Threatened dismissal because of wrinkly clothes :0(

[hotdog19d]

Hey everyone, I was just trying to get some opinions of an incident that happened to me recently.

I was pulled aside by the director of my nursing program, and was told that if I wore wrinkly clothes to clinical again I would be kicked out of the program. I was wearing a polo and khakis to clinical which I did't think were wrinkly, but apparently the clinical instructor did, she didn't say anything to me about it,but she said something to the director.

Edit= Thanks for everyones advice! I took a lot of it and the next clinicals went fine, as far as my attire went.

[PANurseRN1]

When I was in school the director came to me more then once and mentioned my shoe strings needed to be cleaned. Not the shoes themselves but the shoe strings. My instructors had nothing to do with it. One did suggest I safety pin the laces together and wash them with my uniforms. Yeah right. The director would see me in the halls and nab me. It got to the point that every couple of months I would just completely replace the laces. Trivial, stupid and meaningless but I was attending "their" school and had to go by "their" rules. If your director wants you clothes pressed; then press or quit. While being thrown out a program because of laundry habits is not fair neither is a majority of life or employers.

This is a true story.

I went to the old-fashioned 3y diploma hospital based nursing school 20+ years ago. One day my instructor told my my shoelaces (no sneakers back then, you had to wear Clinics or some other sort of nursing shoe) were not white enough and to take care of it by the next day.

I was so paranoid that I soaked my laces in straight bleach overnight. The next morning I went to pull my laces out of the cup, and had nothing but a handful of mush...the bleach had basically dissolved them. There was nothing for me to do but quick pull out the laces from my sneakers, which of course weren't all nice and white, and put them in my nursing shoes.

Of course my instructor noticed my less than white laces, so I told her what happened. I thought she was going to die from laughing so hard.

[PANurseRN1]

Was this a one time occurence or have you been spoken to before about wrinkles or other issues like this. You do know nurses eat their young right??? Sometimes I thinksome actually chew them up. spit them out and stomp on them for good measure! I hate wrinkles and do iron however taking stuff out of the dryer right when it is done and hanging it up works just as well. At least you don't have to wear white polyester with pin-tucking down the front and a blue striped pinafore.....yeah and oh by the way I am 40 something and it made my rather well endowed chest FLAT....want to talk about pretty ??????

For God's sake, does every thread have to have an insult to older nurses by repeating the "nurses eat their young" cliche? This is getting nauseating.

[greatshakes]

I hate wrinkly clothes but I have always been an ironer just through habit. One day though, I turned up to prac as a student and one of the RNs coming onto the shift had a shirt that could only have been dragged out of the dirty wash basket. It was tired, creased and had stains on it, tomato sauce or something but not acceptable. At the end of shift there may be a reason for stains and to look less than immaculate but what message does it send to patients, visitors and other staff to turn up looking sloppy.

What I really loathe and I do it myself is getting biro marks off the pockets of white shirts. There's nothing worst than paying for a nice shirt and writing all over it. I found when I was signing off meds that the biro'd go in and out of the pocket. I eventually bought a pair of navy slacks with a pocket above the knee for these pens but where did the pen go? Back in the breast pocket. Most of the nursing places have navy slacks and white or darker patterned shirts.

My last shirt was white and while I kept it clean I still had the dreaded biro marks. Anyone got a solution that really works.?? I have tried hairspray, preen and other things. I really think I need pockless white shirts but I always seem to have things to carry. Glasses are another bugbear, having to get them in and out. Solutions please

[augigi, CNS]

I hang a lanyard around my neck with my pen on it - don't write on my pocket that way!

[jov]

My last shirt was white and while I kept it clean I still had the dreaded biro marks. Anyone got a solution that really works.??

geeks use pocket protectors

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

People who are protecting their clothing sometimes use pocket protectors. This can be used to keep the pocket clean on white shirts. They don't have to be clipped on the outside of the pocket to be used.

[rpv_rn]

This may have been posted already. I didn't read all the postings.

If you don't like to iron, take out your uniform from the dryer when they are almost dry (very slightly damp), hang on hanger --> no wrinkles.

[blueheaven]

Do what ya gotta do to get through!! I had miscellaneous issues in my trip through nursing school and it is just a total power trip with some instructors. After you graduate and pass your boards you can:rotfl:

[GEMINI06]

Okay gals and guys.....what is the real issue here - wrinkled clothes? or immediate dismissal from nursing school because of them?

To the wrinkled clothes I say there are many great suggestions here that work, so try them and see what works best for you.

My school program hated our nursing uniforms and so we formed a committee that conducted a literature review and some research. We found some suprising results: 1) The majority of the public really does prefer a nurse in all white. Concepts of preofessionalism, hygiene (including wrinkle free clothes, short nails, no body/facial piercings) did make a difference in how clients perceived care givers and their competency. All pointing to the fact that it is not just the school and crabby clinical teachers that want us looking spruce, but the people we will be caring for!!!! - Is that the way the world should work? Debatable, but for now it is. 2)Have any of you ever taught or been a leader in a group that had to wear uniforms? When deciding on a uniform, it is not an easy task. There is always a certain level or resistance and rebellion (consciously and subconsciously - like not ironing the uniform). Let's look at it from the clinical instructor's point of view - they are responsible for every thing their students do at clinical from passing meds to wiping rears. It is their job to make sure the students are competent and performing safe effective care. This includes making sure the students are following dress code and uniforms are neat, clean and professional looking. From experience it is far easier to take a strict stance on uniform interpretation rather than give liberties to students. Uniforms become one more thing teachers have to "police" and it would be nice if people would just not fight the system. What happenes when one clinical instructor lets you get away with being wrinkled and another wants to dismiss you from school altogether?? Situations quickly get out of hand. Our program had the problem or stating students should wear khaki pants - Do you have any idea how many colors, cuts, fabrics, styles, etc. of "khaki pants" are on the market? We had people come to clinicals in everything from khaki scub bottoms to shiny low-rise hip-huggers. At any rate, a few instructors never said anything, others fussed up a storm. So what did we do - we released a strict interpretation of "khaki pants" until the committee determined the new uniform, leaving very little room for creative interpretation.

Let's not blame the clinical instructors and school for wanting professional looking students, it takes more than one side to have a conflict.

What is freightening is that the clinical instructor did not have the gonads to correct the situation with a simple discussion - Maybe along the lines of are you overwhelmed with school and work - do you not have enough time to prepare yourself....you know the good old nursing approach of find out what the root of the problem is by talking to someone?! Boy did that instructor miss a major mentoring opportunity! Being sent home from clinical is one thing, being dismissed from school quite another. If that is how the program treats their students, I would question the integrity of the school and the instructor. Good luck to you!

[truern]

I confess....I'm a neat freak.

I iron my scrubs...yes indeedy, I do. I even spray a bit of starch on the creases.

[CHATSDALE]

don't like starch because it can set in wrinkles touch up uniformwith iron

but basically you should look professional...if someone notices that you don't look up to par i bet it is because you don't

people don't realized how THEY smell but they can always notice that in other people

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

Forget the wrinkly clothes; it just proves you are working hard. As far as the stinky student; get over your natural smell and save the rest of from your offense. Your comments about wiping patients butts and there just unconscious anyway are distasteful and show nothing but ignorance on your part.

You must be a dream as a lab partner. Stuck up and smelly at the same time.

Anyone who believes natural body odor smells better than deodorant has never been stuck in an elevator in Paris with fourteen Parisians for an hour, or walked through a busy marketplace in Saudi Arabia in the middle of July at around two pm.

I've done both.

Trust me - if they'd done even one of those things, they'd have a new appreciation for chemical suppressants!