about to fail nursing clinical

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Hello. I am in my first semester of nursing school and received a clinical improvement plan on the 2nd week for forgetting to put the glucometer stick into the sharp after using it on a patient. After this incident I have been very careful and made sure I never did this again. it has be a month and about two weeks since that incident. a day ago, my instructor emailed me saying that nurses came up to another instructor telling that instructor that I am an unsafe nurse, and now my instructor wants to give me a CIP. the nurses didn't say what i did exactly but my instructor said it is aligned with not having a good therapeutic communication with my patients. The only thing my instructor wanted me to work on after my CIP(for the glucometer) was my therapeutic communication with my patient which I have been doing. my instructor herself have told me that i have improved with my patient interactions...and I know I have... my instructor said it herself that each time she asked the nurses how i am doing they say I'm good, so i don't understand where this is coming from. Is it right for my instructor to give me a CIP based on hearsay?

again, the nurses that complained about me didn't tell my instructor directly, instead they told another instructor who told my instructor so all of this is based on hearsay.

As a student, i feel like I can't even make a mistake and I feel paranoid. Please advice me

At this point I will tell the snitch instructor to speak to my instructor about the CIP because if I get it I will be forced to take legal actions. Any advice?

Yeah, don't do this. Don't mention it. Don't threaten it. Your complaint has no legal merit and you won't find an attorney willing to pursue it. What you WILL find is your butt being kicked out the door with no recourse.

Thank you so much for your response. What do you think is the best way to approach this? I have already decided not to sign a CIP if it comes to that.

Thank you so much for your response. What do you think is the best way to approach this? I have already decided not to sign a CIP if it comes to that.

If you want to stay in school and become a nurse put your head down and do what they ask. You haven't much more to go. If graduating and becoming a nurse no longer matters to you then refuse to sign it, make a stink and plan on being kicked out of school knowing the your credits will not transfer to any other nursing program. Those are your only choices.

Also, you will note that I have quoted you in my response. At the bottom of each post is a quote button. Please use it when responding as it makes things easier to follow.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it tony1234 and cleback. I made a mistake, I am actually a 4th semester student maybe that makes a difference, I don't know. do you think it is wise to talk to the instructor the nurses told these things to? I want to know exactly what was said. my instructor keeps waiving the CIP in my face, we have been communicating through email and we will officially talk about the issue next Thursday, but every time we communicate through email she mentions that she will give me a CIP and that next Thursday we will go over how i can improve my clinical performance. so it seems like she already made up her mind without hearing from me or even knowing exactly what the nurses said to the other instructor. I asked her through email for examples of what the other instructor said that the nurses told her that made me an unsafe nurse and my instructor replied that when she spoke to the other instructor, the other instructor was busy. So maybe i should speak to the other instructor or just wait?

We dont have a lot of info to go on.

Are you in a ADN or BSN program?

Are you in a public or for profit program?

At our school clinicals are attached to a specific lecture course. While we have clinical instructors, they are generally not actual members of the faculty (most of them are either wanna-be professors or doing this as a side gig). Since they are not actual members of the faculty nor the lecture professor, they have a limited say in what happens. The lecture professor can overrule them if a disagreement arises.

For example we had a recent DNP grad clinical instructor in their early 20's who wanted to play hard butt, and took it on themselves to assign weekly papers and extend clinicals from 12 to 15+ hours with pre and post conference. The lecture professor got involved and reigned it all back in.

So my advice? If you dont feel you are getting a fair shake from your clinical instructor then make an office appointment with your lecture professor and discuss the issue professionally and politely with them.

We dont have a lot of info to go on.

Are you in a ADN or BSN program?

Are you in a public or for profit program?

At our school clinicals are attached to a specific lecture course. While we have clinical instructors, they are generally not actual members of the faculty (most of them are either wanna-be professors or doing this as a side gig). Since they are not actual members of the faculty nor the lecture professor, they have a limited say in what happens. The lecture professor can overrule them if a disagreement arises.

For example we had a recent DNP grad clinical instructor in their early 20's who wanted to play hard butt, and took it on themselves to assign weekly papers and extend clinicals from 12 to 15+ hours with pre and post conference. The lecture professor got involved and reigned it all back in.

So my advice? If you dont feel you are getting a fair shake from your clinical instructor then make an office appointment with your lecture professor and discuss the issue professionally and politely with them.

That sounds like a great Idea. I am in a BSN program. I,ve already discussed the issue with my lecture instructor (the one the nurses spoke to). My lecture instructor said that my clinical instructor can not give me a CIP for it. But for some reason my clinical instructor is really excited to give me one...the last time I emailed my clinical instructor, she said she had a CIP waiting for me the next clinical day lol. I think I'll email or text my lecture instructor to speak with my clinical instructor.

my clinical instructor (the one that wants to give me the CIP) is part time and does not lecture. Clinicals are attached to specific lecture courses as well.

If you want to stay in school and become a nurse put your head down and do what they ask. You haven't much more to go. If graduating and becoming a nurse no longer matters to you then refuse to sign it, make a stink and plan on being kicked out of school knowing the your credits will not transfer to any other nursing program. Those are your only choices.

Also, you will note that I have quoted you in my response. At the bottom of each post is a quote button. Please use it when responding as it makes things easier to follow.

Thank you for explaining the use of the quote button....I'm sure you can tell I'm new and was using the reply button lol.

Specializes in ED, ICU, Prehospital.

I'm going to carefully say this. It concerns me that posters here, veteran nurses, are telling you to "keep your mouth shut and do whatever you're told". Yet some of these same nurses are swearing up and down that they have never, EVER seen or heard of bullying in the workplace. Hmmm.

On to your problem, OP.

You have a clinical instructor who wants to give you a CIP---we called them "Just Culture" write-ups. It was originally designed for a clinical instructor to fine tune young nurses, counseling on what happened/why it happened/a plan for moving forward.

I had two just like this. And it wasn't only me experiencing it. We were allowed all the way through clinicals, until 4th year--and then the BS "just culture" write ups began. A girl was given one for dropping a cap from a needle on the floor in the medroom while she was drawing up a medication. Another was given a write up for allowing the primary tubing to touch the bed without the RN "cleaning the entire tubing with an alcohol wipe". Yet another was given a write up at her final review to graduate her capstone internship---not a word was said about her performance, but a write up was given--the RN was off duty already, being given her final review, holding her purse and bag, OFF DUTY....and had the audacity to put her earrings (just simple one in each ear) back in.

That was RN #1.

The second was a truly vicious person. She was forced out of one BSN program in town, only to be picked up by our program due to "wonderful references" (BS interpreter says: We wanted to offload her quietly so we gave her glowing reports.). It came out later, when the lawsuit was filed against the school by the entire senior class, that the former school had disciplinary records on this woman 3" thick.

She was just Just Culture happy. Everything. Her philosophy was that JC was not a teaching tool...it was an administrative tool to weed out people that didn't fit her standard. She didn't follow the Nursing Handbook for the school, or comply with the clinical parameters--she rarely, if ever, witnessed or asked for proof of any type of violation before slamming a JC in front of you and telling you point blank, "Sign it, or fail."

This isn't a "weeding out" technique. If that were true, you would have been written up and spoken to about this long ago. You would never have reached 4th year not knowing you have "therapeutic communication" issues.

We had a theory, and you can take it for what it's worth--that this is something in the last stages, to "knock your confidence down a bit"---especially nurses that show that they can hold their own. This isn't unusual in the workplace, either. Again, it's a bullying tactic. "keep you in your place". Many, many senior nurses would "withhold"---help, information, support, simple acknowledgement---in order to "put a newbie in her place". I've heard comments by senior nurses that newbies have to "do their time" before being given interesting or challenging assignments (even if they can handle it). This is hazing. Another form of bullying.

You can do what some are telling you---play the game until you get what you want, as long as you have a plan. Do you have a job lined up? Are you trusting these people with your plans? DON'T. If you want to get what you want, and if what you want is nursing and have a good job....be a hypocrite, smile and nod---and then when your BSN is in your hand? You do whatever you want.

If you threaten legal action, you had better be sure that you have legal grounds to do it. Like my weapons instructor told me--never draw your weapon unless you are going to use it. Never threaten and then don't follow through.

The class that took this woman to task--it was because the school admin was ignoring months of complaints from very good students. On paper, all of a sudden, everybody was crap. These two instructors were at the root of it.

Bad apple #1 retreated when people confronted her and challenged the JCs, after they realized she was doing it because she really had nothing to show for her "teaching skill" (absenteeism, doing lectures via Mix and it would be 4 hours of her reading the text, blowing off material because she "wasn't comfortable with it"--she was supposedly a Cardiac RN for 25 years). I believe she eventually was forced out, but not when I was there.

Bad apple #2 was forced out immediately, and her clinical group was divided amongst other clinical groups---it was a hot mess. The entire senior year was pretty much wasted, nothing truly learned (other than when a staff preceptor would teach the student something). She was reported to the BON for a particular incident, where she had a student do a procedure with no supervision, and no order to do it. I have not checked her license lately, but I hope she lost her license. She definitely lost her job.

It's up to you, OP. I would suggest the easiest route for you--it's not YOU, it's this instructor. I would say whatever it is that would get me through the semester---with or without a write up---and put her and this school in the rearview. Be as insincere as you like.

This is what they want. I am not sure how something as subjective as "therapeutic communication" can be objectively quantified--because unless a patient is complaining about your bedside manner, I am not sure where this is coming from. When something abstract is being used against you, like this is, this is a red flag to me.

They don't have any solid evidence of any type of procedural or policy mismanagement by you. What they are basically saying is that they don't like your personality.

If that isn't bullying, I don't know what is. Nursing schools are so keen on "evidence based" and "if you didn't document it, it didn't happen"---where is the evidence that OP did anything that broke this nebulous "therapeutic communication" rule?

OP...I would say just smile, nod, agree and then do whatever the hell you were doing in the first place. They want to feel powerful. When you get out there on your own, if someone tells you you're a real b**** at the bedside, and that comes from a PATIENT? Then you need to worry about yourself. Til then, you keep your own counsel, your plans to yourself (because clearly someone is not a fan of yours) and fly under the radar.

I'm going to carefully say this. It concerns me that posters here, veteran nurses, are telling you to "keep your mouth shut and do whatever you're told". Yet some of these same nurses are swearing up and down that they have never, EVER seen or heard of bullying in the workplace.

It's up to you, OP. I would suggest the easiest route for you--it's not YOU, it's this instructor. I would say whatever it is that would get me through the semester---with or without a write up---and put her and this school in the rearview. Be as insincere as you like.

OP...I would say just smile, nod, agree and then do whatever the hell you were doing in the first place. They want to feel powerful. When you get out there on your own, if someone tells you you're a real b**** at the bedside, and that comes from a PATIENT? Then you need to worry about yourself. Til then, you keep your own counsel, your plans to yourself (because clearly someone is not a fan of yours) and fly under the radar.

I'm sorry but you are telling her to do the exact same thing the "veteran" nurses here are telling her to do while also implying that we must be bullies for saying it. She is in her LAST semester. If she puts up a stink they will kick her out and she will have to start over. Few people have the time or money for that and many nursing schools will not accept a student who's failed out. Yes it sucks but she's in a no-win situation and now you've gone and told her that she is a sell out if she just does what she needs to do to get through. I don't know, maybe the OP wants to be the Norma Rae of nursing students but if she doesn't then that's fine too.

Specializes in Psychiatry.
I'm sorry but you are telling her to do the exact same thing the "veteran" nurses here are telling her to do while also implying that we must be bullies for saying it.

I was going to say the exact thing. Homebound, we "veterans" share your sentiments as well. I will continue to tell people, pick your battles. Nursing school is not the place to be a freedom fighter: you know nothing. If she decides to pursue this and fail out then what? she would have wasted her time and resources. OP be brave, be quiet, and graduate.

Specializes in ED, ICU, Prehospital.

I was pointing out, Wuzzie and Neo---that there is a bit of cherry picking here in the advice lately. Not to OP specifically, in general.

It's irritating to me that there is a thread that has nothing but vets saying "bullying doesn't exist because I have never seen it or experienced it! Sorry to disappoint you!"

What OP is describing IS bullying. It may not be colleague to colleague, but it is lateral violence nonetheless.

We can split hairs and porifice all you like, but a simple google search of "bullying in nursing" and "seminars" and all of the mandated courses we all have to go through now....are not there for s***s and giggles. The saying "nurses eat their young" didn't form in a vacuum.

What I meant for OP was validation that this IS happening to him/her, and that no matter the other threads that say..."SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE!!!"....she is experiencing something that she will encounter numerous times in her career as a nurse.

I advised OP to literally "mimic" exactly what these hypocrite RNs do on a daily basis. I think you missed the irony. That you and some others have insisted that you have "never" seen, heard of, or experienced any type of bullying behavior in your umpteen years of nursing. Ever.

I wasn't saying YOU ARE BULLIES. I am saying that the hypocrisy that you urge her to acknowledge the bullying, keep her head down and mouth shut so she can graduate....flies in the face of the "bullies don't exist in nursing because I've never seen it."

It's irritating. It's not reality. She needs to know when to pick her battles. Yes. But she and others also need to know, that this happens ALL. THE. TIME. in nursing (and yes, in other fields---but you don't see them sit around swearing it just have never, ever happened in their presence). It's misleading and these young nurses don't know what is about to hit them when they go onto a unit with one or more of these types.

IN THIS INSTANCE, yes. She should keep her head down and agree. Where does that stop, then? This was my POINT. Picking battles...and choosing whose advice you take in the future.

I was pointing out, Wuzzie and Neo---that there is a bit of cherry picking here in the advice lately. Not to OP specifically, in general.

It's irritating to me that there is a thread that has nothing but vets saying "bullying doesn't exist because I have never seen it or experienced it! Sorry to disappoint you!"

What OP is describing IS bullying. It may not be colleague to colleague, but it is lateral violence nonetheless.

We can split hairs and porifice all you like, but a simple google search of "bullying in nursing" and "seminars" and all of the mandated courses we all have to go through now....are not there for s***s and giggles. The saying "nurses eat their young" didn't form in a vacuum.

What I meant for OP was validation that this IS happening to him/her, and that no matter the other threads that say..."SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE!!!"....she is experiencing something that she will encounter numerous times in her career as a nurse.

I advised OP to literally "mimic" exactly what these hypocrite RNs do on a daily basis. I think you missed the irony. That you and some others have insisted that you have "never" seen, heard of, or experienced any type of bullying behavior in your umpteen years of nursing. Ever.

I wasn't saying YOU ARE BULLIES. I am saying that the hypocrisy that you urge her to acknowledge the bullying, keep her head down and mouth shut so she can graduate....flies in the face of the "bullies don't exist in nursing because I've never seen it."

It's irritating. It's not reality. She needs to know when to pick her battles. Yes. But she and others also need to know, that this happens ALL. THE. TIME. in nursing (and yes, in other fields---but you don't see them sit around swearing it just have never, ever happened in their presence). It's misleading and these young nurses don't know what is about to hit them when they go onto a unit with one or more of these types.

IN THIS INSTANCE, yes. She should keep her head down and agree. Where does that stop, then? This was my POINT. Picking battles...and choosing whose advice you take in the future.

I appreciate all the responses. The people that tell me to keep my mouth close and sign the CIP are encouraging me to do it because they are not in my situation. I already have one CIP( for the glucometer stick) two more and I am out. I know for a fact if I allow her to give me this one when I did noting that warranted it she will come up with a reason to give me a third one and kick me out...she is setting me up. All she has ever talked to me about is how I am "over confident" and that might be what is affecting my therapeutic communication. I took her criticism seriously and worked on it to the point that she said that I am improving in it. I know she doesn't like me because even after Med pass she tells me that as a 4th semester student she expects me to already know how to pass meds so she is not impressed that I know how to pass meds safely, what she is worried about is my therapeutic communication. When she heard that nurses were talking negatively about me she thought she had an opportunity to give me another CIP so she she got excited and emailed me saying that I am an unsafe nurse and and that's why she will give me a CIP. I won't mention a lawsuit ( thank God I have you all here to rail me back in lol) but I will respectively talk to the lecture instructor on Monday and have her talk to my clinical instructor...I will keep you all updated. Sometimes we have to stand up for ourselves... by God's grace everything will workout .

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