I'm a first year LPN student (been in college for 2 years doing pre req's and waiting) and I can't believe how strict our attendance policy is! I mean, I can totally understand why regular, prompt attendance is important, but in one of my classes you can only miss 10% of the total hours of the class (including clinicals), which evens out to 4.5 hours, so if you miss more then 1 class period you FAIL.
I have the flu! AND tomorrow is our midterm exam! What should I do? Go to class and interrupt everyone with the constant hacking (and hope I don't puke), potentially infecting everyone else?
Or stay home and take the atomatic 5% decrease in points to take the test late, plus pray that I nor my 3 year old daughter gets sick again until December? I'm so conflicted!
What would you do? I'm running a slight fever and coughing excessively.
I have worked in a few different longterm care settings, and many resturaunts before that where I was in direct contact with many people and their food every day.
This sort of attendance policy is the norm. What you say is true, but that is not how the workforce is. People who are absent too much do too illness or kids do not last long. Neither do those who question the policies too much.
I work in a very upscale retirement community which has better benefits and such than most. We are disciplined for absences, even with a doctors excuse. If someone has respitory symptoms they wear a mask.
I dont know where you guys work, but working in health care while contagious is incredibly dangerous. I seriously hope someone takes initiative and contacts the health department before you kill someone with a compromised immune system.
I work as an aide in a hospital. Yes, in a perfect world no one with a contagious (sp?) condition would ever come to work. However, we don't live in a perfect world. We work in the real world, where there is about five sick patients for every sick nurse. If all those nurses called in, then the nurse/patient ratio would be dangerously high, or nurses would be mandated to work a double. That isn't very safe either!
I have come to work sick. I wear gloves for all patient contact and once wore a mask for my eight hour shift. Yes,k it was a terrible experience and I know that I will repeat it this winter. But it is what needs to be done.
So, yeah, show up for your test. And be glad that the only thing that you have to do is sit and read and mark little circles with a pencil.
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
I dont know where you guys work, but working in health care while contagious is incredibly dangerous. I seriously hope someone takes initiative and contacts the health department before you kill someone with a compromised immune system. Do you know how many elderly people die each year from the flu?
Employers listen to their accountants who are looking at the bottom line numbers. Welcome to reality.
I'm a first year LPN student (been in college for 2 years doing pre req's and waiting) and I can't believe how strict our attendance policy is! I mean, I can totally understand why regular, prompt attendance is important, but in one of my classes you can only miss 10% of the total hours of the class (including clinicals), which evens out to 4.5 hours, so if you miss more then 1 class period you FAIL.
I have the flu! AND tomorrow is our midterm exam! What should I do? Go to class and interrupt everyone with the constant hacking (and hope I don't puke), potentially infecting everyone else?
Or stay home and take the atomatic 5% decrease in points to take the test late, plus pray that I nor my 3 year old daughter gets sick again until December? I'm so conflicted!
What would you do? I'm running a slight fever and coughing excessively.
What is your attendance policies like?
The vast majority of nursing schools have a no-makeup exam policy.
The hours of your classroom time and clinicals is dictated, not by the school, but by your Board of Nursing that sets a minimum for licensure.
LPN programs, most of them, are only for 1 year, so attendance is very strict.
You go to class and do your best on the exam...you cannot worry about your daughter getting sick until she actually does...the fact your "daughter might" get sick isn't going to fly with the instructors.
You get a friend to drive to the exam and home if you are too sick to drive...but you do the best you can.
You go to class and do your best on the exam...you cannot worry about your daughter getting sick until she actually does...the fact your "daughter might" get sick isn't going to fly with the instructors.
quote]
Wow, go back and re read the entire first post.
I know that my original post was whiney and maybe a bit of an over reaction, but in actuallity I just wanted to talk about the ways that strict attendance policies suck. I am not a NEW student. I know perfectly well why strict attendance is mandated. I have an excellent attendance record and GPA for that matter, but thank you VERY much for some of your concern over my future employment prospects. Obviously, I didn't achieve much with my first post (so Im a crybaby when Im sick, sue me! I just thought someone might have some useful input) but in my second post I clarified. Maybe I should have edited the first.. Still, some of the responses I have recieved are down right confrontational...
I think its ridiculous that some of you work with contagious flu symptoms. Generally an employeer gives you a set number of sick days before your reprimanded for instances such as these, when YOUR SICK. You need to have the integrity to stay home. You owe it to your patients.
And if you do get reprimanded, so what? If your sick, the last place you need to be spreading your germs is in a health care facility. You can use all the PPE you want and still infect someone accidently..
You go to class and do your best on the exam...you cannot worry about your daughter getting sick until she actually does...the fact your "daughter might" get sick isn't going to fly with the instructors.
quote]
Wow, go back and re read the entire first post.
I know that my original post was whiney and maybe a bit of an over reaction, but in actuallity I just wanted to talk about the ways that strict attendance policies suck. I am not a NEW student. I know perfectly well why strict attendance is mandated. I have an excellent attendance record and GPA for that matter, but thank you VERY much for some of your concern over my future employment prospects. Obviously, I didn't achieve much with my first post (so Im a crybaby when Im sick, sue me! I just thought someone might have some useful input) but in my second post I clarified. Maybe I should have edited the first.. Still, some of the responses I have recieved are down right confrontational...
I think its ridiculous that some of you work with contagious flu symptoms. Generally an employeer gives you a set number of sick days before your reprimanded for instances such as these, when YOUR SICK. You need to have the integrity to stay home. You owe it to your patients.
And if you do get reprimanded, so what? If your sick, the last place you need to be spreading your germs is in a health care facility. You can use all the PPE you want and still infect someone accidently..
You'll learn in school (and hopefully, you'll graduate...but you are treading on thin ice by missing an exam) and you'll learn at work, that it is better TO SHOW UP AND HAVE THEM SEND YOU HOME...then to simply call in and have them wonder if you were really sick at all.
You may call it integrity, but integrity is never questioned when the proof is in front of the instructor's or your future boss' face.
Specializes in Professional Development Specialist.
Go, bring a mask and offer to take the test. In my personal experience, they sent me home and still took the points off. I was sick enough they wanted to call someone to drive me home. At least when they failed me out I felt like I'd done all I could. Nursing school sucks when you're sick, I'm sorry to say. IMO and experience, the stuff they tell you about staying home and the things you see on the news are just lip service.
When in doubt, call the instructor and see what they advise. If you can't reach them, I'd probably go in and sit in a corner away from everyone and do your best.
You do have my sympathies on the attendance policies!
My school insists nobody come to school with any symptoms, since we'll be going to a nursing home to do Clinicals this semester. However, here if you miss more than 1 class, you lose points on your final grade, no matter the excuse. The end result is that nobody wants to be zapped for following the "don't come in sick policy", so at the moment several people in my section come in daily sounding terrible.
Go, bring a mask and offer to take the test. In my personal experience, they sent me home and still took the points off. I was sick enough they wanted to call someone to drive me home. At least when they failed me out I felt like I'd done all I could. Nursing school sucks when you're sick, I'm sorry to say. IMO and experience, the stuff they tell you about staying home and the things you see on the news are just lip service.
They seriously forcibly sent you home knowing you were then going to flunk out of the program, and did not give you the option to stay in class/clinical? That doesn't seem unfair, that sounds unethical. That's saying you can't miss a class at all so if you happen to get sick you are out of luck because we're going to send you home causing you to miss the class so you will fail.
As for all of you speculators on the real world...let me tell you what the patient's perspective is---we don't want you sick people handling our newborn babies or wheeling us out of the hospital hacking on us and our 1 day old children. That happened to me when I gave birth to my son and I was extremely, utterly, incontrovertibly ticked. People have NO business being in a clinical setting with patients who are there to get healthy--not sicker. My current employer (which is not a hospital or clinical setting) gives us accrued sick time every week. When we get sick, we use our paid sick time. It's nice to not only be allowed to call out when I'm sick and keep my job---but get paid for it too :)
Specializes in Professional Development Specialist.
They seriously forcibly sent you home knowing you were then going to flunk out of the program, and did not give you the option to stay in class/clinical? That doesn't seem unfair, that sounds unethical. That's saying you can't miss a class at all so if you happen to get sick you are out of luck because we're going to send you home causing you to miss the class so you will fail.
Not taking the test the day it was scheduled meant 4 points off. It didn't guarantee that I would fail. But I had already missed the lectures for that test, and then went into the hospital after that day and missed more class. It was a downhill slide, and I didn't pass by less than 1/2 a point. They may have allowed me to stay for the test, but I was so sick it wouldn't have mattered. I could barely walk, nevermind think. I physically went so they would be able to see for themselves that I wasn't overplaying how sick I was. Obviously it made no difference anyway.
ETA- there is no points taken off in my program for attendence accept to clinicals. They figure if you don't go to lecture, you're only screwing yourself. :lol:
I do agree that it is unwise to pressure students who are sick and communicable to come to class in order to avoid losing points. I have a class this semester where you will lose 3% of your grade for your first absence and an additional 7% for your second absence.
Do you have a surgical mask you could wear? My friend in dental hygiene school said they just come in masked to prevent the spread.
As for all of you speculators on the real world...let me tell you what the patient's perspective is---we don't want you sick people handling our newborn babies or wheeling us out of the hospital hacking on us and our 1 day old children. That happened to me when I gave birth to my son and I was extremely, utterly, incontrovertibly ticked. People have NO business being in a clinical setting with patients who are there to get healthy--not sicker. My current employer (which is not a hospital or clinical setting) gives us accrued sick time every week. When we get sick, we use our paid sick time. It's nice to not only be allowed to call out when I'm sick and keep my job---but get paid for it too :)
And your point is???? We're not "speculating" about the real world -- we're living it. Yeah, we earn paid sick leave, too -- but we get penalized by our employers (up to and including getting fired) when we use it. I guarantee you that "us sick people" "hacking" on you and your new baby weren't happy about being there; but we need our jobs, the same as everybody else. Sorry, if it's a choice of coughing on your baby or losing my job, I can tell you which one I'm going to choose.
emmasma
46 Posts
I have worked in a few different longterm care settings, and many resturaunts before that where I was in direct contact with many people and their food every day.
This sort of attendance policy is the norm. What you say is true, but that is not how the workforce is. People who are absent too much do too illness or kids do not last long. Neither do those who question the policies too much.
I work in a very upscale retirement community which has better benefits and such than most. We are disciplined for absences, even with a doctors excuse. If someone has respitory symptoms they wear a mask.