Flu - Missing Class

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I am currently in nursing school and have never had the flu or flu vaccine. My school only allows students to miss 1 clinical day. If you get sick and miss 2 or more days you are removed from the program and must reapply as a new student in one year. My state declared a state of emergency today due to the flu outbreak, nearly everyone in my family has it and I'm terrified I'm going to get kicked out of school. Can a school really remove a student from a program because they got sick and missed 2 days of class?

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Yes they can- and why have you not had a flu shot? Are you in clinicals yet?

Also: If you are not an RN- you may not use "RN" as part of your screen name per the TOS you agreed to when signing up for AllNurses.

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Yes, they can. That is a common attendance policy for nursing programs. I taught as adjunct clinical faculty in an ADN program that only allowed students to miss 8 hours (one standard clinical day) of clinical in a semester before getting expelled from the program. In the condensed, accelerated summer term in which I was teaching, the clinical days were 12 hours, not eight, so missing even one full clinical day would have meant the student getting kicked out of the program. (Needless to say, no one missed any clinical days.)

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I start clinicals in a few weeks and my college had a few students who opted to not have flu shots due to religious reasons. Thanks for the info, I'll changed my username

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Their school, their rules. By paying tuition, you essentially say you agree with them

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Specializes in Neuro.

Unless you have a reason not to get a flu shot, I'd get one asap.

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

There are no recognized religions that prohibit adherents from getting immunized.

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1st you need to understand the attendance policy --- there should be a difference between missing 2 days of "class" and 2 "clinical" days.

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Specializes in Mental Health.

Ah yes, the religion of Anti-vaccers. What I don't understand is why people like that want careers in modern medicine when they clearly don't believe in modern medicine.

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What religions have rules against vaccination? I'm actually curious. Even my Christian Science friend says that their religion doesn't specifically forbid vaccines.

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There are no recognized religions that prohibit adherents from getting immunized.

My family are jehovah's witnesss and our congregation are agasint modern medical science, so not getting vaccinations is common but its not prohibited to do so.... I think the OP just mean their "beliefs, not religion".

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I would get the shot ASAP. The flu is nothing to mess around with. My dad has it right now and is quite sick. My mom is on Tamiflu in order to try to avoid her getting sick, too.

And yes, the school can kick you for missing clinical.

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