As an older nursing student with a 3.8 GPA who dropped out due to a joint fracture and a failed exam for which I had no preparation and only very distant memories (drug dosage calculations,the ONLY one I could not complete well), I am rethinking my career trajectory and seek means and further education so I can reenter the field for licensure and certification. I request advice in this forum to find a school or training center that accepts and nurtures the older professional student who has experience in a quasi-medical area (labor assisting), medical secretarial experience and one year of an accelerated NP degree. What recourse might I have if my preceptor avoided teaching the practical patient care skills one needed during clinicals? Who can one contact if one believes the quality and content of the clinical training was not equitable and contact time with my preceptor was extremely limited? Do professors purposefully weed out unwanted students by not teaching them overtly and getting them off the floor on other "assignments"? What recourse does one have if this was done and you have dropped out, incredibly disappointed, after the fact? I have told this story over and over again to people outside of the field and they believe it was a thinly disguised attempt to create an impossible situation by routinely sending me "off floor" to attend and observe patients who were not assigned to my floor; i.e. interview a dialysis patient, attend a patient undergoing paracentesis, etc. I wished to learn the rudiments of wound care, patient assessment and assisting patient with ADL's instead of being an orderly. What can I do turn this horrid and expensive situation into a boon instead of a breakdown?