Desert Rogue

A very wise instructor once told me that NO school of nursing is perfect - and I believe him. He left the university I attended and given some of the harsh comments that sprang from the lips of the BSN Program Director and were later reiterated by the SON Dean he didn't seek his escape a moment too soon. Nurses eat their young. They can be vicious and there are only two reasons for getting into teaching in the nursing field: you either are so passionate about it you want to instill that same excellence in the next generation of nurses OR you are burned-out, not cut out for direct patient care, and it's an easy paycheck. I DID have disagreements in my program. I got summoned to the Deans office more than once and chewed on for helping classmates pass HESI. I was assured if they failed their retake, the blame would rest squarely on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. I would argue about arbitrary and legally unenforceable requirements sprung on students in the middle of a semester. I would question their willingness to set aside the BSN handbook and all of the requirements it contained for the sake of one or two students who failed multiple semesters or couldn't pass dosage exams, yet others were dismissed for less. As long as you are doing the best you can to learn and show the nurse who's patient(s) you are assisting in the care of that you are serious in your desire to help - and learn, you should be in good hands. It won't happen overnight necessarily, but I had some REALLY strong floor nurses supporting and respecting me because I pushed myself and I tried. The effort was obvious. I sought out the hardest patients I could find to make myself learn more. More often than not I spent time working with the nurse than I did interacting with my clinical faculty. I was allowed to float to other units when the neediness of some other classmates would take hours and left me waiting for someone with a license to allow me to give my patients their medications. I got to learn more about Coumadin and how to balance INR numbers in therapy; I got to learn from specialized Infusion Therapy nurses watching and even assisting in establishing PICC lines. I had to make a decision to NOT allow other things and people rob me of the joy I find in caring for others. If your program has ONE instructor (a direct instructor or otherwise) you can talk to, learn from - make the effort. I was fortunate. Mine happened to have TWO world-class instructors and they don't know how very lucky they were to have such amazing nurses teaching us. I'll be completely honest - because of how I was introduced to them both, the manner in which we interacted was more based on mutual respect and even friendship than it was the formal instructor:student relationship, but it allowed me to ask them anything - to help me understand an idea, a concept, or reach for more than was being taught. And it helped. Nursing school is only the beginning. That's the reality of the learning process. It's AFTER graduation and AFTER boards (I had 17 Select-All-That-Apply questions) that the REAL learning begins. You are MORE than capable of seeing your dream become a reality. Don't let ANYONE tell you otherwise.