Research on nursing students attrition (drop out) from University

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melrobb2001

5 Posts

I am sorry for all you have gone through. I am not a nurse yet but will be starting in January. You definitely sound depressed and I hope you can get some help for that for yourself and for the sake of your family. You made sacrifices to try a new career and it was not a good experience. Since you have had training and know the jargon, you could look into technical medical writing, editing medical writing, blogging and freelance heath articles, not to mention tutoring undergradutes and nursing students in the subjects you excel at academically. Your confidence is down right now, but who knows what the future may hold for you. Somehow you must pull yourself out of this valley so you can see the horizon again.

bigeyes4

85 Posts

Thank you for your nice response. I am feeling better by now. I have been brainstorming for alternate avenues. I know that I have strenghts and it only makes sense to capitalize on them. So, once again, I seek my niche. But it's ok. I have a lot of good things happening in my life despite this nursing thing failure. I do see a therapist and the advisors at the school have been very available to me. I have been trying to handle the situation intelligently and I think I"m heading that way.

Best of luck in your nursing adventure! I hope you are young and single because it's a lot easier to negotiate then!

LCinTraining

308 Posts

Yes my work schedule is brutal, and no I'm not in a position to quit work or go part time as I do this nursing school thing, but that's not what has me contemplating walking.

The lack of consistency between grading on practicals is ridiculous. I recall recording a sterile procedure for my friend and she recorded mine. I messed up way more than she did, yet the person that graded my video passed me and the person that graded hers failed her for an obscure "i think you may have crossed sterile field, but I don't know". She did not by the way and it did not matter that I vouched for her.

The changing a test time after I've already been scheduled for work to accomodate the previous test time makes me want to throw something. If I don't make the test, even though THEY changed the time and I previously worked around it, I get an academic deficiency. If I leave work early to make the exam, I get written up at work. It's a lose lose situation.

The inability to schedule myself is driving me insane. Do not tell me I have a research project due a week from now, oh and by the way, it's a group project. Seriously, it would have been tough doing a research project in a week anyway, now I have to coordinate with nine people? They are constantly throwing huge assignments at us with few days to complete them. I'm simply not used to school like this. I'm used to all expectations being outlined in the syllabus. I'm used to being able to schedule my life around study time. Instead I am constantly in limbo trying to figure out what the heck is due today because you never know when they are going to toss a random assignment at you.

I feel like they intentionally set us up to fail at times. And I hate that their lectures are five to ten years outdated. I've had to inform them that medications they are telling us are common and that we will be tested on are no longer approved by the FDA or are hard to come by due to side effects now. I have asked questions about something, been told it wasn't a real thing, when I know it is. I'm an EMT and it's things that are directly part of our protocols. I find the information, present it and am told "thanks I never knew that", but seriously, I'm paying to be taught, not to be the teacher.

Add that to issues with my children and their mental health, and I feel like "why am I killing myself for these people and letting my family go to pot?" There are many days I want to walk away from it all and be a stay at home mom again. I know that's not an option though.

bigeyes4

85 Posts

I encountered the same situations at my former nursing program. Most of the time, the instructors can't pronounce terms of medications. I haven't heard one of them pluralize the word diagnosis correctly. (diagnoses - They keep saying diagnosises). Ubelievable, and these people have Master's degrees. They really do set us up to fail. There is no altruism. It strictly "dog-eat-dog". I have caught instructors giving us incorrect information too. As you say, I pay them to teach me, not for me to be the teacher. So now I can see that these phenomena are not specific to my nursing program but may be universal. My decision has now been made. I will not venture into another nursing program hoping that things will be different because they may not be. I felt my physical and mental well-being going, so I had to quit. I don't think finances or any other self-imposed restraints should keep one from leaving an unhealthy situation. The indivdiual is worth more than that. By the age that I am (over 40) I have finally learned that. I leave the field with nothing but acrimony.

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