Hello, I've only posted a couple times so I'm not sure if this is the proper place for this post. I'm sad, embarrassed, and frustrated because I was sent home from clincals this morning. I'm a second year student in an ADN program and today was my first day to care for 3 patients (all meds, care, etc). I prepped at the hospital for 2 hours last night, came home prepped until midnight and up at 5 a.m. to get to clinicals on time. In preconference I was not certain why my pt was receiving an antibiotic. She was admitted with SOB, but I saw nothing in the chart other than that. When I truthfully told my instructor that I wasn't sure about the antibiotic she replied that pt has pneumonia. Keep in mind that 8 other students are staring at me and I buckle under pressure. I replied that I honestly did not see that in her chart. Mind you, that when I was prepping the chart was taken from me several times by other staff members and someone even took the progress notes out of the chart. Also trying to prep on 2 others at the same time. After the 30 minutes of preconference I went to the floor to begin pt care. My instructor pulled me aside and said that she was sending me home and I needed to make an appointment with my advisor and the director of the nursing program. I sense that they are kicking me out. The environment is one of total fear, no encouragement, waiting for you to mess us and never pointing out the good. The fact that I'm a single mom of four and I worked my tail off for this doesn't count for a thing. My grades are always 3.5 and above, but I have to work very hard to do that. I'm in my 40s so the menopausal memory thing is doing a number on me. I'm in debt $15,000 in student loans and I really don't know if I'll make it:cry:. Missing this clinical will mean that I get an incomplete for the quarter which messes up my financial aid so now I have that to deal with. Honestly, I don't think I can take much more of this. I realize that I'm rambling, using no paragraphs, just hoping that there is "someone" out there to encourage me. I don't know what I'm going to do if I get kicked out. Thanks for "listening"...
I think she knew she screwed up, and was just trying to let it blow over. Let us know what your adviser says. I can't imagine that this would make them kick you out of the program. People in my class screwed up a lot worse than this (think actual harm to pts), and they are nurses now. This was just not that big of a deal, regardless of what your instructor said.
I'm so glad you went in today and took charge of your circumstances. And I'm glad you came here and got pumped up enough to do it. We'll be your cheering squad as long as you need us.
This post is so far down the list I don't know if you will ever get to it but when new nurses complain about us old timers "eating our young" I can't help but think of all the posts about nut job instructors in punitive programs and feel, on the whole, the nurses on the floors are a kindly bunch. The best answer for your program director is " that diagnosis wasn't clearly documented on the chart when I last reviewed it. I was unsure if the antibiotic was for a specific infection or for prophylaxis". Then promise to be more thorough in the future. I'm assuming you don't have any other "lapses" in your file. Honestly, you shoud have known the diagnosis was pneumonia- Shortness of Breath is a symptom- what is causing the SOB is the vital information and was most likely on the chart somewhere, but nursing school is about LEARNING. If you had perfect priority setting and knew everything about patient care you wouldn't need to go to class or clinicals. I think the instructors forget this a lot. Making a student cry, or quit seems to be thier goal- not teaching them to be a nurse!
I was an awful student. I guarantee I would have been kicked out of most of the programs that people post about in these forums. I'm a pretty good nurse, and unlike almost 50% of my peers I passed boards on the first try with a fairly high score (we got a score back then). Thank goodness my instructors were more intrested in what they could teach me instead of how could they trip me up!
I'm so glad you went in today and took charge of your circumstances. And I'm glad you came here and got pumped up enough to do it. We'll be your cheering squad as long as you need us.
We're all proud of you for going back!
What a sweet thing to say. Thanks, writer.
Phillie, I'm so glad you decided to just show up the next day and start plugging. You go, girl! In my LPN program one of my instructors was a horrible woman on a power trip. I think there's a rule that every program must have at least one, LOL. She put me on clinical probation early on, ostensibly for little things like a urinal not being emptied, a couple Kleenexes on the overbed table, etc. And the write-up included the statement that any more episodes would result in dismissal from the program. By the time I graduated, I found out that every class who had her had one student she made an example of. But boy, during the time it was happenening, I too shared your fear of "OMG what happens if they kick me out, I've worked so hard." You only have until June, luv...you're gonna be awesome. Hang in there.
Honestly, you shoud have known the diagnosis was pneumonia- Shortness of Breath is a symptom- what is causing the SOB is the vital information and was most likely on the chart somewhere
I know this wasn't the point of your post and we all support the OP in regard to inconsistent demands of perfection by some instructors of students. But I was wondering at what point in nursing school a student should have known the dx was pneumonia? At the end of their med-surg clinical? Geriatrics? Each rotation covers a whole slew of medical conditions and their overlapping symptomatology. It's possible for a student not to have worked with many (any?) pnuemonia cases even several months into a program, depending on where & how their school does clinicals.
SOB is a symptom of many things, like CHF. At best, the student might have an educated guess of the diagnosis if the whole set of symptoms clearly point to one particular disease process. Of course, pneumonia is always a risk in the elderly population and nurses need to be aware of that. But until you've seen such conditions first hand several times, it would seem rather over confident for a nursing student without previous medical experience to think they can nail a dx based on one or two symptoms.
Unfortunately, modern nursing education doesn't usually give much opportunity for the kind of experiences that would bring to life more of the tons of conditions covered in nursing school.
Thank you! It is so nice to hear from all of you. I'm amazed at the support. So sorry that I cannot reply to each of you individually, but I'm still working away on my papers and still have to study for a test. You have encouraged me tremendously. I appreciate all the prayers too...keep 'em coming :)
I just wonder, since the instructor acted as if nothing had happened, and your advisor hasn't returned your call yet, if this instructor has a reputation for being difficulty or a problem for other students. Maybe she got a call from your advisor or a department chair or something? Maybe she is in trouble herself for this kind of negative behavior towards students that does nothing to foster learning? Best of luck to you, dear!
I had a clinical instructor who treated me like dirt. She would "make up" things that I had supposedly done wrong. Once she was observing me give an injection. I was looking for the appropriate size needle and syringe in the med cart and accidently dropped one on the floor. This became a federal issue that I didn't know the correct size to use. Uh. I was looking for the correct size and dropped one of them on the floor. The instructor had a horrible reputation and I saw many instances of her negative and questionable behavior. She managed to boot me and never gave valid instances of my failures. She actually admitted with glee, no less, that she picked out who would fail and then she failed them. Well almost two decades later, she's still at the school. I wish I had a list of all the students who left because of her and not because of their own failings. But not all of them failed to become nurses. I met some who went to other programs and still reached their goals. So congratulations on making it through the clinical day and remember from now until the end: one clinical day at a time. Just one clinical day at a time. We are all on your side. Don't give up.
Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, IM, OB/GYN, neuro, GI.
I'm glad that everything went well for you at clinicals today. It's sounds like you were and are very busy right now. Hopefully the instructor was just having a bad day and you were the person she let it out on and this won't happen again.
RN007
541 Posts
Boy, nursing school is crazy, isn't it? Good luck with everything and hang in there!:pumpiron: