Misscruella

I was explaining in my first post what my instructor told me and the faculty, that my patient was found with her pants down and me nowhere to be found. Here’s what happened, to give you more details. I introduced myself to my patient, I got her breakfast, and then I explained to her that I was going to get her towels and washcloths for a bath. I got her up and put her in a wheelchair and left her in front of the tv. I went to find washcloths as I had never given a bath to someone at that facility before. I could not find them. I asked someone where they were and they told me that they had not been brought down yet and I would have to go to the other side of the wing, hence taking ten minutes to find them. Now in my opinion, ten minutes is not long to leave someone and like you said a patient could get in to some sort of trouble when you just left them. I would have had no problem telling someone where I was going, but that needs to be communicated with me. I should know who to tell, and I should be told “if your away from your patient for this long of a time you should tell this person”. Because in my opinion ten minutes isn’t long and I left my patient in a safe position. I understand your opinion that perhaps it is common sense to tell someone where your going, but I don’t think it is. I saw students leave their patients for a half hour checking on other patients and I did not see them tell anyone where they were going. It was only explained to us that if we leave our patient for something to make sure their wheelchairs are locked and a call light is with them.

To cari1030, you instructor seems pretty understanding of your health issues. I as well didn’t want to look like I was asking for special treatment. I didn’t know what kind of program it was and I didn’t want to be targeted either. Unfortunately I became targeted for a different reason, because I complained about my instructor. I also didn’t want the possibility of someone saying to me “well how can you be a nurse if you need to sit down and take breaks?” Here’s what happened after it was brought to my instructors attention that I had a health issue: I was told that because I didn’t have an official accommodation allowing me to sit down and take breaks that they had to treat me as everyone else. Meaning I could not take breaks ! They basically made it difficult for me throughout the program. And to the other posters, damn right I’m going to report my clinical instructor if she is treating me differently and telling me I’m failing for a subjective reason such as “appearing disinterested”. Are you kidding? We were allowed to use phones and I had to take an emergency phone call about my dog who has health issues. I just took the phone call in the wrong area. It was a simple mistake. Anyone could have made it. It has no bearing on whether I would make a good nurse and I also shouldn’t be barred from attending another nursing school but my instructor is pretty much making that a reality for me because I am being failed for unsafe/unprofessional conduct and many schools will not let you in with this on your record. Kbrn2002, I can see you commented on my thread without reading it all. A poster was saying that I should not be doing what a CNA does all day. I was explaining to that poster what our student nurses do in our first semester, I was not complaining. If you had read my thread you would see that I agree that someone should be notified when I am leaving a patient but this was not communicated to me. I should not be responsible for something if it is not communicated to me, I am not a mind reader. I brought up the fact about how other students were being treated because instructors are supposed to treat all students fairly and equally. If you had read the post I described that my instructor allowed other students to show up late and make mistakes but I received a clinical warning. That is not fair and shows bias.

Alex, I think you misunderstood what the instructor was trying to say when she said “what happens in clinical stays in clinical”. Yes, patient confidentiality is important and that should be the purpose of saying something like that. I was asking about an assignment however, that had nothing to do with HIPA. I found out that my instructor had been doing the assignment wrong when I asked another instructor about it . Let me point out that this was an assignment that other instructors were doing as well with students in other clinicals. She was reprimanded about this in front of me, I don’t know if she got into further trouble however. How was I supposed to know that my instructor was not doing an assignment correctly? I assumed that her saying “what happens in clinical stays in clinical” meant to respect HIPA. My instructor later sent out an email that night stating that we all had to do the assignment the way the rest of the school was doing it and reminded us “what happens in clinical stays in clinical”. So she was communicating that everything that happens in clinical stays in clinical. I spoke with someone else from another department about this email and they said that it is unprofessional to tell your students apart from HIPA to keep everything confidential from clinical because it implies that if you are having an issue with your instructor that she does not want you talking about your experience with others. I felt very much this way when she sent out the email, like it was a bit threatening.

I get what you all are saying about the phone. However I saw other students using their phone and they were not being reprimanded. I didntt ask where to use my phone I just saw where other people were using their phone and followed what I saw others were doing. I apologized for using my phone in the wrong area when I was told I was in the wrong area. It was apparent that the instructor was treating me differently but then I had to prove it. In one of the meetings in which I brought a person as a witness I said to the instructor “I feel like you are treating me differently than other students. You have yelled at me in front of my peers. You don’t do that with other students. Other students have also been late and I don’t see you yell at them but you have yelled at me for being late once “. The director turned to the instructor and said “well now, you won’t be doing that to her anymore now will you?” And my instructor said “no I won’t”. I took that as her acknowledging that she was treating me differently. The person I brought with me to the meeting also noticed this. As far as the woman being left in a wheelchair I don’t feel like I was gone for as long as this instructor claims I was. I think I was trying to help a few other patients and perhaps while this instructor was looking for me she had missed me. I understand about what one poster is saying about telling my instructor about the problem with my legs before hand. I don’t think I would need to tell anyone as my legs only start hurting after several hours of being on my feet. On this particular night lab ran for five hours instead of how long it had usually been running which was a couple hours. I needed to take a break. It doesn’t say anything in our handbook about the necessity of standing at all times during lab, but most people do choose to stand. I didn’t notify anyone about my Illness because I didnt want it to look like I was asking for special treatment. I saw the way my instructor was treating me and I didn’t want to make things worse. I think that as a nurse, my instructor could have easily asked “is there a reason your sitting down ?” Instead of assuming I am disinterested and writing me up for it. We were ironically learning about objective and subjective data that week. I was told by the person that wrote an accommodation about me taking a break that legally I don’t need an accommodation and the faculty are just giving me a hard time for no reason it seems, because it doesn’t state anywhere that anyone needs to stand in lab. Yes I was late once and I took responsibility for that. I saw two other people who were also late and they weren’t reprimanded as far as I saw. As far as a patient complaining, my aunt is a nurse and she said that she would receive complaints all day from patients in nursing homes. I wanted to go down to the clinical and see the complaint for myself and decide if this was a legitimate complaint and see how it was worded. I went there only to find that the nursing home does not record patient complaints. From my understanding for a complaint to be used in court it needs to be documented. I think think the same would apply for dismissing someone from a program, but I’m not a lawyer. It would seem unethical and unprofessional to dismiss a student from a program based on an undocumented complaint.

Hello, i would like some opinions on my experience. I am filing a grievance with my school because I am being failed for clinical. This was my first semester of nursing for an associates degree. I passed all written test with a B and the final skills again however I was failed for clinical. I had a feeling right from the beginning that my instructor did not like me for some reason. The way she talked to me. On our first day of clinical my instructor failed to explain certain rules such as where to use our phones if we receive an important call she said to take them “off the floor”. She said that what”happens in clinical stays in clinical “ whatever that means and sent an email to our group stating this. I was having an issue with doing an assignment and my instructor was not around the second week of my semester and I asked another instructor for help. The instructor told me that my instructor was not doing the assignment correctly and she asked to speak with the instructor when she came in. I am not sure if I got my instructor in trouble or not. That was not my intention. She later sent out an email that night stating that what happens in clinical stays in clinical . I felt like this might have started the getting off on the wrong foot type of thing. I was using my phone one day and my instructor told me that I was using it in the wrong area and was very upset with me. I apologized and told her I thought I was off the floor and I didn’t know where I should be using it. My instructor pulled me aside the next day and told me I was failing clinical. When I asked what for she told me that it was for using my phone in the wrong area , for being late once (I was), and also because I seemed “disinterested” . I thought that was a very subjective reason to fail me so I asked her is there anything I did wrong to make her feel that way. She told me she saw me sitting down in lab one day for a few minutes. I explained to her that I have a chronic illness and my legs hurt from time to time and we had been standing that day for five hours without a break. She said “ok well we all have our problems I just need to see more interest from you”. I felt we response was harsh and not very understanding and I just got a bad feeling and thought she was treating me this way in relation to the assignment I might have gotten her into trouble for so I asked to meet with the nursing director. I met with the director and told her about what was going on . I told her I didn’t like the way my instructor spoke to me condescendingly and also how when I told her about my issue with my legs she didn’t respond very compassionately. The director told me to make sure I am on time in the future and to maybe explain in more detail to my instructor what is going on with my health and she would also talk to my instructor about her treatment towards me. I thought that it was none of my isntructors business about my health , I had already given her enough information and I did not want to make it seem like I was throwing a pity party. But I did get an accommodation from my school, even though we aren’t required to stand in lab, that said I would need frequent breaks for my legs. I never heard back from the director about her meeting with my instructor but I was told about two weeks later that I was getting a clinical warning. I showed up to the meeting and was given a warning for : 1) being late once 2) being on my phone in wrong area 3) sitting down in lab and it says I was on my phone (I don’t remember exactly what I was doing but I know I was taking a break) apparently we can’t have phones in lab I did not know this 4) a patient I had was found with “her pants around her ankles and I could not be found anywhere “ i said that I accepted the other three things but this was the first I was hearing about this patient. I asked if there was a call light left with the patient and if it was verified if the patient pulled her pants down herself. The director looked at my instructor and asked her this and my instructor shook her head no and threw her hands up like she didn’t know. I then said well why should I be given a warning for something not verified? The director then said that I need to still take responsibility for my patients even if I did not pull her pants down. I thought this was ridiculous. She also said perhaps I should tell someone where I’m going if im going to be away from the patient for a long time. I told her that I was never told this and patients are left alone for sometimes half an hour and I was gone 10-15 mins at most . Nothing was said and I was still given this warning. I was given a second warning because a patient complained about me and a cna having an innapropriate conversation. The cna was talking to me about her boyfriend getting a vasectomy in front of a patient and I did not know what to do or say so I kept changing the subject. I did not report this because I did not want it to come back on to me from the cna and receive any kind of retaliation from the CNA. My instructor went to speak with the patient I believe and then notified the director of this. I explained that I was not told what I should do in this type of situation and it wasn’t until later in the semester that we were told to report these things to our instructor . I was told it was common sense to have reported this or told the cna she was behaving innapropriately. I disagreed. Another patient complained that I “didn’t know what I was doing” and didn’t want me back. The previous day I had been caring for this patient heavily medicated on narcotics and she was in a very bad mood. She wanted me to leave her alone most of the time, would not let me assess her completely, kept asking for pain medication when it wasn’t due, and became upset when a bandage she had been getting from a cna was not given to her by me. I couldn’t give it to her because the bandage needed an order and the cna was giving it without one. I spoke to the nurse on duty and she said the bandage was innapropriate for her foot which just had dry skin on it. I told her this and she became upset. I told my instructor how can a patient claim to know that I don’t know what I’m doing if their not a doctor or nurse? I told her her complaint was vague and that she just wanted something I couldn’t give her. My instructor said well I will get more information. She came back and told me well the patient said that you didn’t assess her fully and really if your patient was in a bad mood like you said you should have came to me. I said “well you never told me to report on a patients mood this is the first I’m hearing of this so why should I be written up for this?” And she told me she had to report it anyways. It was true that the patient would only let me listen to her lungs to a certain extent because she was in a bad mood . I documented this on my clinical sheet but I did not report it to my instructor. I met with the director again and told her that I was having issues communicating with my instructor still. I told her that she had become so rude that I didn’t feel comfortable speaking to her at all Especially when she was rude in front of my peers to me. I told her that I am being failed for things that were not communicated to me. She said well you are being given another clinical warning but you still have a week left of class and if you meet the objectives you may still pass. She didn’t say anything about how my instructor was acting and said she had a meeting to go to. I was given another warning. This time I brought a support person who was there for support but also really to be a witness to this all. He was from the school in a different department. He told me it seemed like they were failing me for petty reasons and for things that were not communicated to me. I was walking in school one day and someone told me that I was not supposed to have mace on my key ring. A security guard came and took it away. I apologized and said I didn’t know because it was legal everywhere else. This week was the last week of clinical and my instructor said I did very well and met all the objectives. She told me I would pass clinical. I went for my clinical evelauation however and the director told me I failed! She said she had given it thought and decided that overall looking at the semester as a whole I had not met the objectives. They also brought up the mace. I said well I did not bring it to clinical and it was an honest mistake and I was also told that if I met these objectives by a certain date I would pass! I was told sorry but the decision has been made. I filed a grievance with the school and I also went to my clinical location. I asked to see the complaints against me. I was told by the director there that she only deals with the school because of HIPA and also that the complaints are verbal and that nothing was written down. I think that I shouldn’t be failed based on basically hearsay then if that’s the truth! My aunt who is a nurse said that the director there could have been telling me the truth because incident reports are only written over serious things but she also said maybe you should go back and have a witness to hear her say that they don’t write things down on patients complaints. I still have the other things against me which I don’t know if that’s enough to fail me over but am I right to think that they can’t fail me if these things weren’t written down? I know that the way it happened with the complaints is that a nurse passed a message on to staff for the following day about the complaint. The staff that day then told my instructor about it . Then I believe my instructor spoke to the patient . Then my instructor called the director or texted her about it. There could possibly be a text about what my instructor heard from the patient that was sent to the director but that’s it! Unless this director of the clinical is lying to me and it is written down somewhere . What do you think?