Hard of Hearing and school issues

[AmberBradford]

Hello,

I have been an LPN for 2 years now. I am looking to go back to school for my RN. I am deaf in one ear and very hard of hearing in the other. I do not use hearing aids. The school that I am wanting to do my RN at is the same school that I did my LPN at. The issue that I am having is that I need to let people know that I have a Hearing loss. The nursing department has "rules" that are unwritten about deaf/hoh students. I am seen them wiggle around until they were able to get a hoh student out of my LPN coheart. It was a BIG issue when I was not able to let my nurse know on the floor that I was shadowing. I do not want to get kicked out of school for NOT telling them but I KNOW that I will be kicked out if they know about the hearing loss. Just needing help in knowing what I can and need to do. Any help is nice.

Amber

[athena55, BSN, RN]

Hi Amber

My question to you is, did your LPN program know or were aware of your hearing loss when you applied? Were you hearing while at the LPN program and then lose your hearing after graduation as a LPN?

I would hope that you would be accepted into the RN program without a problem. You would be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Check out the Department of Justice website for more information. http://www.ada.gov/

If your school program accepts federal funding then they would have a very hard time from excluding you, especially if you meet all the qualifications for the program. Then again, a lot of potential undergraduate students wanting to gain access to a BSN program are placed either on a lottery system or a wait-list as there just aren't enough BSN instructors/professors to teach.

[AmberBradford]

athena55,

Thanks for the link. I will be checking it out. I lost my hearing when I was 10yo. I do have on file with the school that I am HOH. I just did not sign for them to tell my professors. I have seen the professors "Fix" the grades of follow students. (ie I know a friend of my was below the cut off and they passed while another student who was HOH was passing and then boom they file one test and were asked to exit. She still was passing when she exited.) I just know that if they knew before hand that I would be placed on the forever wait list. There are not many placed to go to school around here without paying over 80k for it. I just cannot pay that. So the community college is what I have to go with.