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Discussion

Is this cheating...?

Sooo, long question short right off the bat: is it cheating if another student is continually asking you for patient info in order to do her careplan that she is supposed to have read herself in the pt. chart?

The situation is this: I'm in my first semester of clinicals (fundamentals) and yesterday was my second real full day at the nursing home doing a full clinical day (the first half we've been doing everything in skills lab). I'm not sure how other student clinicals go, but where I'm at we basically have one pt. assignment per week. We are supposed to have the pt. careplan done prior to the clinical day. When we come into clinical we basically are supposed to be implementing that care plan with the pt. for most of the day including a full physical assessment, etc..

So we are told who our new patient assignment is going to be for the next week at around 1430 or maybe 1500. We are supposed to have finished with our current pt. care by then, have their assessment mostly documented up in correct form and other charting done so that we can focus on getting the data we need concerning our new patient for the next week (we only get one patient per week). We leave the clinical site at 1600 and can't take anything with us besides what we were able to copy down manually.

The student who received the patient assignment who I had last week has been texting me all day asking me continuous questions about the patient (primary medical diagnosis, past diagnoses, meds, etc.) . At first I was happy to help, but then it got to the point that I was questioning whether or not this student even read the patient's chart at all! I think that part of what we're being taught is organization and knowing how to prioritize our time not to mention how to read the chart to begin with. I'm not sure how much more info I should be giving her since it seems that she either didn't have/make the time to read the chart, didn't understand how to read it or something. I mean all of my clinical group were killing ourselves to finish everything in time and still get all of our new pt. data, but we managed to get it done.

So I guess my question is: is my giving her this information cheating? Not to mention, is it a violation of HIPAA? We never use names. I know we should stick together and help each other out, but I am so new to this that I'm not sure where to draw the line.

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    • Featured Replies

    Make them do it on their own. No one likes a moocher. And if they insist on bugging you til all the info is out, just make stuff up...well no that might not end well. So yeah make them do it on their own. Cheating? In some people's eyes it is. Wrong? Yeah

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    • Experts

    She is lazy, and yes this is cheating.

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    What's your classmate going to be like in practice? Is she always going to rely on others to spoon-feed her information on her patients?

    I'm not sure I consider this cheating per se, but it reflects a certain lack of professional and personal ethics.

    I hate to tell someone not to trust or help another student, but your classmate sounds like a leech. Don't help her again.

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    • Author

    Thanks all of you for your replies! Yes, I agree that it is pretty sketchy - I was primarily worried about whether or not it was "officially" cheating just because I don't want to get in any real trouble.

    The dilemma for me is that at the beginning of the semester I told this student that I would be "happy to help her out" if she needed anything. The reason for this is that she is foreign and older and seemed to be having some trouble and I attributed it to an adjustment type thing. I guess I'm not sure where the line should be drawn between being a good nursing teammate and being taken advantage of...? I think I'm too nice.

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    Thanks all of you for your replies! Yes, I agree that it is pretty sketchy - I was primarily worried about whether or not it was "officially" cheating just because I don't want to get in any real trouble.

    The dilemma for me is that at the beginning of the semester I told this student that I would be "happy to help her out" if she needed anything. The reason for this is that she is foreign and older and seemed to be having some trouble and I attributed it to an adjustment type thing. I guess I'm not sure where the line should be drawn between being a good nursing teammate and being taken advantage of...? I think I'm too nice.

    I would direct her to your clinical instructor. At the very least, she is having trouble managing her time, and at worst she is lazy and wants you to do the work for her. This will take the pressure off you, and help her to either learn new ways to manage time or to come to the attention of the instructor if she is lazy. I do see students with time management issues fairly often in the first semester, and with some assistance they usually improve quickly. If it is laziness or ineptitude, you wouldn't want that to go unnoticed. If she is actually lazy or inept, it is not likely that she will make a good nurse.

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    Thanks all of you for your replies! Yes, I agree that it is pretty sketchy - I was primarily worried about whether or not it was "officially" cheating just because I don't want to get in any real trouble.

    The dilemma for me is that at the beginning of the semester I told this student that I would be "happy to help her out" if she needed anything. The reason for this is that she is foreign and older and seemed to be having some trouble and I attributed it to an adjustment type thing. I guess I'm not sure where the line should be drawn between being a good nursing teammate and being taken advantage of...? I think I'm too nice.

    I'd probably just be upfront with her and say that you're starting to feel taken advantage of, and that you're doing her work for her. See what she says.

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    Moocher!!!!! Stay away from her, she'll bring you down with her.

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    • Experts

    It's kind'a borderline cheating. I wouldn't use that word, but others would. As a real nurse, you rely on your colleagues for help lots of times.

    However, it is definitely mooching -- and I wouldn't put up with it if I were you. I'd tell her I had enough of my own work to do without doing hers as well.

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    I would look at it from this perspective: how does it make YOU look to your instructor that you were willing to go along with it and help her make it look like she did work she didn't actually do? I hope this doesn't come off as harsh. But I've found that in nursing school you have to look out for yourself.

    I recently had a similar situation in clinical, and while I didn't do anything wrong per se, I came across to my instructor as lacking confidence for not standing up to someone that was cutting corners (it was an RN not another student). My instructor noticed that something was amiss and I talked to her about it, but it still made me look like I had poor judgement.

    If I were you, I would tell the other student that you don't feel comfortable sharing your work and leave it at that. I think it could be considered cheating because she is taking credit for work that she didn't do.

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