Hello Everybody! And I mean all the allnurses.com people here. Nursing, I found out well, is hard for potential nurses who are making the transition from civilian to nurse. I missed this board very much while I was away. You may remember me. I was so excited to get accepted to a 2 year community college nursing school, and then was failed in clinicals during my second semester, and there was no warning it was coming. Being failed for the clinical portion was under the control of a single nursing instructor. It feels good to say hello to everyone who may remember me because I learn so much from allnurses.com.
Well, the reasons sited for me failing this particular clinical assignment was that I didn't turn in a component of my paperwork due each week, and that I gave po med (percocet) without the instructor being there while I gave the med. (Percocet is a narc) Even though I was told to go ahead and give it by the nurses there on the unit, and even though I had given the same med to the same PT the day before with the instructor there, it cost me dearly.
I was/am working 24 hours a week during nursing school as a floor CNA (Med Spec) and was doing it, but when I was dropped from nursing school, it was so hard to tell everyone where I work what happened when they would all ask, "How is school going?" I just received my one year evaluation from the hospital I work as a CNA at and it was excellent. I love what I do (caring for people) and it shows through in all I do.
I was dropped during Feb, 03, and was told i could come back next year. I wrote a great letter to the nursing dean explaining my true and steadfast intentions of becoming a nurse. I didn't leave the school on a bad note, and always kept my cool and composure, even though I felt the instructor was particularly hard on me, and I didn't deserve to be dropped like that. So, for the last two months, i have been living with the fact that I have to wait another year to become an RN, and this is just a bump, and something that has happened to others, and I will go with it and be the model student next year.
Now the school has informed me that they will not be taking back any returning students because of the great influx of new nursing students. This is really hard for me to take, knowing how much I want to be a nurse and start helping people as a nurse, then having that process be shut down because of a single instructor. Now I am all the way back to square one, and it's very hard to accept. Has anyone tried to get a seat in a nursing program lately? Forget about it! The ones in my area are all so full...waiting lists...panic.
So here I sit...with all my prereqs complete with a 3.0 avg and I have been in school full time over the last 2 years to get all my prereqs complete...then got accepted to RN program last year...got clinicals in my second semester at a rough place for a second semester student (post surg)...had an instructor didn't help me...then failed me...school tells me i can come back next year...then 2 months later says there will be no room because of the shortage...ahhhhh. My CNA job...where I work with med/surg PT's >32 hours a week is the greatest place to work. The nurses there are very professional and tell me they know I'll be an excellent nurse based on what they see.
I can't stand thinking of myself as dead in the water, but thats what I am. I have all the potential to become an excellent nurse and all the prereq knowledge to enter a 2 year RN program...and I have no seat. It has eaten at me every day in a big way, and for all the folks who don't think I know what depression can mean....I have had one heck of a case of the blues. But i have not sunk, and I still want to get into another school for the 2 years to give me a seat at the NCLEX so I can start doing my best by providing the best nursing care.
So now I have to start getting myself into reality and climb ALL THE WAY back to start. It's so tough to get into a good school today. And now i am having to start completely all over again, after all I have been through.
I'm not looking for any sympathy. If anyone knows of a school accepting students for Fall for or Winter, I'd like to know.
What makes it hard for me is to see other students get the training and help needed to become a nurse, and then to remember what happened to me.
If there is a school somewhere in the US that would take an ambitious and caring student, I'd like to know. This is not easy for me friends. My intentions are all positive, and I am ready, willing and able to train to be a RN, but the shortage is in quality nursing schools, with quality instructors, with quality learning programs, and not in potential quality nurses. Thank you.
