They changed the clinical attendence policy on us today...

[LVN_LPN_2007]

I'm attending Tidewater Tech in Norfolk, VA. I'm in the LPN program. Today we had a student/teacher meeting for all LPN students. They decided to change the attendence policy for clinicals. From Monday on if you miss 30 minutes or more of clinicals for that mod. (we go on five week mods) then you are dropped from all classes for that mod and will have to return and start that set of classes over. Not to mention pay to take all those classes over again. Now my problem is that this was not the policy when we started atttending school. It was you couldn't miss an entire day without making it up the next Friday (no school on Fri.) This seems totally unfair to the current students. If they want to make it policy for new students great. But I most likely wouldn't have attended the school if that was the then policy. I'm outraged by this. Am I wrong????

[mom2cka]

One option we have to make up is to pay our clinical instructor the going rate to make up time... they need to approve it, of course - I thought that was in interesting take on it, though.

[moongirl]

it would appear that they are taking the road of my school, and I have heard this from others as well, but count yourself lucky with the 30 minutes, because we dont even get that. If you are late, it is counted as a miss, and more than one miss, you are dropped from the entire program.

I agree with you tho, that it is cruddy that they changed the policy after school starts, but you will find that while you are in school, they pretty much run your life!

Get organized and go with it, and best of luck- you can do it. Think of it as a job, they wouldnt contiually put up with people not showing up or being 1/2 hour late either!

[Boston-RN, RN]

The policy at our school was if you were > 45min late then it was considered a clinical absence. You were allowed 1 clinical absence per semester without makeup (had to do a 5page paper or descretion of instructor) and any other absence had to be made up prior to the end of that semester.

30 mins and out....YIKES that is harsh and I think any Dean would agree. Especially if it is extremely different than what was originally in place.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

First semester of school was one module (14 weeks) and we had a policy where you *could* miss a day as long as you made it up fast, and were approved for the miss, etc.

Second semester, we got hit with "don't even think about missing, because there's no makeups at all: you're out". Harsh? We thought so, but then again, we were now in 7 week modules, no TIME to make much up, and I'm thinking there might have been abuse of the privilege already. We didn't like it, we dealt with it. Your modules are only 5 weeks long, instructors don't want to contend with makeups and excuses, period. The last thing they need is someone begging in their office to squeeze into a makeup class when it's filled or something.

Real life prep, I guess. If I miss 30 minutes of work, "making it up" will be the least of my worries!

[future_nurse08]

Clinicals are there because you need to time to practice and learn the skills and get comfortable doing them on a real patient. That is precious time that you need to become a good nurse. I tend to agree that there really isn't an "excusable" reason to miss a clinical unless it was a dire emergency. It all goes back to being a responsible adult. If you allow yourself plenty of time to get ready and get there and you make a concerted effort to do well then the attendance policy shouldn't be a problem. You are going to have people's lives in your hands. Would you really want to give up a chance to learn how to be the best nurse that you can be?

[puggymae]

I would check with the Academic Deans office to see if they are allowed to do this AFTER the semester started. Our school is on semesters and we are allowed two clinical absences a semester - for each of those absences your final grade is dropped 5% !!!! Being tardy is an absence. Any absence after two gives you a failing grade and you are dropped from the program.