After 3 Semesters of our clinicals during that entire time our teacher for the LPN program let us go home say even at 8 am usually at least once a week I reported her finally to the school in our third semester I was afraid to do it before because of threats of other students that didnt want to make up the work and because our teacher told us if we did report it we would not get to finish school but i realized I did not know enough and was going to be dangeous to patients so I reported it . The exact day after that teacher and 2 other students filed a grievance against me and the school said they investigated it and I was thrown out .. ONe other girl reported it with me she is pregnant and has since been harrased but she was not thrown out .. She did quit but I talked her into going back until it could be straightened out .. Now everyone is afraid to talk because they did throw me out and they are afraid of repercussions
Since then I Have proof of missed hours even thru emails from the teacher and cell phone records on those days with students calling thier spouses or other people and even a record of a student who worked at the hospital who clocked in
Since this which was on the 22 of August the vice president has told the other students they have to make up those days but yet I am still not reinstated to the school and since it has been so long I cannot see how they can let me back in to make up the time even so .. but it is totally awful and I had only 14 weeks left .. I also told them I WAS willing to make up whatever hours needed but they do not want the state to know .. I think they are on probation as it is
I have gotten a lawyer . Students have been threatned not to speak about it
What about the state
I am going to report it to the state.
and I would appreicate any help that I could get with this problem
Specializes in Trauma,ER,CCU/OHU/Nsg Ed/Nsg Research.
You did the right thing. I was teaching clinicals, until I recently got a new job. One thing I could really tell off the bat were the students who had a good clinical educator prior to me, and the ones who had a slacker. The instructor did you all a great disservice by not giving you the educational time you paid for. I'm sorry this happened to you. If this is a NLN accredited institution, you may want to notify them as well (after consulting with your atty.).
Yes I would like to further state if it is a little hard to read
We would drive an hour to our clinical site and then we would be told to go home by our instructor or she would suggest we all go out to breakfast. Sometimes we would go to a room and she would let us study for our regular class for a couple of hours and then let us go
We missed at least one day a week of our clinicals due to this ..
Believe me not one of those students is prepared to go out as a nurse , we did not know a lot because we missed so many opportunities . .YEs the hospital nurses would ask us where we had been because of course when we were there we helped them and learned from them . The school is trying to do a big coverup but I do not think it is working
They told students to not text message each other , or even talk to each other and finally some of my friends thought it so wrong they did contact me and we have talked .. They have even been in to the Dean and told her this was unfair .. At first they were afraid to death because of the example of me being thrown out .. I do not think this school has any idea that anyone
would have the means to sue them or to come back . They have been very mean thru out our program and it has been very hard ..
I still want to be a nurse because i have met a lot of nurses out there with integrity . it is just not in our program right now
One of my teachers has written me a beautiful letter about what a good nurse I would be
and I was in a lot of her classes so I just cant imagine what they would use against me .. it is just crazy to me that they would not be glad that I reported this because if it went on someone might have gotten killed by a nurse who graduated and KNEW NOTHING
it is so bad that one of my friends was in her third quarter and was trying to get the respirations off of a B/P Pulse O2 machine
we knew little because we had such little clinical experience .. Of course as it went more and more to more missed clinical hours , everyone became afraid to report it that we would be thrown out of school and the teacher told us if we reported it we would be
What is so ironic is that I am
but I will fight this as best I can and thanks again and the school is already scrambling . they moved the students from the hospital to doctors offices in a period of two days and they have told the students they have to make up the clinical hours but I think they are still covering this from the State
I am dealing thru my lawyer and I do not know the outcome but it is just a sad state of affairs .. I am finally out of some of the shock of it after it has been now two and a half weeks . This school has been nothing but trouble the whole time we have been attending it tho
teachers leaving and a mess and I do believe they are already on probabtion with the state for some other infraction and also because of bad NCLEX scores
Will you PM me with the name of your school? If it's the one I think it might be, then I might have some information that could be helpful to you if investigated.
Finally, someone in that program (you!) had the courage to report a practice that had probably been going on for some time. Do you happen to know any past students? Perhaps they wouldn't be so scared to verify what that instructor was doing? It sounds like the whole school needs to have some major firings with staff and administration and get some people in there with integrity to do the right thing for the students and their future patients. Even if the "good" teachers had knowledge of what was happening and did nothing about it, they should face disciplinary action as well.
I am truly impressed! Way to go. Hopefully, you can get some financial compensation and transfer to a school that will treat you with all the respect and dignity that you deserve!
I wish I knew what to say to be helpful. The only thing I feel I can add that is relevant is that when I was in LPN school we had a teacher who was supposed to be giving us classroom instruction from 8am-2:45pm. She would come in at about 7:50am, give us some reading assignments, leave a little after 8am, then go to her office (which was in another building) and that is the last time we would see her that day. This went on half of the school year before it was reported, and we still don't know who reported it.
What they did when these allegations were made was take each student in the administrator's office where he and the director of the program (who was brand new because the old director had just quit) and did sort of a deposition where they recorded us on tape. They asked me to describe what a day in the class with this teacher was like. I couldn't lie. I told them the truth and apparently the rest of the class did, too, because after they interviewed each of us they called her back to the office and afterward she went and got her things and left.
It was a difficult and uncomfortable situation to be put in but it was necessary.
Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.
I am very saddened to here these stories about unprofessional clinical nursing instructors. There have been occasions when clinical sites fell through and students needed to have class work assigned for 1-2 days till another placement arranged. Any time students encounter this ongoing behavior need to report it immediately to Program Director/Administrator. It is also a reportable incident to state board of nursing, if not done so by school of nursing for RN should have license sanctioned...along with disciplinary action for the school.
You are PAYING for a nursing education...and should be receiving one.
Kudos for having integrity, ethics and being a patient advocate. I hope your lawyer is working on a solution to stay at this school. If that is not possible, a refund along with accommodation at another nursing program should be requested + arranged by your school.
Please be careful of giving any further specifics in your posts that could be used against you in a court case. Wishing you the best and brightest nursing future.
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
This is something that has gone on for some time in most schools, unfortunately. I was in a new program (we were the first class), and not all arrangements were made in a timely fashion. The program director had gotten old students from her classes years ago to help out and many of them had jobs that conflicted with our clinical hours. I assumed that they helped her out due to past obligations and loyalty to her. In our pharmacology/nutrition class, the professor would either show up late, or leave films for us to watch. For clinical, we had class time in the lab for 4 weeks the first semester. We had instructors who really could not make it to our site on time, because most were supervisors at other facilities and were not able to make it on time for one reason or another, so, they would either contact a student to pass the news or we would leave early.
To be honest, I didn't think I learned much in clinical, anyway, so, I would take advantage of that time to either practice skills in lab or study some much needed material. In my eye, most people enter into the nursing profession without most of the needed skills, so, I focused on gaining knowledge from practicing with the lab instructor, who understood my dilemma. Working in a hospital was an advantage to me, also, because I had a few friendly nurses who would show me things during vacation breaks, so, I made due with what I had. This, of course was not the same advantage of others who did not have a hospital for a resource.
You may find that this may happen even as a new nurse orientee. Nursing homes in general in my area usually only have about two or three days of orientation and they kick nurses out of the nest to either sink or swim. I was in a unique situation where my job offered me a full time leave of absence with pay, along with paid tuition and books to attend school, so, I was not in a position to rock the boat. The orientation at the same facilty that paid my way was also hap-hazard. I had to be a self learner the entire time.
I really hope that your attorney will be able to help you transfer to another school. A new start may be in order. Or hopefully, some of the faculty that was there previously during your tenure have been replaced. I am a bit concerned with subtle harassment. I have seen it done. I was valedictorian of my class, and faced such behavior from the program director. It was not pretty. But, I did make it, and found my way through my new job, somehow. Good luck!
Specializes in icu, er, transplant, case management, ps.
Unfortunately there are numerous programs that do not meet the needs of their students. And they continue to exist because students are too afraid to complain or are accepting of the short changing of their education. BON's, depending on the state, or their Department of Education are task with monitoring all higher education programs. If one is afraid to directly complain, it can be done anonymously. Or a complaint may be made to the national accreditation body of the program.
Specializes in ER, Occupational Health, Cardiology.
Congratulations SaraLee for doing the right hing for yourself, the school, but ultimately any patients out there that would have been the unfortunate recipients of this kind of care. The school's response of "killing the messenger" was STOOPID and the BON will probably wipe up the floor with them.
I truly feel sorry for you because of the hard work you put into this and the emotional turmoil you must have experienced (and likely still are). Doing the right thing is rough sometimes, but you absolutely did the right thing-no doubt!
BBFRN, BSN, PhD
3,779 Posts
You did the right thing. I was teaching clinicals, until I recently got a new job. One thing I could really tell off the bat were the students who had a good clinical educator prior to me, and the ones who had a slacker. The instructor did you all a great disservice by not giving you the educational time you paid for. I'm sorry this happened to you. If this is a NLN accredited institution, you may want to notify them as well (after consulting with your atty.).