Would You Take This Higher?

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

Hey, guys, I have a bit of a dilemma here. I hold a Master's Degree and a Post-Master's Certificate in ACNP and FNP, respectively. I attended the closest school in my area that offered these programs, and have been patently dissatisfied the whole way round. Here are a sampling of what I and my classmates went through, mostly in our Post Master's courses:

We were told that we had to accrue 210 clinical hours in the course of the summer term. Te term was scheduled to last 10 weeks, and the due date they imposed for the hours was two weeks less than that. We were not allowed to start early. The instructor made it clear that she would help us if we felt that we would be short on hours, and when several of my classmates voiced concerns around mid-term, her idea of "help" was to tell us that, if we could not finish our hours, we could take an incomplete, finish the hours in the fall, and postpone the certificate till December. Not what we had in mind for help, to say the least.

My clinical instructor was God-awful. She assigned us a report to present, just for her, in addition to all the other work we had to do, and passed around a signup sheet for dates. I had had a vacation planned for several months, and both she and the prof were aware of this, so I signed up for a date I knew I would be there. Later on, at our request, she recanted the assignment and allowed us to do presentations on skills we all agreed we needed improvement on. She assigned the dates. My date was the day that she knew I would be gone. I emailed her to aske to switch, and got the reply that I would have to find someone to switch both time and topic with me, she would not have her schedule interrupted, and she would not change the dates, since no one had any issues with it (you know, it was a tentative schedule, for us to approve, and I though that the fact that I would be in Florida at the time was an issue, but maybe I missed something). I found someone, only to have her post a reply on the school website that said, "I hate to rain on your parade, but please remember I said you'll have to find someone to switch topics as well, I don't want my schedule messed up".

She also kept us overtime on all but one occasion, and then refused to allow us to count the time rightfully accrued, stating that "It doesn't matter how long I keep you, you may only count 6 hours of conference time towards your clinical hours. Even with missing a day for vacation, I accrued more than 6 hours, and was, according to her, only allowed to count 5. I counted none, and told her my reasons. If I was not to be compensated for my time, which I felt was just as valuable as hers, then I did not want any. She even sent an email telling me that my clinical papers were not complete, and I drove over an hour to school, only to find that what she meant by "not complete" was the fact that, as I had told her, I had not counted my conference hours.

About 2 weeks before completion, all of us Post-Master's students were notified that we had not registered for graduation. We were never told that we had to. There were only 5 of us. When we asked if we would still get our certificates on time, we were told that it was in the hands of the registrar and "if we pushed it, they would cite policy". Well, there was no policy about that, and we showed them so in the P&P handbook. While they were hem-hawing around claiming to not know what to do, one of my colleagues mentioned going to the President of the college, and was told by the dean, "if you do that, all the work we've done will stop".

After all that, and being told by the dean that we really do not "graduate", we just get a certificate, we were told that all was well, and given our papers to mail to take our boards. I got a phone call 2 weeks after the end of semester, saying that they did not have a plan of study for me. I had it in my possesion, they had given me the original and made no copy. They settled for a faxed copy, had they told me I needed to make another trip to campus, I would have told them that they had my address, and they could do the driving for a change. The dean said she did not know what all of us were so upset about ( they lost stuff on more than just me), and I told her that it was because the right hand did not know what the left was about.

Over that last semester, I was congratulated on being accepted to the Graduate Program for ACNP, the degree I already held, followed by an email threatening that my acceptance would be denied if they did not hear from me. I told them that they had made a mistake, and they said that they would fix it. I just received my second acceptance letter yesterday, for the same thing.

I am beyond ill with them, and wondering, since the system is so obviously broken, and shows no improvement, SHOULD I take it to the President, for the benefit of those behind me? Am I right to be so fired up? I hate to think about anyone else going through what I did. If you made it this far, thank you.

[nyteshade, BSN]

This sounds really shady. If I understand correctly, it seems no one in this campus wants to help you. I would take this higher. What about a regulatory board that the college has to answer to? Maybe legal action?

[Scrubby]

I'm a little confused, have you actually graduated from this horrible place yet?

If you have your certificate and your done with them then YES document every problem you've had with them and give it to the president. Encourage others who've been through similar problems to do the same.

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

Yes, Scrubby, I got my ACNP in December, and finished with my FNP last month. I thought maybe I was being unreasonable, but, having reread my post, it is rather nightmarish, right? LOL

[Scrubby]

I don't believe your being unreasonable about this at all. This institution is happy enough to take your money from you, yet they won't provide an adequate service. I would be contacting whoever is in charge and making them aware that they have a lot of dissatisfied customers.

[ohmeowzer RN, RN]

yikes ... sounds awful.. when do you graduate from the " dark ages school of nursing"??? sounds like nurse ratchet found a job away from the coukoo's nest... i wondered where she went....

[Mulan]

Yes.

..

[leslie :-D]

yes! re letter to president.

also, carbon copy to the body who oversees colleges, universities in your state.

maybe like a board of regents, or dept of (higher) education?

yes, yes, yes, definitely.

and congrats on your 2 post certs!:balloons:

leslie