Service dogs in interviews

vanilla bean · Mar 6, 2015

Disclaimer: I don't personally know anyone with a service dog (friend, family, colleague, fellow student, or otherwise), so please consider that in determining if my comment is helpful in any way or not. Hopefully someone more knowledgable will see this and weigh in too.

That said, if I were in you shoes, I would bring my service dog to the interview. I think it will help show that your companion will not be a distraction in class (assuming she rests quietly by you when in that sort of setting), and will allow for conversation about how you will be able to manage in situations where your companion will not be allowed to accompany you (like to clinical sites).

Good luck to you!

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Mar 6, 2015

Welcome!

Wow...interesting question. What is it about your type I diabetes that requires a service animal? I mean I know unstable blood sugars but why the dog? Do you have moments of unconsciousness that she/he is able to give an earlier warning?

You don't have to answer....I just want you to be aware of the challenges you're going to face. Nursing in and of itself doesn't like outward signs of weaknesses. Nurses will defend their patients with a flaming sword but will become mute in defending a disabled nurse. The ADA does cover the usage of service animals and accommodations must be made IF THEY DO NOT CAUSE AND UNDUE HARDSHIP. The use of a service animal also has it's regulations.

When it is not obvious what service an animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed. Staff may ask two questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. Staff cannot ask about the person's disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.

Revised ADA Requirements: Service Animals

While they can't technically deny you....you are going to have a difficult road. If you need your service animal then you need him/her at the interview unless of course there are times you can go without a service animal legitimately and won't be needing to have the animal during clinicals inpatients rooms. Not taking the service dog to the interview then springing it on them later appears deceptive...unless of course you can go without the dog at your side at all times then I would bring it up but not necessarily bring the animal.

I think you need to have an open and frank discussion with the school you are applying. While schools may be accommodating hospitals may not be so accommodating citing undue hardship. You need to speak to a disability lawyer to fully understand what your rights are and how to navigate the hospital bureaucracy.

I wish you the best!

pixiestudent2 · Mar 6, 2015

While I have no advice for you, I was just wondering what exactly what kind of service your animal does for you? I'm honestly just very interested, never heard of having a service animal for diabetes before.

CrunchRN, ADN, RN · Mar 6, 2015

i think if your diabetes is so labile you need a service dog it will be very hard to practice safely as a nurse. At least if you want to do hospital nursing. Maybe you have some other area of nursing in mind?

suga_junkie, BSN, RN · Mar 6, 2015

Have you tried/considered a CGMS? It's a lot more discreet than a service dog and most on the market have predictive alerts to notify you of impending hypos/hypers as well as giving you all your blood sugars in real time.

NurseHeatherThe2nd · Sep 10, 2015

I have a family member who is a nurse with a service dog, and it has been quite a struggle for her. You are not required to disclose disability on applications (you can typically choose to decline to answer), so she has been hired at several different facilities (large and small hospitals), who after finding out about the service dog, have found various ways to force her out or flat out fire her after varying lengths of time (for example, saying that dogs are not actually allowed in the hospital at all, when they have visits from therapy dogs on a regular basis). Lawyers are involved and DOJ cases filed, but in the meantime that does not mean she has a stable job or that the path is clearly defined for others in this predicament.

While I agree that it is probably the easiest route to choose a profession that does not cause you stress such as this, or cause potentially seriously ill patients to be in contact with unncessary pathogens, I have learned quite a bit about service dogs since I have started hearing about this from her.

There was another poster that said something about a dog not being let out for bathroom breaks or some such business. Service dogs are more highly trained at their jobs than almost any human I have met. For these purposes, service dogs can be trained to hold their urine for 16 hours +. Also, this dog doesn't even rest its head on the floor at work, has the option to wear booties (and a scrub top), and is more professional and clean than (again) most healthcare professionals I know. And from what I've heard, most patients love it.

That being said, I don't think the dog is suitable in all areas (Heme/Onc, BMT, ICU, etc.). But I also believe that if you ask ahead of time, because it's such a difficult issue for the hospital/managers/HR to deal with, they would (with their very best sad face on) just say "no, sorry, we don't do that."

It sounds like if you have other options to provide for your medical care that others successfully use (not saying everyone is the same, just how it will be seen), you will be met with the response that there are other options, and that the dog is not a "necessary accommodation". Unfortunately, for my relative, their is no other option for her condition other than the service dog, so the battle continues!

*added later*

I forgot to mention, this person also faced discrimination during nursing school, although she clearly made it through successfully (very successfully I might add), and was the only person of her graduating class not offered a position at the local hospital and without a job 1 year post graduation. She ended up having to move half way across the country to secure a job (and no, she did not bring the dog to interviews for these reasons). She likely would never have received a job offer had she chosen to bring the dog along for the interviews.

Good luck to you.

Kayauhs · Jan 17, 2017

I have a service dog. I live with him 24 hours a day. I'm also an RN.

Leaving your service dog home during the interview will give your new employer grounds for dismissal based on deception. You leave yourself wide open.

Nursing is the last bastion to break through for the service dog realm and I don't see this improving or changing any time soon.

I will tell you this; every single civil right that people enjoy today has come from the blood of someone who was brave enough to stand up to the establishment and fight them. If you have that kind of time, energy and resources then I say go for it.

The truth is that nursing employers are LEGALLY required to allow the disabled the right to work. The behavior of an employer; nursing or otherwise who fires an employee after finding out they are disabled and need accommodation is the VERY FOUNDATION ON WHICH THE ADA WAS CREATED.

The ADA is guarded and protected and overseen by the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. This is a matter of your personal civil rights. But it comes at a cost. You will need major support, you will need lawyers, you will need finances.

And you will face the backlash of your fellow nurses just as I've read on here in these few little posts. The in house joke that nurses eat their own is not funny. It's the major problem in nursing. It was a major problem when I first started as a new nurse 24 years ago.

Here are some pointers both for you and for the people reading this:

1). You are under no legal obligation to explain yourself to ANYONE other than an employer or business owner when you are out in public. Your service dog is legally afforded public access because you are legally disabled.

2). The general public needs to get an education about service dogs and how to behave around them. I've never seen such appalling behavior by grown adults in my entire life.

3). You the general public and co-workers are NOT in charge of deciding who is disabled and therefore who 'deserves' a service dog. You cannot see all disabilities. IT'S NOT UP TO YOU TO DECIDE so step aside.

4). DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES tell someone what your disability is!!! That is YOUR private information and they have legally zero right to that knowledge and that information is protected under the ADA. That is WHY there is an ADA!!!

Example: "Why do you have a service dog? What's wrong with you?"

Example: "What tasks specific to your disability has this dog been trained to do?"

Everyone in life needs a purpose in order to thrive and be healthy as a person. Perhaps, just perhaps this is your calling in life. To be that nurse that challenges the system for the disabled. It would go in the history books that is for sure.

I wish you the very best of luck going forward.

Extra Pickles · Jan 17, 2017

I'm going to ask some questions to fulfill my role as Devil's Advocate. I'm not knocking anyone's right to have a service dog with them if they must have a service dog in order to be at their jobs, but I have some questions about patient's rights and maybe co-worker's rights.

1. If I'm a patient in a hospital and at some point during my stay my nurse appears with a dog at her side, and I'm terrified of dogs or allergic to dogs, am I required to have that dog there because my nurse's right to have her dog next to her trumps my right to not have to be around a dog?

2. Same question, from a visitor's perspective. I'm a family member of a patient, I have a couple of hours to spend with my loved one, and a nurse comes in with a dog. I insist the dog stay outside the room, the nurse insists she has a right to have the service dog with her while she performs tasks or care for my loved one. Who has the greater right?

3. Now I'm a co-worker, have worked the unit for two years without any issues and now a nurse is assigned to this unit who has a service dog, must be there no ifs/ands/buts. I'm terrified of dogs, there's no expectation that I should have known that dogs might be in the med room or nursing station as this isn't even remotely usual in nursing, and now I freeze or run every time I see that dog which makes me a much less effective nurse. I even fall behind because I wait until the nurse with Cujo (in my mind, Cujo) leaves the area I need to be in. What to do? Assigning me to another unit is unfair to me, I've been there for years, she's new. Assigning the new nurse to another area means she screams about ADA violations. What to do?

Anyone have any ideas or thoughts on this?

AliNajaCat · Jan 17, 2017

Just a tiny clarification of the previous post.

The ADA prevents an employer from firing an employee who has a disability as long as the worker can perform the essential functions of the job with reasonable accommodations; this does NOT mean the accommodations are required to be ones the employee desires. For example, shift work, hours, or days of the week, or other accommodations.

The ADA does NOT say an employer must hire somebody with a disability; the closest it gets is that the employer can make an offer of employment conditional on passing a pre-employment physical, and then withdraw the offer if the applicant cannot fulfill the requirements of the job. That might include a requirement for working without a service animal, for example.

emmafleur18 · Jan 17, 2017

@Kayauhs thanks for your response!

I actually interviewed on the phone for the program I am now in (school) and everything worked out great. The school has been extremely supportive in accommodations for having my SD on the unit for my clinical placement, and I am working with the hospital to develop a guideline for service dogs for students and staff (they have never had employees with SDs, predictably).

I'll tackle the job interviews as they come, but for now I have had almost nothing but support from my school, my clinical sites, and the staff that I interact with. I know that it won't be this easy in the future, but I'm taking each hurdle as it comes!

Kayauhs · Jan 11, 2018

These are EXCELLENT questions and this is where, "Reasonable accommodation" comes into play. There is no clear cut answer and the employer and the employee need to sit down and have an honest discussion about what is reasonable for both sides.

As I have mentioned before, I have a service dog and for a whole big variety of reasons I don't bring him to work. The least of which is infection control. I do not want my dog laying on the floor in the facility I work in, full of staph and C diff and who knows what else and then I pet him and hug him and bring him home and he lays on my bed?

Also there is the the topic that very, very few forums have ever mentioned or talked about and that is the LYING PATIENT.

Believe it or not, being sick and in the hospital does NOT make people Saints. Now, I know that's a hard pill to swallow for some of you new nurses but that right there is the facts.

A co-worker of mine brought his dog to work, the dog stood in the doorway of an elderly woman and the woman told her family that a HUGE dog came INTO her room and snapped and growled at her.

My co-worker had absolutely no way to defend himself. He was told that due to liability he could never bring the dog back in.

There is also the huge issue of falls. If my dog startles a patient, scares a patient accidentally, or somehow manages to get in the way and causes the patient to fall, I'm liable for that.

Also; my opinion is that I think it depends on where you work. I personally cannot imagine bringing my dog into work with me. My shift if very fast paced, I need to keep my mind on the task at hand and I might be in one room one minute and down the hall on another wing the next. It's not fair to the dog.

Again, I reinforce that in the healthcare setting as it pertains to service dogs; this issue is going to demand an open, flexible dialogue, egos aside.

As it should be in healthcare.