Shooting at nurse's college in Tuscon, AZ??

Roland · Oct 31, 2002

1. There is NO excuse for premeditated murder (and he makes it very clear that he thought long and hard about the deed). Furthermore, no victim of that crime deserves such treatment no matter what their offence.

2. That said one cannot but conclude (assuming his account portrays an even remotely accurate portrayal of the actual facts something very much in question) that this guy was treated in a very unfair manner. Specifically, it seems as if he was an agressive student who is sometimes seen as a "know it all" (not unlike myself I too sometimes ask alot of questions in class the way I see it I'm paying a great deal of money for these people to teach me). His problems seemed to rapidly mount AFTER he complained to the Dean of students about being ignored in class when he would ask questions. From his perspective this complaint SEALED his fate within the nursing program. I would be quicker to discount this version of events if so many people on this site had not cautioned ME to be careful to avoid the same fate (that is to say being perceived as a "know it all").

3. In addition it seems that a "confluence" of factors acted to exponentially increase his distress making him percieve his situation as hopeless. These were primarily:

a. The relative "iron clad" nature of student loan repayment (unlike other debts it usually cannot be written off in bankruptcy no matter how bad your economic circumstances). Thus our villian felt that if he could not complete school he would have to pay his student loan debt (in addition to his other expenses such as child support) or face collection actions including revocation of his LPN license.

b. The relative iron clad nature of child support payments seemed to be another motif in his dispair. The killer felt that if he was kicked out of school that he wouldn't be able to continue child support payments espcially in combination with student loan payments. Certainly not without his LPN license.

c. The perpetraitor felt that he had been railroaded out of the program. He describes an incident where the instructor "stepped out of the room to say hi to a co-worker" while he was administering meds to patient. He was disciplined for this violation. Another incident involved a mandated care plan due the next day with part of the requisite material having to be downloaded from a computer. Despite his experienceing technical difficulties and asking for help, his paper was late and the tardiness was NOT excused.

d. The killer also had a plethora of health problems the most severe involving dental problems, and possible Gulf War related back injuries. These were exasperated by his working a full time job (out of necessity) while in nursing school.

Again, this guy is a murderer and deserves his fate (many believe that it will be eternal damnation although thats for God to decide). No one can justify murder. However, one cannot help but feel that a little more simple, and common sense kindness on the part of the institution MAY have averted this trajedy. I was struck by the dichotomy of the thread which described someone who had to work with a now accused terrorist who seemed impervious to being fired no matter how extreme his actions (again assuming the Flores letter remotely represents the true facts of the case). In this case it seems we had someone who was trying his best of above average intelligence and who had proven to be a good LPN, who was still insufficent to pass the program.

The theme which seemed to permeate the letter was that when "the world" gets you down it does so in spades.

Michigan Nurse asked about the NRA publications. I let my membership laspe last year (I'm a BSN student and poor!) but I think they are called American Handgunner, and American Rifleman. Your NRA membership comes with a choice of ONE of the two publications. It seems if I remember correctly that the accounts of guns being used in self defense were within the first five pages of both publications.

Stargazer · Oct 31, 2002

No flames from me, Tracy and Helen. I completely agree with both of your posts.

If any good whatsoever is to come of this, every nursing school in the country needs to take a long, hard, honest look at its pervasive culture and ask whether that culture is flexible, nurturing and inclusive--or judgemental, unyielding and biased. And individual nursing instructors need to do some serious soul-searching and figure out whether they truly treat all students equally and fairly, and if not, why not.

Then we as a profession need to ask ourselves whether accepting and supporting this kind of toxic status quo is really okay or whether it's perpetuating everything that's wrong with nursing right now, by teaching and enforcing the same destructive "rules" and behaviors, i.e.:

Your opinion doesn't count

Every person for him/herself

I have the power to decide whether you deserve to be in this profession or not

Who ever told you life was fair?

You're worth exactly what I tell you you're worth

You can't beat the system so don't even try

We're not looking for individuals here. We punish independent thought.

No wonder nurses are so beaten down from the outset.

Stargazer · Oct 31, 2002

No flames from me, Tracy and Helen. I completely agree with both of your posts.

If any good whatsoever is to come of this, every nursing school in the country needs to take a long, hard, honest look at its pervasive culture and ask whether that culture is flexible, nurturing and inclusive--or judgemental, unyielding and biased. And individual nursing instructors need to do some serious soul-searching and figure out whether they truly treat all students equally and fairly, and if not, why not.

Then we as a profession need to ask ourselves whether accepting and supporting this kind of toxic status quo is really okay or whether it's perpetuating everything that's wrong with nursing right now, by teaching and enforcing the same destructive "rules" and behaviors, i.e.:

Your opinion doesn't count

Every person for him/herself

I have the power to decide whether you deserve to be in this profession or not

Who ever told you life was fair?

You're worth exactly what I tell you you're worth

You can't beat the system so don't even try

We're not looking for individuals here. We punish independent thought.

No wonder nurses are so beaten down from the outset.

Charity, RN, APRN · Oct 31, 2002

As a former nursing instructor, I don't doubt that any of that happened to him. I have too many memories of students going through the same things. (Not in MY clinicals, however!) Naturally, we can't know the entire story, but I must admit that I was not surprised. Like someone else noted earlier, when I heard about it I knew "why". I have been there when we told a student that he would not be allowed to continue in the program (next to last semester) because he failed the course by 0.5 pt. And this was this third time through. (yes, 0.5 pts seems SO close. But we had fudged to get it that close. Just no way to find the extra) Don't think we were not worried about his harming himself. But we did not just say "so long". We worked on his options with him (oddly enough, LPN licensure), and encouraged him not to give up.

On the male aspect, I do seem to recall that most of the conflicts in my own school days involved male students. The biggest "troublemaker" was career Army. A medic with Special Forces. Great guy. Gave the teachers fits. Another guy (LPN) was pulled into our clinical group from another teacher's in the middle of the day. Their confrontation on the unit was much talked of. (It was the policy at my school that no student could be failed in clinicals by one instructor. They had to be evaluated by two at minimum).

CC

BTW, the instructor in me couldn't help but notice that his letter included a title page.

Charity, RN, APRN · Oct 31, 2002

As a former nursing instructor, I don't doubt that any of that happened to him. I have too many memories of students going through the same things. (Not in MY clinicals, however!) Naturally, we can't know the entire story, but I must admit that I was not surprised. Like someone else noted earlier, when I heard about it I knew "why". I have been there when we told a student that he would not be allowed to continue in the program (next to last semester) because he failed the course by 0.5 pt. And this was this third time through. (yes, 0.5 pts seems SO close. But we had fudged to get it that close. Just no way to find the extra) Don't think we were not worried about his harming himself. But we did not just say "so long". We worked on his options with him (oddly enough, LPN licensure), and encouraged him not to give up.

On the male aspect, I do seem to recall that most of the conflicts in my own school days involved male students. The biggest "troublemaker" was career Army. A medic with Special Forces. Great guy. Gave the teachers fits. Another guy (LPN) was pulled into our clinical group from another teacher's in the middle of the day. Their confrontation on the unit was much talked of. (It was the policy at my school that no student could be failed in clinicals by one instructor. They had to be evaluated by two at minimum).

CC

BTW, the instructor in me couldn't help but notice that his letter included a title page.

Roland · Oct 31, 2002

IF there is indeed an "atititude" that is pervasive within nursing schools could it be what Sociologists like Emile Durkheim or Talcott Parsons would have termed "functional". Let me put it another way. For many years nursing was seen as a "servile" profession both to the doctors and health care facilities which they served (and from some of the posts on read on this board it still is by SOME). Our hypothesis is that this lingering "attitude" (for lack of a better term this describes the locus of negative traits that may be associated with certain nursing programs and or instructors) practiced by these schools is an acknowledgement of this situation. Thus, if this viewpoint is correct then these schools could be seen as "breaking" the students so that those who successfully graduate are willing and able to "function" within THAT paradigm. Now males are for the most part a recent development within the profession espcially the "type A" breed that might have been more associated with medical and business school in the past. Could it be that they are "running up against" this paradigm?

What we find fascinating about this concept if it is indeed correct is that it implies that nursing schools (via their teaching practices) are helping to perpetuate the very conditions within the profession that many no doubt oppose within their personal belief systems. Does this just sound like so much psychobabble or does it seem to reflect reality?

Roland · Oct 31, 2002

IF there is indeed an "atititude" that is pervasive within nursing schools could it be what Sociologists like Emile Durkheim or Talcott Parsons would have termed "functional". Let me put it another way. For many years nursing was seen as a "servile" profession both to the doctors and health care facilities which they served (and from some of the posts on read on this board it still is by SOME). Our hypothesis is that this lingering "attitude" (for lack of a better term this describes the locus of negative traits that may be associated with certain nursing programs and or instructors) practiced by these schools is an acknowledgement of this situation. Thus, if this viewpoint is correct then these schools could be seen as "breaking" the students so that those who successfully graduate are willing and able to "function" within THAT paradigm. Now males are for the most part a recent development within the profession espcially the "type A" breed that might have been more associated with medical and business school in the past. Could it be that they are "running up against" this paradigm?

What we find fascinating about this concept if it is indeed correct is that it implies that nursing schools (via their teaching practices) are helping to perpetuate the very conditions within the profession that many no doubt oppose within their personal belief systems. Does this just sound like so much psychobabble or does it seem to reflect reality?

kmchugh · Oct 31, 2002

OK, so, I've read this guy's letter, and am sickened on a number of levels. Yes, it's true, this guy was self serving, and sought to place the blame for his failures everywhere but where it belonged, which was squarely on his shoulders.

On another level, I am reminded of one of my nursing school classmates. There were three men in my class, and one of them was in some ways similiar to this guy. Generally, he was thought of as kind of a weirdo. He was in the Air Force. He had some problems in nursing school, particularly with one instructor. He defended his every action, no matter how wrong he was. About six weeks before graduation, he had been having some problems with his wife (soon to be ex), and broke into her house. After a short stand off with the Air Force Security Police, he shot himself in the head with a rifle. Now I wonder, how close might we have been to the same kind of incident that occurred in Arizona right here in Wichita, Kansas?

On a third level, I am shocked to find that there are some things this guy wrote that I can kind of identify with. (No, nothing justifies his actions, needs to be said immediately.) While in nursing school, I ran into the same anti-male biases he talks about. I know one instructor who told a roomful of female nursing students that men DID NOT BELONG in nursing. That same instructor made OB so horrendous for me that, in my third semester of nursing school, I came within a hair's breadth of quitting, in spite of a 4.0 GPA.

I have time and again heard nurses, and nursing school instructors tell me, and other male nurses, that there is no anti-male bias in nursing. Bunk. Nothing justifies taking the lives of these women, who dedicated their lives to teaching others to be nurses. But, what I do fear will happen is that this guy will be chalked up as another psychopath (which he was). No one is going to take the long, hard look that needs to be taken at nursing schools. At how male students are treated. At the pervasive attitude among much of nursing school academia that they are on the pedestals, dispensing academic life and death to students, often on no more than a personality conflict, or worse, a whim. Those who don't bow and supplicate properly must be smashed, taught a valuable "life lesson."

And people wonder why more nurses don't stand up to physicians.

Kevin McHugh

kmchugh · Oct 31, 2002

OK, so, I've read this guy's letter, and am sickened on a number of levels. Yes, it's true, this guy was self serving, and sought to place the blame for his failures everywhere but where it belonged, which was squarely on his shoulders.

On another level, I am reminded of one of my nursing school classmates. There were three men in my class, and one of them was in some ways similiar to this guy. Generally, he was thought of as kind of a weirdo. He was in the Air Force. He had some problems in nursing school, particularly with one instructor. He defended his every action, no matter how wrong he was. About six weeks before graduation, he had been having some problems with his wife (soon to be ex), and broke into her house. After a short stand off with the Air Force Security Police, he shot himself in the head with a rifle. Now I wonder, how close might we have been to the same kind of incident that occurred in Arizona right here in Wichita, Kansas?

On a third level, I am shocked to find that there are some things this guy wrote that I can kind of identify with. (No, nothing justifies his actions, needs to be said immediately.) While in nursing school, I ran into the same anti-male biases he talks about. I know one instructor who told a roomful of female nursing students that men DID NOT BELONG in nursing. That same instructor made OB so horrendous for me that, in my third semester of nursing school, I came within a hair's breadth of quitting, in spite of a 4.0 GPA.

I have time and again heard nurses, and nursing school instructors tell me, and other male nurses, that there is no anti-male bias in nursing. Bunk. Nothing justifies taking the lives of these women, who dedicated their lives to teaching others to be nurses. But, what I do fear will happen is that this guy will be chalked up as another psychopath (which he was). No one is going to take the long, hard look that needs to be taken at nursing schools. At how male students are treated. At the pervasive attitude among much of nursing school academia that they are on the pedestals, dispensing academic life and death to students, often on no more than a personality conflict, or worse, a whim. Those who don't bow and supplicate properly must be smashed, taught a valuable "life lesson."

And people wonder why more nurses don't stand up to physicians.

Kevin McHugh

rosy · Oct 31, 2002

Originally posted by JMP
If you can not see it, look at the facts. Look at Great Britain and Canada and then look at the US and compare death stats related to guns. The facts don't lie. [/b]

Lest we forget the Constitution of the United States of America

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Frankly we Americans fought long and hard for these freedoms, and will continue to fight to defend and retain them.

rosy · Oct 31, 2002

Originally posted by JMP
If you can not see it, look at the facts. Look at Great Britain and Canada and then look at the US and compare death stats related to guns. The facts don't lie. [/b]

Lest we forget the Constitution of the United States of America

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Frankly we Americans fought long and hard for these freedoms, and will continue to fight to defend and retain them.

CMERN · Oct 31, 2002

To agree with someone hwo posted earlier..I too "knew WHY when I heard about it".... I will tell you NURSING SCHOOL is Hell and "some" instructors are HEARTLESS and EARLESS!....I also read this deceased mans letter. He had LOADS more issues...and chose his violent end... He harmed and injured families, everything revolved around him. He was a sad, sad, case. I wonder if he was bit of a drama master. He saw all coscequences of life as caused by "them" ----outside forces. Yes he seems self-centered, but in reality his SELF dependent on all outside people and circumstances. Geez,...and people are dead because he was probably to chicken to just once VENT and say oh KISS my BUTT! and mean it...... WHY THE KILLING> anger passes ...but dead people are always dead... my prayers are with the victims families.