Professor X

No defense is necessary. My stance is that cheaters and liars affect the profession. You believe differently.

Wow, you certainly put me in my place and totally changed my mind about this situation. Now I see that cheating students do not in any way affect the integrity of the profession and should just be allowed to continue cheating. Thanks for setting me straight.

Seriously not your responsibility? And when you are a practicing nurse and see a colleague pocketing drugs or falsifying documentation, that will also be "not my responsibility"?

I worked in a hospital in the early 2000's that had a VIP wing. For extra cash, patients got private duty nurse, real food from real dishes, a "suite" area, obviously private room, with nicer furniture that "hid" medical equipment. Basically what L&D suites look like. None of it contributed to better outcomes except not sharing your nurse with 6 others. Oh---and the nurses assigned to the rooms had to have a certain look and demeanor. Won't go into details. You know what I mean. The problem arose when the hospital was full and we had to put overflow "regular" people in the VIP suites without charging them extra. Then they never wanted anything else and felt they were being cheated if they got placed in the regular wards. If they got moved to a regular ward when a room opened up, they pitched a fit. Ultimately the hospital divided the suites into two regular private rooms and did away with the VIP service. I never saw an actual VIP use the suites, however. Many well known entertainers, athletes, CEOS etc were treated at the hospital, they accepted placement in the wards. The people who insisted on being treated like VIPs were just wealthy, or wanted us to think they were.

Almost spit my coffee at the screen reading about how well we instructors are paid. I make about 1/2 of what my students will make in their first job, right out of school. With 20 years experience and an advanced degree, we would be making quite a bit in the healthcare industry, but in education, not so much. Every nursing professor I work with has a second job in order to pay the bills. Also..to clear up a misunderstanding perpetrated by the OP: we do not have a quota of students that must fail. We do, however, have a measure of minimal competency--and those who fall below the level do not pass.

Clinicals and labs may start as early as 5:30 a.m. Do you have access to child care at that hour? Nursing school time requirements are equivalent to a full time job. With irregular hours. A job that is not unlike riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire. And you are on fire. And everything is on fire. You will need to get things in order as best you can before you start because things unravel quickly. And...no biggie, but just so you are using terms appropriately, Kent State offers a BSN, not ADN. ADN degrees are awarded from community colleges.

Actually, the ANA has nothing to say about CI duties.

Yikes! I hoope that wasn't your psych nursing instructor. Just because it's situational doesn't mean it's not real.

Not at all too old. I do have some youngsters in my community college nursing program but the many, many are veterans, second career learners, or stay-at-home parents re entering the workforce. You may actually have an advantage with your age since most nursing instructors are gen-xers or baby boomers and you may mesh better with their teaching style than do the young students.

First of all, Kudzui is lying to you. Care plans are not dumb, they are required for all patients admitted to a healthcare facility and have to be updated in order for the facility to maintain accreditation and Medicare reimbursement. They are, in fact, "real" life nursing. That out of the way....you got a "needs improvement" which is understandable, since you were not able to give it your best effort what with an ill child. Whatever you didn't do, do for the next care plan and improve as best you can. I once got a "frowny face" on a care plan and burst out crying in the hall of the hospital (no sleep, sick kid) but I learned a lot from having to re-do the care plan. My critically ill, ventilator supported patient probably did not care that my kid was sick. But that night, my kid was my priority, just as yours was to you. you will learn, and do better. You sound overwhelmed and depressed. You are in your final stretch of nursing school. Don't give up! I understand about not being able to afford a doctor visit, but please see student health or counseling asap!! You have a lot to carry and there is help.

1. know exactly what you are supposed to be doing. Ask your clinical instructor if you don't understand the learning goal of the day. (Is this a day we just shadow? do we write up a care plan for one patient? or two? Is this the day I give meds? Should I be doing full patient care on one patient or should I be practicing focused assessments on several? 2. communicate your learning level and abilities to the primary nurse (who you call a preceptor... the staff nurse who is legally responsible for the patient but who is letting you help to learn.) (BTW "preceptor" is indeed the correct word to use in some settings, such as a Designated Education Unit, which not all hospitals use). "I'm Matt, I'm in my first semester. This is my first day in acute care. I am allowed to give meds to one patient and I would like all the practice with sterile procedure that I can get today" or something of the sort. Also: "I want to be as much a help as I can" goes a long way. 3. Do not talk or ask questions when the primary nurse is preparing meds, on the phone with a doctor or lab, or engaged in a task that requires a lot of attention. DO ASK questions when you are not 100% sure how to do something. 4. You can learn a lot from the nursing assistants, physical therapists, transporters, etc so keep your eyes and ears open. Ultimately though, you are there to learn to be a nurse so working with the nurse should be your priority. 5. you are not there as free labor, but it doesn't hurt to "earn" your place on the unit (answer call lights that aren't "yours", make beds, be a valuable part of the nursing team. ) The hospital and hospital staff does not get paid to have you there. Make it worth their while. 6. "Educator" is a role that all nurses take as part of their professional duties. This means educating patients, each other, and yes...students. Teaching students is part of their job, but some forget this. You make get paired with a nurse who is unwelcoming or rude to students. This is not okay but don't take it personally. Do talk about it with your clinical instructor, who should take the issue to the nurse or the nurse manager. Good luck! I'm glad you are being proactive in making your clinical experience a success!

I need you to think a moment about what type of person goes into teaching math (or chemistry) for a living. Left-brain type people. I have yet to meet a professional math instructor who is by nature warm, fuzzy, empathetic, and works with a high emotional IQ. I suppose there are some out there but I just haven't met them in the college setting. They are generally just not wired that way. I am not suggesting that "making fun of a student" is okay. But possibly they are not capable of being empathetic to that student. It happens. Those teachers are not nurses or counselors, they are math teachers because they are comfortable with numbers, not people. If inappropriate comments were made by the teacher, they should be reported to the math department chair or department dean who can deal with making and enforcing change. Shopping around for a math teacher who makes you feel good is an exercise in futility.

Seriously my blood ran cold when I read "someone who wants to make a career out of dressing wounds" Is that what you think nurses do? You are not a nurse, right? Please tell me you are not. And if you are, please tell me you will never be near me or mine.

1. Make sure your car is in running order, bills are paid in advance, family is supportive,, and (if needed) child care, back up child care, and back up back up child care is available. You will need to plan to attend every class, lab, and clinical with no excuses. 2. Find buddies in the class ASAP and form a study group. 3. Plan to read the book. 4. If your school was a competitive admission (most are) you are probably used to straight As without half trying. Be prepared to give yourself a little grace in nursing school. The tests are not designed to give everyone 100%. The tests are designed to see if you are safe in practice and can make legal and effective choices. No one ever gets 100%. 5. If you look around the classroom and see everyone else frantically taking notes and think to yourself "everyone knows what to write down. Everyone knows what's going on. I'm the only one in here who doesn't understand." IT'S NOT TRUE. No one has any idea what the teacher is talking about and everyone is utterly confused in the first semester. It's okay. You will figure out everything by second semester. 6. Don't be afraid to ask questions to make absolutely sure you know where to be at what time, what you are supposed to be doing in clinical, and don't be afraid to ask clarifying questions in class. There is no such thing as a stupid question, but there is such thing as "a question that the teacher just answered literally 4 minutes ago, but now needs to re-answer because you weren't listening." Listen to others and learn from them. 7. You are expected to know those things that were taught in pre req classes--math, biology, anatomy etc. Nursing school will not re-teach that content but you will be tested on it. So review everything! GOOD LUCK!!!

A "concept based curriculum" does not teach content. They teach concept. So they can test you on any "concept" so far covered. For example, if the concept was "oxygenation" and the class used pneumonia as the exemplar, the test could include questions about COPD or even pulmonary emboli, (not taught, not read, not covered) to see if you grasp the concept of oxygenation, rather than to see if you memorized a bunch of pages. In a concept based school you will always be tested on things you have not been spoon fed. The object of tests is not to see what the teacher assigned but rather to test WHAT YOU CAN FIGURE OUT. Sorry, this is painful but this is the wave of nursing school.

I can't be sure here...I read this over and over to see if you were being sarcastic or what...but let me be clear: there is no legal case, there was no discrimination, there will be no monetary reward, no one was evil, no one will be punished for being mean to the lil student. Life and the legal system does not work like that. Also, YOU have the power of academic success. Not your instructor. The instructor has pass/fail guidelines that he or she will use in determining your grade. Whether you live up to those guidelines is up to you.

PLEASE PLEASE stop saying "the instructor failed me." YOU failed, not the instructor. The instructor had nothing to do with your lateness and your cel phone use and your interactions with patients. If you had known, in November, that it was a group decision whether you passed or failed based on your actions, would that have changed your decision to stay in the program? If you say that knowing it was a group decision would have made you drop out early, then you have nothing to grieve. Maybe you lost the opportunity to enroll in another program but that is not reason to overturn your grade. They are not going to give you a passing grade to make up for the inconvenience of lost time. It really doesn't matter about the 10 weeks. You could have started the grieving process immediately and it wouldn't change things. There is no way your grade would be overturned at any point.

Affordable nursing schools have a lower acceptance rate because more people apply. This would apply to state universities and community colleges as well. "Podunk University" has a perfectly good nursing program for a reasonable price. 200 people apply because they know they can afford it, but there are only 40 spots available. So they have an acceptance rate of 20%. "Fancy Schmancy Uni" also has 40 spots available but people like me don't bother to apply because we can't afford the University name. They get 60 applicants. So they have an acceptance rate of 67%. Rather than acceptance rates, look at attrition rates (what percentage started and actually finished the nursing program) and NCLEX pass rates. Some spendy colleges figure they "owe" it to you to pass you along because you paid so much, even though you didn't really learn or perform up to a desired standard. When it comes time to take the NCLEX a diploma from a less-than-rigorous program doesn't help. The colleges with the highest attrition (highest failure rate) have the highest NCLEX pass rates.

I'm sorry, Nurse Kelsey, but you are incorrect. In my in-patient positions, I have found numerous errors in pre-printed "cheat sheets" and pharmacy dosing because people thought they did not need to do math. Being able to calculate accurately is essential for IV titration, injectable medications, as well as oral medications. Nurses are the last line before incorrect doses are given, and they need to be accurate. Doses may come pre-measured, but nurses need to recognize when they are incorrectly calculated. This is the real world. OP, I suggest you ask for a written policy on the rounding rules so you are providing the correct answer. You may be doing the math right, but 1.66 is not the same answer at 1.7, and .9 is definitely not the same thing as 0.9. The way you "express" your answer may be incorrect, rather than your calculations. And by all means see a tutor if one is available. If you are doing math by any method other than dimensional analysis (ratio/proportion, "doc over stock" or "in your head") please stop. Watch a youtube about dimensional analysis if you do not remember enough from chemistry. I am a professor of nursing and I spend many office hours giving individual instruction on dimensional analysis to fix whatever ridiculous method of math my students were taught. 10 minutes of instruction in this method, and anyone can pass. One more thing...remember, they call it "dosage calculation" or even "med math" but its NOT! It's just MATH! The same math that has been around since Euclid fiddled around with math in the 4th century! Just numbers! We see numbers every day...they aren't scary. Don't let the terminology stress you out! And look at your numbers before you turn in the test to see if they "make sense" in a general way (were you adding two liquid amounts and came up with a smaller answer? probably not the right answer). Best of luck. Repost and tell us how you did.

Nursing school can be very stressful, and stressors can aggravate your condition so be very self-aware. You will be dealing with fatigue, sleep deprivation, fluctuating schedules, unfamiliar environments. How have these stressors affected you in the past? You have no obligation to disclose your illnesses to your instructors, but I suggest that you think about doing so with discretion, so that they can be aware of "red flags" and situations where either you or a patient may be unsafe. Ask for their help in keeping everyone safe. For your instructors, and for you (and all nurses) patient safety and comfort are the PRIME concern---your needs come secondary to the vulnerable people in your care. So if you "act like a butt" it won't matter that it is a result of your illness, what will matter is that a patient felt threatened or insulted, it might be detrimental to your school career. Schools can and will (and must) make classroom accommodations for disabilities and differences but NOT clinical accommodations. I am writing these things not to discourage you but to share some reality. Please make sure you are your best, healthiest you before you undertake what could be the hardest few years of your life.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a professor of nursing-classroom and clinical. I am hearing your disappointment and anger. Let's all breathe. Clinical agreements are made months or years in advance and are at the pleasure and discretion of the facility, so no, hurridly finding another placement to finish the practicum is not an option, even if the school wanted. I'm not clear why the school would, since you failed the practicum. Being banned from a practicum site is failing. So you have to repeat the class/semester. They would not re-place you in a site so you could finish a semester that you failed. I have seen students get banned from clinical sites for 1) poor communication; 2) poor personal hygiene 3) unprofessional behavior and 4) "non-therapeutic presence" . The hospital does not need to provide an exhaustive list of what these things mean. By the time of your senior practicum they have a behavioral expectation of you that does need a checklist of rules. Let's all stop this nonsense of hiring a lawyer. No lawyer is going to fix this because you were not wronged by the hospital nor the school. You failed the practicum. You are now responsible for the cost of repeating the class and the loss of income. No doubt this is disappointing and will be a hardship, but it was due to your actions and now you assume accountability. As for what you need to tell family and friends: "I won't be graduating in XXXX because I need to repeat my last class." You do not owe anything more than that. Of course if you want, you can add "I made a mistake, fortunately not a mistake that harmed anyone. I need to repeat the class without that mistake. End of story." Of course, another option is to get together with your mom, your girlfriend, your BFFs and a big pitcher of margaritas and spend an afternoon talking about how mean the nurses are, how unsympathetic the instructors are, and how unfair life is. Get it off you chest. They will nod sympathetically and occasionally say "dude.....you were robbed". Then, you re-enroll in school. You write another big check for tuition. You stand up tall and make yourself willing to be a learning opportunity for others. You learn from your mistakes, and grow a little.