Dilemma: miss class before exam due to illness?

[SopranoKris]

I'm in a big dilemma. I haven't been sick in 2 years. After 2 days of clinicals in the hospital last week, I'm sick with an upper respiratory infection.

We have class tomorrow and it's our last lecture before our exam on Monday. What do I do? Stay home, rest and study on my own? Or go to class and risk getting everyone sick, but I get the last lecture info before the exam?

We've only got 5 weeks left in the semester and I'm trying to keep my good grades up. I don't want to end up getting a B because I missed lecture. But I'd hate for someone to get sick because of me. I just don't know what to do!!!

Opinions please, either way.

[OCNRN63, RN]

Generally laudable, I hear you, and would that all people were like that. But you might just as well have caught the same bug standing in line at the post office behind someone who had to pick up the check they needed to prevent being homeless, or the person at the pharmacy who had to pick up her meds. Life happens.

Sure, it could have happened that way, but I'm fairly sure I know how I got sick that time. The funny thing was, she said she didn't want to leave us short-staffed, but was so ill she sat all day.

The first nurse I ever worked with once said, "You don't get a medal for coming in to work sick."

There are many good reasons to be your own boss, aren't there?

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

Yes, that must have been what my co-worker had in mind when she came to work with a raging URI and fever. And even though she passed her germs on to me, making me so ill I needed to spend several days in the hospital and ended up with asthma as a result of the infection, I know she had my best interest at heart.

People should use common sense when it comes to going to class/work when ill. Based on some of the replies here, common sense isn't so common.

Apparently, facetiousness doesn't go over very well around here.

[mrsboots87]

l would still go to class unless I was running a fever. I would, however, do all I could to prevent spread. Not share anything with classmates (pencils and such), would probably wear a mask, sit in the back, use sanitizer after every nose wipe or sneeze into a hand, Lysol the desk afterword, you get the idea. In most circumstance, I would stay home if I had a contagious illness, however in nursing school that is not a luxury we have. Schools have policies on how many days can be missed before you get dropped. ALso missing lecture, means missing vital information that is needed before tests as well as for learning to become a nurse. I have seen schools that allow as little as one absence the ENTIRE program. I wouldn't want to waste my absence if I wasn't so sick I couldn't move. Also, in the nursing profession wont come into contact with all kinds of nasty. Should we tell patients not come in because we might catch what they have? Makes no sense to say a student is disrespectful for getting sick at school, then needing to return to school before a test.

[SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP]

So, I went to clinicals after forwarning my clinical instructor about my illness. She had me stay in the conference room all shift and do a critical thinking exercise where I had to collaborate with 3 other students about their patients and prioritize care as if all 3 patients were under my care. I looked up lab values for them and helped them come up with their NANDA diagnoses based on their report.

I have no idea what we're going to do today, but I'm glad I didn't miss any time at clinicals. There's no way to make up missed time and there's no way I'm repeating this course when there's only 4 more weeks left after this.