Nursing School Drama queens

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I'm beginning to think Nursing school either brings out the worst in people or makes them insane.

Last year I became friends with a group of five ladies in school. We all got into the ( bad) habit of emailing back in forth while stressing out and waiting for test scores to be posted . Once they were, we would all share our scores, so we could share kudos with each-other and relieved sighs that we had all survived another test. The first semester this was no problem, as it is relatively easy compared with what was to come.

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Fast forward to Feb. 2009- first semester of Med- Surg. Three of us, "Tina," "Jessica "and I fail the first test along with ½ the class. Those of us in our little clique who passed are of course full of sympathy and pledges of support to help so we all pass next time. I take the time to re-evaluate my study strategy, switch it up, and learn to study smarter not harder. I work my butt off, have no life for the next two weeks and pass the next test with 94%, not only re-couping my points to be sitting in a safe zone. On test day, after scores have been posted, I discreetly share my score with nobody, being unsure if my two friends who failed the first test did well. I tell only two of the other women, lets call them Jane and Sally only when they ask me. Jane takes it upon herself to tell Everyone my score ( without my consent). Tina has failed the second test also. How do I know all this? Because she calls me the next day and says "Jane told me your score- how did you do it?! I failed this one too-can you help me?" I do so to the best of my abilites, but sadly Tina fails the final two tests and does not join us in the next class.

April- Jane has been acting strange towards me- I try to ignore it, a s

Jane has also been having health and family problems so I chalk it up to that, try to not make it all about me. I ease up, and start to distance myself a bit, not sure what's up, but too busy and stressed out to focus much time on it. Long story short, Jane begins to flat out blow me off, and me being totally confused finally gets Sally to confide in me. Sally reveals Jane thinks I was "gloating" and "boastful" about the test I did well on!!!! Excuse me??!!! I hardly told anyone, and the only reason anyone besides Jane and Sally know is because Jane Told them!!

So I say screw this, Nursing school is hard enough without this drama. I remove myself from the group and find others to hang out with. Sally and the others are still polite and friendly to me, but Jane completely ignores me now. This is all coming up again because classes started again this week. My wounds have mostly healed, but what I still can't stomach is being socailly ostracized for such a crap, not to mention untrue reason. So my long rambling leads to this:

Have any of you experienced this nonsense??? What is up with this catty over-competitive crap??

Oh, and lest anyone chalk Jane's behavior to age, she's in her 40's- chronologically at least she is supposed to be mature.

For the vast majority of my classmates it's no big deal, but there are allways someone who will make you feel bad for the grades you make. Before nursing school, I took an anatomy class and made the mistake of sharing my grades. One student who sat beside me was making lower grades than I, when telling her what I made on tests, it would make her feel worse. In the SAME class there was another student who made the comment towards me in a very smart*** tone, "well, that's why I make better grades than you" when I mentioned that I was taking a lot of classes and had to choose not to do a homework assignment. I decided then and there not to share grades with anyone else as it does no good.

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Specializes in Community Health.
No ill will towards you at all, its the people that come out and say blatantly that they wish they never told anyone. Your situation does suck, it happened to us with one student and she ended up failing, then blaming it all on us for alienating her blah blah blah. What it comes down to for me is that if I can help someone benefit from my knowledge of how I study, work write whatever I will pass it on to help them. I really dont care if they know what my grade is. I get good grades and bad grades at times and look to my classmates for help because when it comes down to it, when you are on a unit, you want to be able to ask the other nurses for help if you need it regardless of what you think of them or past incidences.
Those of us who are advising her not to share grades are doing so because we have made the same mistake and been burned. I get very good grades, and in the beginning I would share them with my classmates when they asked, and I would even offer to stay after school and help them if they weren't doing so well. You know what I got in response? I was accused of being conceited and a show-off. People went out of their way to get me kicked out of the program, doing things like putting their patients dirty breif on my patients floor at clinical before our rooms were checked, spreading rumors that I was cheating, had access to test banks, had taken all of the courses before...etc. Some of the people I tried to help ended up plagarizing my work and turning it in as their own and I got in trouble for it. I'm glad your class is all kumbayah with each other but it's not always like that-at the end of the day, you just have to keep your goals in mind and let all of the drama fall by the wayside.
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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

Maybe I just got lucky. There was no drama in my nursing school...well, at least that I noticed because I was not involved in it...and at least not among classmates; there was some drama between a few students and teachers however. I don't know if it is because I went to "hippy-dippy, holistic" Humboldt State, or if we were just a special breed (I am leaning towards the laid back special breed because two classes above us totally got in fights and lost friendships over their pinning ceremony). Although I got along with everyone in my class, I mostly hung out with a group of "older" ladies in their 30's and above and laid back.

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Specializes in Tele, OB, public health.

"People went out of their way to get me kicked out of the program, doing things like putting their patients dirty breif on my patients floor at clinical before our rooms were checked, spreading rumors that I was cheating, had access to test banks, had taken all of the courses before...etc. Some of the people I tried to help ended up plagarizing my work and turning it in as their own and I got in trouble for it."

Holy crap! Guess my situation isn't too bad....

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Specializes in Community Health.
"People went out of their way to get me kicked out of the program, doing things like putting their patients dirty breif on my patients floor at clinical before our rooms were checked, spreading rumors that I was cheating, had access to test banks, had taken all of the courses before...etc. Some of the people I tried to help ended up plagarizing my work and turning it in as their own and I got in trouble for it."

Holy crap! Guess my situation isn't too bad....

lol! Glad I could make you feel better :p

My scool, in all fairness, is especially crazy. Earlier this year there was an all out brawl in the medical assistant program that ended up with a teacher getting punched in the face and sent to the hospital :eek:

It's a tech school...guess it comes with the territory!

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"Holy crap! Guess my situation isn't too bad.... "

Interesting choice of words there Dinah, LOL.

If someone actually did place a soiled brief on a patient..., well that's just sick.

My classmates seem to respect the fact that I do not share my grades once they understand my reasoning and that it is not a personal attack on them. Like Mattie's mom I have been burned, learned from my mistake, and changed my behavior.

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Specializes in Community Health.
"Holy crap! Guess my situation isn't too bad.... "

If someone actually did place a soiled brief on a patient..., well that's just sick.

Oh gosh, no it was not on the patient it was on the floor...so that when my CI came in for room check she saw my patients room all nice and tidied up, hospital corners on the bed, clean linens and emptied wastebaskets...and a poop diaper smack dab in the middle of the floor. :icon_roll

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I agree with the other poster, don't share your grades. We have some catty ladies in our class as well. Avoid the drama, you don't have time for that nonsense.

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i think that alot of ppl get sucked into nursing school drama bc they forget that, 1. this isn't high school nor a popularity contest, 2. the competition is over lets all just try to survive, & 3. we are all adults trying to make a new life. i am in a slightly more mature group so there isn't too much drama because everyone gets along good. i think it is important to know that u don't need a boat load of friends to have a "clique". i honestly think the smaller "cliques" are the strongest because there are less ppl and the friendship usually becomes more genuine. with 5 ppl it's easy to divide against one another (especially when some ppl r doing better) and when that happens thats when the real drama starts. try to focus on finding @ least 1 person you can befriend and trust. truth be told u are not there to make friends, but if u do everything right u will have a few special friends for life. i would just continue to study and speak to whoever u were before this incident bc ppl get annoyed when someone barges into their "clique" & they tend to make u a target, plus no matter what they are going to be loyal to their friends and sacrafice u when necessary. if have a couple of friends u trust, avoid the drama, not make any enemies, & work as a team u will be fine. best of luck.:)

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My nursing school motto: "Work your butt off... keep to yourself".

Nursing school is waayyyy too hard to deal with other's BS.

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This is why I barely talked to any of my classmates. Our school is the worst when it comes to drama and cattiness. I've noticed that the women over 30 have the most issues..sad but true

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Yeah, I helped my fellow students but then I saw my hard worked study guides floating around the whole class and the class in the semester behind me. I should have put a disclaimer on there. To anyone that does this, just do it for the fun of it. Put at the top something like "Property of XXX, this does not guarantee you a passing grade, you may want to study from your book as well".

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