How strict was your nursing school?

[piercednurse]

Hi. I've been an LPN for just about a year now and I'm loving it! I just wanted to know what school was like in other areas. The one I went to was worse than military school. OK maybe not that bad but close to it. We had to be where ever at 6:45am not 6:46am. If you were one minute late you were sent home. (Never applied to me I was always about 30 min early.) Had to have a visible crease in your uniform to prove that you ironed it. You couldn't just take it out of the dryer before it wrinkled. White granny panties. White socks. WTF is that about. Who cares what color your socks were. I can't count the times I got in trouble for wearing socks that were not white. Only one pair of earrings and they had to be studs. Got in trouble for wearing a set in my scond hole. I also got in trouble for piercing my cartilage about a month before graduation. no body jewelry. Got caught with my tongue ring in a couple of times. Your hair had to be of a "natural" color. Makeup, if worn, had to be natural looking. Hair had to be up. It could not touch your collar. I had long hair so I always had to put it in a ponytail and not pull it all the way through. The only ring you could wear was a wedding band. No engagement rings. No necklaces or bracelets. Completely white shoes. I bought a pair of K-Swiss that had a little red shield (logo) on the rubber bottom of the shoe by the toe and one teacher told me I couldn't wear them again. We couldn't wear our stethoscopes around our neck. They had to go in our pocket. No visible tattoos. I have a guard (pt. was an inmate) who spotted my tattoo through my uniform and complained. He must have been looking mighty hard because its in the small of my back. No nail polish. Only 30 min for lunch. By the time we walked all the way to the cafeteria on the other side of the hospital and waited in line it had already been 20 min. We couldn't leave for anything. OH and my "favorite" We couldn't park in the hospital parking lot. We have to park across the street on a crappy gravel pot hole filled "lot" What ever that was about I'll never know. That's just a few off the top of my head. I'd love to hear you stories!

[Kate28]

:) It's nice to know there are other schools out there like mine. My school, right outside of Houston, is pretty strict. For us to pass each semester we have to take a math test and make a 100 on it. We can have all A's in everything from Foundations to MedSurg, but if we don't get a perfect score on Med Administration, we're doomed. We have 3 chances to make the perfect score. Last year it was an 85, this year it is 100. As much as this freaks me out, I do think it is fair...simply because you don't wanna be 95% right on giving a child a narcotic, it should be 100%.

[jezabel1961]

the rules set in nursing school were a bit (but not much) more rigid than real life employment. i bought a wig before i started the semester. i used that for clinical to make my patients feel more at ease, but sported hair styles, and colors of all sorts during lectures. in an acute care setting there just isnt the time to really build the trust that long term care and home care allows. people arent perfect and almost all of us are guilty of making snap judgements based on looks. the dress code has its place and function. a certain amount of conformity in the work place is necessary. the judgements based on looks alone can make a patient feel that you are incompetent....it would really suck if someone filed a lawsuit based on that judgement. let me give you a good example. my first semester clinical instructor said that my skills were good but i wasnt taking the class seriously enough and wanted to flunk me. my overall grade was 96% i am very quiet, i dont ask alot of questions but i do alot reading to get the info i need. if i was a class clown, i would have agreed with her but that was not the case. her decision was based on looks mostly, (not too many nurses out there sportin' mohawks.) im also assuming that she mistook my quietness as apathy. during the nursing program, i was very lucky to have two long term home care clients . one being a retired doctor, and his spouse a retired opera singer.....she would gleefully exclame "my punk rock nurse is here!" not everyone can be that open. its just a fact of life. there are always exceptions of course. while working in downtown seattle, i could get away with pink hair, visible tattoos and piercings. now that im just 30 miles south, i have to wear a t-shirt under my scrubs to hide a chest tattoo (my boss mumbled that people would believe that i was in a gang or some silly thing like that) and i cant wear the white scrub pants because extensive ink work shows through...... whatever. the pay is good, the staffing fair, and its only 8 hours out of the day. neither tattoos nor clothing make the woman. its kinda funny that all of the rules that the original poster listed sound no different than what my school set 14 years ago ...even the parking off campus in the gravel lot. did the o.p. happen to take clinicals at san bernardino county hospital too?

[McGrawNut]

Hi fellow alumni of Hannah Harrison. I graduated from there in 1978! Where did the years go? I had an excellent experience there. Very solid education & excellent teachers. Can not remember much negative stuff.

[McGrawNut]

Hey Graysonret! Is the original Hannah Harrison building still standing on MacArthur Blvd? The Psych.Institute was in our back yard. I see online that it is now in town. I found out HHCS closed & in order to get my transcripts, I have to write to the YWCA. The records are being stored there.

[NewStudentGirly]

Most of our rules about dress and attire are pretty basic. At school we can pretty much wear what we want, just using common sense. We aren't allowed to show body piercings or anything like that.We cant wear flip flops because the school is having construction done. My niece has a tattoo on the back of her neck(shes in the program also) but theres not really anything that can be done about that. I have a visible tattoo on my right hand that I acquired in 8th grade, I will probably cover it up for clinicals because people ask me if I'm " in a gang".lol Our school is very VERY strict about grades, testing, attendance etc., but I can see why. example: If we flunk the same test twice we are out. But I understand that because I don't want a nurse who flunked repetitively working on me.....

[graysonret]

McGrawNut, I don't believe that the Hannah Harrison bldg. is still around. The school is now named: Harrison Center for Career Education. (Sorry, Hannah). It's located on G Street NW. At one time, I was the treasurer of the Alumi Association, but we never could get the Assoc. off the ground. Repeated e-mails asking about the alumni, have never been answered. Oh, well....Personally, I think it was a darn fine school. Strict, but fair. When we graduated, we were quite prepared for whatever the nursing field had to offer. Barbara Shuler RN was the hardest instructor (a regular USMC D.I. :) ), but, in the end, she had more influence over my nursing abilities than any other instructor. She was a "by the book" nurse. I learned the "book" first, then learned the shortcuts, though, even today, I tend to be like her. I graduated in 1987.