Hello everyone. This is my first time here and I need some input on a couple things. I'm a first semester nurse student and so far I'm doing great. Well, to the point. Before starting the program, my school had a long orientation day in which we were told about all the dos and dont's, we signed a lot of policy and legal paperwork both for the school and the hospital where the clinicals are being held. It looked to me that it was a very strict program, and by the tone of voice during the speech of the program director, it was serious stuff. Well, to make it short, on the first day of school one of the students got kicked out of the program because she was intoxicated (I don't know if drugs or alcohol or both). Two weeks later another student was out of the program for not following the rules about being on time both for lecture and clinicals. Everybody was like "wow, they don't play here". A month later, another student went through the same fate because he wasn't smart enough or lacked common sense; during clinical rotation at the hospital he went inside the bathroom and started smoking, set off the fire alarm system in the entire hospital and triggered an emergency situation, the whole nine yards. At that point we didn't even asked what was going to happen to him, we knew already based on experience with the other two students. We knew this was serious stuff and we didn't even blink during lecture or clinicals so to not get in trouble. Well, guess what, last week we found out that all three students are coming back next semester, because the board decided to give them a second chance. I'm ok with second chances but not when people is not serious enough about life and death situations. I wouldn't like to be taken care of by one of these students or one of my family members or friends be under the watch of these people. Everybody was shocked and couldn't believe that they were coming back. It looked to all of us that the school is not serious enough about the program and what it represents. We are nurses in the making and we know that lives are on our hands after we graduate, patients that won't get a second chance if we make a mistake. The entire class is on disbelief and we felt disappointed with the school and the director of the program. Is there anything that we can do or an autorithy to report all this? Thanks for reading and I hope I can get some feedback on this.
My advice to you Futnur, is to focus on your own studies and forget about those students. They aren't in your cohort anymore so you won't have to deal with them. They are not your problem.
And never dismiss someone's opinion because they are a CNA.
If you make it through this program and become a nurse you will need to foster very good relationships with the CNAs. At this time, you are not prepared to do that.
You have way too much to work on to be bothered with the wiseness of readmitting three students.
FolksBtrippin - Just came back to say I love your screen name. Perfect for this thread!
Is this a for-profit school? A public program? Do you know how they are doing financially? Maybe it was too late to bring in alternates but they also couldn’t run the program without the rest of the tuition from the full cohort including those three. Based on my experience in life so far, it always seems to come down to money.
Regarding those first two students, there certainly could be a lot of issues going on there, things may not have been what they seemed initially and there could be good reason to allow the students back (maybe not intoxicated, possible legitimate reasons for missing class or clinicals). However with the one who was smoking and set off the alarms, it would be hard for me to imagine a good reason to let that student back since they could put the school at risk of losing that clinical site, which seems like a big risk to take on a student even if you really believed they were redeemable and wanted to give them a chance.
But ultimately, does this really affect you that much? There were definitely some slackers in my cohort, and a couple of troublemakers would run off during clinicals, and there were some rumors that they were sitting in the back of a truck drinking and smoking, and there were some suspected cheaters too. But in the end, I was only responsible for getting myself to graduation and passing the NCLEX, which I did. I would say just keep your head down and focus on what you need to do.
Humans make mistakes and just because we are nursing students, it doesn't make us perfect. Tardiness happens, although coming to class drunk and smoking in a hospital is ridiculous, I hope they learned their lessons. I just don't get how someone can think they can smoke in a hospital. ?!? It's like they didn't have a brain that day.
I’ve got a different take than most of the other commenters—I think these students may well deserve a second chance, and that it’s really none of your business.
Further, it seems that you really don’t know enough about the circumstances leading to the dismissal of these students (which, for all you know, may have been extenuating) to be making absolutist judgements about their situation, and certainly not about their general worthiness to be nurses in the future.
So, my advice? Focus on your own education, worry less about petty drama, and let the administrators do their jobs.
I gotta agree with this. Anything could have happened. The student showing up drunk might have just been having a bad reaction to a medication they have to take, and lesson 1 of nursing school is if you're in the hospital dying, too bad, you fail.
Being late, within reason, is just being human. Life happens. It's a little ridiculous that nursing SCHOOL is more strict on punctuality than the fire department getting to your house to save you from that fire.
But smoking in the bathroom... That's someone I see without the common sense to make it through nursing school that's going to end up just wasting somebody else's spot.
@Futnur You may learn the hard way yourself that nursing schools typically have a "civility" clause in their handbooks -- basically everybody doesn't have to be friends, but you have to make it work somehow. Keep this up and you might find yourself out of the program.
Also "the drunkard?" Really? Alcoholism is a disease, and also unless you personally witnessed someone consume alcohol or anything else you have no idea what caused their intoxication.
Hey @whaletails , I'm doing more than fine in my class. I really know what to do with my personal life that doesn't pose a risk to my career. If adults can't focus and take responsibilities in their own actions and attitudes, then I don't know what the hell is this.
Hey @whaletails , I'm doing more than fine in my class. I really know what to do with my personal life that doesn't pose a risk to my career. If adults can't focus and take responsibilities in their own actions and attitudes, then I don't know what the hell is this.
Yet...you're super concerned with disciplinary measures taken against other students.
If you genuinely feel like it's unsafe to work with a particular person in clinical, tell your instructor why. This "drunkard" and "darling" nonsense isn't a good look.
I really know what to do with my personal life that doesn't pose a risk to my career.
I will kindly submit to you that if you have the propensity for being personally bothered by what authority figures decide to do about other people's problems and other similar questions of what is fair, you are in for a long road.
Sometimes there are reasons to concern oneself with fairness. But the scenario you posted about is not something with which it would be productive to concern yourself.
My advice isn't coming from a 'mind your own business' standpoint; I'm telling you because you will blacken your own soul worrying about things like this. It's just a toxic way of life.
For your own good, learn now to let others bear the responsibility for their choices and decisions. Forget nursing students, you will need to apply this principle every waking moment of being a nurse, and you will save yourself untold grief, confusion, and heartache if you can manage to learn to take care of/work with others without taking responsibility for their choices. Same thing with being an employee - you'll have to learn how to do your best without accepting responsibility for others' decisions or constantly reacting negatively to their choices. This theme just repeats in various areas of life. So put down your defenses and just give it some thought and then choose a better way.
By this point in life, it’s important to understand not all rumors you hear are completely true, if at all. Nursing school is full of people who had terrible unjust things happen to them - according to them anyway. It’s best to learn to ignore these situations as they really aren’t your problem to worry about and you will never know the full truth of what happened.
KCMnurse, BSN, MSN, RN
1 Article; 283 Posts
FolksBtrippin - Just came back to say I love your screen name. Perfect for this thread!