers on how to do well on the next one.

I agree with this. Perhaps not just the questions, but your overall communication skills are in need of some work. If this is so, it's a great thing to figure out now, while you still have time to fix it rather than when you're having problems in your first job and a paycheck is at stake!

[hope2BDNP]

Could it be the nurse instructor sensed you were uncertain?

[hope2BDNP]

The previous entry made a good point. How we perceive ourselves can be different from what the instructor sees. Best to ask for feedback.

[gettingbsn2msn, MSN, RN]

Do not worry about this. Just do what they say and proceed forward. This will not matter in 10 years. In 2006 I was told I would never make it as a nurse. Today I am a Nurse Practitioner. The person who told me this is long gone. This is one obstacle of many you will incur over a lifetime.

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

You are not the only one that has ever been sent home from a clinical, trust me. I saw classmates get sent home for less.

If there was one thing that I learned in nursing school, it was to stop asking questions. I know it goes against what other posters say, but I'm not kidding.

Figure it out on your own, ask your classmates, just DO NOT ask your clinical instructor. That just puts a target on your back.

Sad to say, I agree with you on this, at least when it comes to certain instructors. When I was in school, every clinical ended up having someone who was the scapegoat. They didn't have to be a bad student or unsafe in clinical either. All it means is that you did one thing at the beginning of the semester that made the instructor angry and bam, you were it. In one case, the scapegoat ended up like that because she was a single mother, and the instructor was very religious.

It could be that the OP is the scapegoat or we aren't getting the whole story. But, based on my experiences, I can see some instructors doing that. I was lucky enough to dodge the scapegoat role while I was in school, but I had worked in some real tough places before that bullying wise ( I was a surgical tech before) so my radar for difficult people was pretty on spot.

[CeciBean, ASN, RN]

I have never heard of being sent home from clinical for missing an intervention, much less having to pay to make up a clinical day! Is this an American, for-profit school?

My freshman clinical instructor was exceedingly picky and used a red pen to mark up everyone's care plan with great abandon, so much so that we used to joke it looked like a patient had died on the paper! Then she would write "Good care plan!" on the bottom of it and you'd wonder what a bad one might look like...but at the same time, even though she was really strict, she was very encouraging. Hang in there and don't get discouraged. You might think about transferring to a different program, though.

[compassionresearcher]

Have you thought about discussing the facts of this event with student services and or the dean of the program. I had something similar happen to me over 20 years ago and I just took the pain without asking any questions. But now students have a lot more say and rights when it comes to how they are treated by faculty. The admin. may not know this clinical instructor is particularly difficult. I would try to talk to an adviser you can trust and see if they think you should escalate it up the chain. You will feel better if you advocate for yourself. Good luck!!