Vaccination Waiver Please Help Quick!!

[HHagedorn]

I was just informed that our clinical rotation that we start in 4 weeks has just started requiring nursing students to get the flu vaccine. Can someone please help me find the right waiver documentation to get out of it?! I only have three weeks (documentation has to be provided at least a week before we start the rotation). I'm not sure whether I need a student waiver or healthcare worker waiver. I'm in Illinois. Thanks in advance!!!

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

I feel that this post is almost intentionally borderline inflammatory. You are saying you are going to go into PICU/NICU and won't take a flu vaccine? Really?

Thankfully, the OP's stance is becoming increasingly rare and justifiably marginalized. However, there are still some holdouts.

I started attending nursing school in 2009 and the "anti-vaccine" craze was still going pretty strong. I remember quite a few classmates swearing up and down they would never get flu shots because they were pretty sure vaccines caused autism. It was, by today's standards, quite insane.

I remember a few of them confronting an instructor about it during lecture and he was simply having none of it. He quite flatly stated the anti-vaccine movement was ridiculous. You got vaccinated to protect your patients (and keep the school's hard to obtain clinical sites) and if you were not interested in that for any reason you were free to leave at any time.

Class discussion over.

Two years later, I notice none of those same people saying anything of the sort against vaccines. Even though a couple are still nutjob enough to believe it, they have been marginalized to the point they won't talk about it openly and hopefully not with patients.

[Despareux]

To the OP, I don't know if you're aware of the rules that apply to having an immunization waiver. In Michigan, when you sign a waiver and if there is one person in your facility (school or place of employment) that has a confirmed diagnosis of a disease for which a waiver was signed, you will be not be allowed in the facility for any activity (work, school, sports) for three weeks from the date of that confirmed diagnosis.

You may want to check the laws in your state because if you are exposed to one of those diseases for which you chose to not be vaccinated, you may be risking the ability to complete a clinical rotation.

[elkpark]

In my experience, healthcare facilities are a lot stricter about students than they are about their own employees. With employees, there are all sorts of labor laws and due process requirements to consider when mandating different types of vaccinations, etc. There is no requirement for facilities to accept students to begin with, so they feel much freer to just refuse to accept any student(s) who are balking at their policies. And, if you can't complete your clinical rotations because the clinical facilities won't accept you, you can't finish nursing school.

[MiaLyse, APRN]

I would ask your school. I waived all vaccinations and simply had to sign a paper.

[shortnorthstudent]

In my experience, healthcare facilities are a lot stricter about students than they are about their own employees. With employees, there are all sorts of labor laws and due process requirements to consider when mandating different types of vaccinations, etc. There is no requirement for facilities to accept students to begin with, so they feel much freer to just refuse to accept any student(s) who are balking at their policies. And, if you can't complete your clinical rotations because the clinical facilities won't accept you, you can't finish nursing school.

I would agree with this. The hospitals where your college has clinical sites are concerned with their bottom line and that includes reducing their infection rates. They don't care about whether OP gets the flu. What they care about is the potential for OP to spread the flu within their facility. OP is not an employee and the facilities are not required to offer OP a clinical placement.

OP, all the handwashing in the world isn't going to prevent you from catching the flu from the guy in line at the grocery store who coughs right in your face. You may not get all that ill, but before you even know you are, there are many potential ways you can spread influenza through the immunocompromised newborns and others in your clinical location.

The rule is all about the patients.

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

And I have to correct the above poster about severely immunocompromised pts having reverse airflow...I work with neutropenic pts all the time and we do take special precautions, but this is not one of them. Also keep in mind that some of these pts can have their WBC/ANC be okay, then suddenly tank in response to therapy given days ago. In an ideal world, we'd always have up to date info on our pts and be able to anticipate that, but it doesn't always happen.

Sorry - that was not very clear of me at all. I wasn't trying to make up my own definition of severe immune compromise. ACIP guidelines, which are reflected in the FAQ's on the immunize.org link, state that providers may receive the LAIV unless they care for severely immunocompromised patients in a protected (reverse air flow) environment. I agree that there are patients outside of these environments with significant infection risk - no matter how we refer to them - but their nurses can receive Flumist per these guidelines.