I failed my first clinical!

Natingale, EdD, RN · May 2, 2008

Dose of reality here. . .the clinical instructor tells you what to do, you don't tell her what you're going to do. You can't get argumentative with the person who is totally responsible for the grade you are going to be getting. That's just suicide. When the instructor says jump, you just say "how high" and do it. It's like being in nursing boot camp. If you don't change you'll have problems at your next school too.
Why would you show up at your clinical site if you were sick? You should have just called off sick. Nursing schools are always feeding students that baloney about not working with patients if you are sick. That's nothing but a dream, the ideal situation. That doesn't happen in the real nursing world or else you eventually get written up and/or eventually fired for a poor attendance record.

Aint that the truth. Its really sad how you accumulate so much sick time, and g-d forbid you call out.

I think you did the right thing with the burn victim, its a sticky situation but the 1000 yr old turtle is right. If they say put a foley in someones nose, just do it LOL

ReinventingMyselfAgain, MSN, RN · May 4, 2008

Can you tell us what state you're in or what schools accepted you? Did they ask for letters of reference from previous faculty members? how many of your credits transferred? all? how much of the program did you need to finish at the new school? maybe I'm in the wrong state.

Well, I know what state she is not in, lol. No school that I know of would take someone after failing a clinical (or a theory portion, which, when you look at a transcript, it doesn't specify why the failing grade exists). I don't know what I'd do if a student asked me for a reference after they have failed out of my program. Unless, the person did so well in my clinical, and the next instructor was completely off base in my opinion (BTW, that has never happened to me.... I have passed a couple of people who have gone on tp fail clinical after me, not a big shocker to me ).

Anyway, to the OP: I see that this threar is old, so most of this may be moot. but to anyone else who is just atarting out, or feel like they are being treated unfailrly, I'll keep my opnion up here. And I am assuming that since you are graduating, you have learned from your mistakes :)

I'm sensing all this had to do with some behavioral objectives you did not meet. I know this is a tough concept to grasp for some students. That passing and failing is not strictly based on how well you perform the skills and which ones you've done.

- The VS incident: my guess is you failed b/c of your inability to problem solve. I've heard it before: "my patient is in the bathroom, I can't find a thermometer, the patient is sleeping, the patient is eating, (and here's my favorite) the patient is on the phone". These are known as excuses!! While they do exist and are somewhat valid obstacles, lets pretenf this was a test question: what would the answer be? It would not be "don't do the vitals". Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I hope you get what I am saying. I hear excuses all the time. While they may be meant to be that from your end, I think

part of it is you don't know what to do at that point. And your ability to not think and problem solve shows your instructor that you are not satisfactory. We are there to guide you, not to take your hand and find the working thermometer for you. Same thing with the "finding the chart" syndrome. I am NOT going to look for it for you, sorry :nono: Same goes for meds, supplies, etc. Don't get me wrong, I have been known to help my students out in these areas (if I know where something is and I know they don't know what they're looking for, I'll go get it myself to save time), or I'll have the flush in my pocket when they forgot to bring it into the room. But the idea here is that you are working on your organizational skills and common sense.

- the "sick day". This seems like an apparent lack of communication here. Did you make it clear to your Instructor that you just came in to hand in your paper? Did you come in uniform? Was there no other way you could get it to her (e-maill, have a friend hand it in, on campus)? Since you insisted on showing up to the hospital, were you not assertive enough to say "I am really not up to staying today"? Sadly, we need to forget about the "I don't want to get my patient sick" theory, unless you work on an entire unit with severely immunocompromised patients. Whether she was right or wrong, let her decide whether or not you are suitable to take a certain assignment, it's her butt on the line (unless you feel it will compromise you, then you need to stay home). I had a student call me b/c she had strep. She didn't want to take an absence so early in the semester, and asked for my input, what could she do (not take patients, a modified assignment, etc). The first thing I said to her is if you do not feel well enough to be there, then you should not come (and she didn't she was just worried about the absence). She was responsible enough to approach me about it, and understood where I was coming from (another lesson: choose your absences wisely, b/c it stinks to have to come when you are sick).

another thing too (that you guys may not think we think about) is that once we let something go (meaning we let a student slide) it sets a precedent for the rest of the group. We let something go, and the students see it as 'oh, she's a pushover, I don't need to try as hard', and will try to get away with the same thing. I know many of you here are hardworking, dedicated students. But you know the reality is, many of your peers are not, and will do as little as possible to get by.