Do A Lot Of Students Get Expelled?

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Goodness it seems like everytime I check this board I'm coming across a thread about someone getting expelled. I feel terrible for them. Nursing school was hard enough to get into and to be expelled, well that's not a pleasant experience.

I'm a lil worried about myself now. I'm not the best student. We just took our first exam, havn't got the grades back yet, well I think I did okay. But what concerns me the most is the fact that I think my cliinical instructor might not like me so much because I ask too many questions. I don't have a medical background like others and I guess I'm too eager to understand everything and okay I'll watch what I ask from now on so I don't waste her time.

I hope my clinical intructor doesn't fail me just because of me being annoying.....once we fail a clinicals we're DONE. I also hope I get good enough grades from my classes so I don't flunk out. I've flunked out before and again, that felt terrible. That was many years ago though and I've learned my lesson.

Any advice would be appreicated.

----nervous first year student here -----

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Specializes in CTICU.

Make sure you know your school's policies, and don't break em. They cannot expel you because "you're annoying", or you'd have a great lawsuit. Don't give them any excuses.

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If schools could expel students for being annoying, I'd never have made it past middle school!

Ask the questions you need to, AFTER you've completed any required reading that's been assigned. You don't want to be "that student" who asks 10 questions, 9 of which would've been answered by doing the work required beforehand. After doing all the prep you need to do, ask everything you need to. Remember, you're not just asking for your own knowledge, but also for the patients you will care for in the future. Those patients won't care how "annoying" you thought you were in class, they just want you to provide them with excellent care.

Chin up!

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Specializes in Professional Development Specialist.

We've had some extremely annoying students in my classes. None of them were ever failed for it. :D Be prepared for your clinicals, and follow the rules. Be eager to learn and do as you are asked, but do not go outside your scope of practice as a student. My clinical experiences have all been good because I work my butt off the entire time I'm there. The instructors and the other RNs respect that.

I've only heard of a few students ever being expelled in my program, and most of the stories involved either physical violence or drugs and alcohol. No small things! Failing out is another story.

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Specializes in ccu cardiovascular.

I think if teachers could expel for being annoying there would be very few nurses out there. I think we all had that capability. One of my instructors did not like me, no real reason, she told me on evals. I made the grades, did fine on clinicals but thought I would not make a good nurse. So here i am 12 years later an ICU charge nurse, wish I could find her and send her excellent evaluations from my critical care docs. anywho... I agree know your school policies, follow hippa rules and if you feel the need to ask questions then go ahead. Good luck to you

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

I think more people fail themselves out then get expelled. Granted you can be annoying if you ask too many questions to your instructor and they might become overly critical of you, so spread out your questions to RT, RN's, MD's whoever you can pester for a little while with questions is always good.

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Thanks!

So do a lot of people flunk out then? I'm getting more and more anxious about getting our first test results back.

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I see a difference between expulsion and dismissal. Not many get expelled for behavioral misconduct, but many get dismissed for academic failure.

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From what you've seen of the ones who fail out, are these students who didn't try or they just couldn't make it through the program? I'd like to believe that if we work hard enough that we could make it through but this always worries me.

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There are programs that are known for weeding out up to half or even more of every entering class. Frankly, I don't believe that all of these failures could have been because the school was remiss in their judgement of evaluating prospective students. The people that have failed out that I am aware of only included three people who didn't give a hoot. One woman was more interested in her boy friend. Another woman wanted to spend her time at airports with the Hare Krishna set. And one young man didn't seem to be interested in nursing school in general. Everyone else failed out because they didn't meet the academic standards in some way. I wouldn't worry about all of this if I were you. Just go in there and give it your best. You will be successful if you make up your mind to work hard and do everything you are expected to do.

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Thank you. I guess I'm just worried because I didn't finish college many years ago and I don't feel very smart.

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Write down your questions and look them up! Or look up 75% of them. We had a woman in our class who ended up singling herslef out for asking "annoying" questions. The instructor would say something, then she would ask a question EXACTLY about what the professor just stated. Not for further explanation, but as though she hadn't heard a word. This happened daily. They did not expell her, but she really singled herself out for their attention.

My advice to her was to write down her questions and ask us, her fellow students, later. If you feel you are annoying someone, you probably are! That is good of you to be in tune with others and to back off a bit. I am not saying you shouldn't ask any questions, but why ask to be a target, right?

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