Facility not allowing us patient contact

Nursing Students General Students

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Hi all,

Long time lurker first time poster. I'm doing my half semester psyc rotation right now and after five weeks we haven't been allowed by the facility to step foot on any of their units hence no patient contact. We've all reported each week fulfilling our part, but have been placed in a classroom every week. I had talked briefly to our clinical coordinator who told me after week three that she was attempting to resolve this, but it seems wasn't able to do so. While I'm not happy about this I realized that midsemester there isn't much we can do, and was content with just riding it out. This was until our lecture professor found out, and threatened to fail all of our clinical group. I think that's a vastly unfair threat as we've done what we're supposed to do, and they've had similar problems with this facility the past two semester. Any thoughts or experiences like this?

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

It is the school's responsibility to find a suitable site. Why is the director even allowing this? I don't mean to sound harsh, but it isn't the schools responsibility to make sure people don't have transportation issues. If this is the reason they keep this place, then that is a problem also. The facility does not have to accept students unless the school is affiliated with them in some way.

What a stinky situation for all.

Finding another facility isn't so easy as we have several schools who are sharing just a few facilities. I'm in a major city, but quite a number of our students are dependent on public transportation which isn't so great here so that needs to be accounted for in finding a new clinical site. As an update we've been told that for the last two weeks we will be allowed on the floor, but I won't believe it till it happens. Hopefully this is the last semester we will send people there.

With the proliferation of nursing schools all over the country, finding specialty clinical sites has become a serious challenge in many places. At the last school in which I taught, negotiating the specialty clinical sites and schedules among all the nursing programs in the city was like some kind of international summit. However, that does not relieve the school of the responsibility to provide appropriate, suitable clinical experiences for students they enroll.

I agree with NicuGal that student transportation is not the school's concern when planning clinical rotations. When I attended nursing school a kazillion years ago, and in every nursing program I've attended or taught in since then, students were told as part of the application/enrollment process that clinicals would be held in a variety of locations around the area and it would be students' responsibility to get there, whether that was a matter of owning a car, carpooling with other students, or using public transportation. Was that not the case at your school?

This clinical site is receiving a decent amount of money from your school to be there. To not allow you on the unit and for the school to accept this should be completely unacceptable. Your school should get their money back as to me this is nothing less than stealing.

Sometimes, it is strictly observation. But you should at least be observing, not doing case studies. When I was in school, only a certain amount of hours could be used for case studies.

This clinical site is receiving a decent amount of money from your school to be there. To not allow you on the unit and for the school to accept this should be completely unacceptable.

None of the nursing programs with which I've been connected over the years have ever paid any facility to be able to use it as a clinical site. If that happens at all, it is certainly not a common occurrence, and I don't think one can assume that the OP's school is paying the psychiatric facility.

I hope they work something out and it does sound positive that we will get to go next week from the message we received. We'll see it when I believe it. Thanks everyone I will bump this thread with an update!

Generally I agree with this as we usually get to get pick between two or three sites at the start of the semester so everyone gets something that works for them. I was only bringing up the transportation issue for a midsemester switch as that could really screw quite a few people in my clinical group over. Anyhow it's sounding more positive from the message that we're supposedly getting on next week. We'll see what happens ,and I'll bump the thread with an update. Thanks everyone!

Had a conversation with the higher ups in my program yesterday, and was assured that no one will be failed r/t this issue. I was also told that they haven't found other sites willing to take us, but will keep looking for other sites that future groups could use. As far as this semester they hope we'll be allowed to see patients this coming week, but couldn't promise anything. Thank you everyone for the support in this thread!

Just an update we were finally allowed to be on the unit yesterday, and did get to talk with a few patients. It certainly was an interesting experience!

Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
None of the nursing programs with which I've been connected over the years have ever paid any facility to be able to use it as a clinical site. If that happens at all, it is certainly not a common occurrence, and I don't think one can assume that the OP's school is paying the psychiatric facility.

In general, my understanding is that schools don't pay hospitals to host students. However, hospitals (and other clinical sites) receive grants for hosting nursing students from organizations; Johnson & Johnson is one such organization. If they are not actually allowing students on the units, they should not be eligible.

Specializes in IMCU.

What a shame your clinical hours were truncated. We learn things in psych that transfer to all other areas. In truth I would be grateful your other lecturer was on the case. As worrisome as it seemed each BON has a specific number of clinical hours required. The school was at risk and your graduation.

Dreadful clinical site. Glad you are with patients now. Good luck!

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