being treated unfairly by school teachers?

[GoofieRN, LVN]

Hi, im an asian student in this nursing program. I recently got booted out of my LVN program due to a med error that i had during my clinical. It was the only error that i ever made. Aside from that, i'm an B+ standing student in my classwork. My attendance was good. Anyway, the point is i consider myself a good student overall. But let me tell you about my error:

It was in my clinical day when my pt. have a routine antihypertensive med due at 0900. I hold the med because the patient was diaphoretic and tired, her BP that i took at the moment was 95/80? something like that, can't remember exact. So my instructor told me to hold the med, which i did. Then about 1/2 an hr. later, i went back to take another BP for followup, it was then 93/78? so i went back to tell my instructor, knowing to myself that of course it's still too low to give the med. But this is where the problem occurs. As i went to tell my instructor the BP, because it may be due to med passing hour, so everyone was after the instructor to check them off with their meds. Let me tell you a bit about the med giving procedure that the instructor set up for us: Normally, the teacher would ask us for meds indication, side effects, and lab values to watch for. Then she would normally go to the pt. room with us and watch us till we ID pt. name band to the MAR. Then she would allow us to give the med to the pt. on our own.

So let me continue back to my mistake, so as i went to tell my instructor that the pt. BP had drop a little bit more as compare to earlier BP. She just faced the other direction and mumble something to me, of what i heard give it. Once hearing that, i already asked her what? give it? and she reconfirms, and i can honestly say that i heard "give it" again. So i went to give the med. As mentioned earlier, that i know at that value, i shouldn't be giving it. But then i felt that since i've told the instructor that, and she still tells me to give it, then there must have been a good reason to. Anyhow, after an hour later, when the pt. needed to be given another routine antihypertensive med, the instructor told me that "here, you can go give this med to the pt. since the earlier one you HOLD it." and i said: "what? i thought you told me to give it- so i went to give it". Her replied was: "What the hell were you thinking? how can you be so stupid! i asked u to hold it". As you can understand, if i could have heard her saying "HOLD IT, INSTEAD OF GIVE IT" then i wouldn't have gone to give the med, i'm not dumb, plus, why would i do that first of all? if it wasn't due to a communication problem, if it wasn't due to my instructor's fault for not facing me as she gives such an important message? So the problem escalated to the charge nurse of the hospital and to the director of nursing in my school.

The DON of our school asks for my side of the story, which i told her the same from what i've just written out to u. But at that point, she already had it mind that i was to be kicked out of the program. She said that this was a major med error, which i understand. Honestly, i don't think that any med error is consider is "minor" anyway. I feel horrible that day for that mistake, because i was only afraid of the pt. safety. I just cried and cried to myself, and mainly mad at myself for not bringing up the fact to tell my instructor out loud again that I know the BP was too low before i give it.

But what i later found unfair in this system is that of another lady, let's call her Jess who is also a student of the same program, a classmate of mine. She consistently made 3 med errors: #1) giving med to pt. that was NPO for surgery #2) giving some med, not sure #3) giving the same antihypertensive drug the same way that i made mistake on. But on all 3 cases, the instructor said that it was instructor's fault and did no punishment was made to my classmate. My intention here is not to try to get anyone in trouble. But the point that im bringing this up is because I don't think that the school system is fair to all students. I feel that perhaps because Jess is always more of a teacher pleaser and more aggressive person, that it is possible that the instructors and DON were afraid of her suing them or for whatever reason behind? I just feel that I should do something to bring my situation to a fair justice.

Now, I'm having chicken pox at home. So i called for day off from school, my DON comment to this is "you know, if it's not one thing then it's the other with you" Well, i wanted to tell her so much out loud that, really, if i had a choice, i would not schedule my chicken pox during this time. SHe made it sounded like i scheduled this to happen to me at age. 23.

So now, i'm not sure of what to do. I'm afraid that if i maintain in this program, eventually they'll come up with a reason to boot me out again. Then i'd really waste all my efforts then, since i've already put a lot of time and driving to this program becuase it's 35 miles each way drive for me to go to school and clinicals. What should i do? What would u do if u were me? please advise. If i was not kicked out of the program early last month, i would have been done this July for LVN with the A class. BUt not, i'm in this B class, and it's not done till December, plus i gotta repeat all the clinical hours that i've done previously for now, and wait until the rest of B class get to the GU unit where i was stopped at. If i eventually get kick out again, does anyone know of how i can attention this to the BVNPT? Do u think they can do anything to help me? will it be a negative to my record for future nursing schools? if i do file a complaint to BVNPT? THanks for reading this long post.

Sincerely,

Sad and confused

[nurse_clown]

sorry you are going through this. i'm sure there are nurses who have never made a med error in their life. but there are nurses who do make a med error at one point in their careers. you are correct, i don't think there is such thing as a "minor" med error and it's good that you take your error seriously. some people don't. i know what it's like as a student when you know you have to clarify something and instructors can be intimidating.

if you continue on with the program and i encourage you to do so, then ask the school to assist you with a faculty advisor or a mentor. you have to get back on the horse and move on and make sure you don't make an error again. a faculty advisor can review info with you and give you tips to remember things. when i had trouble in nursing school, i was in her office almost every day. i needed a lot of encouragment and guidance.

don't take this incident lightly. don't walk away from nursing. i wouldn't walk away from the school either. an incident like this is a serious blow to the esteem and you can't beat yourself up over this either.

i'm pretty sure i exhausted my faculty advisor because sometimes someone else had to stay behind with me. but i had a lot of questions and comments to make. that's what they are there for. i know they can only take so much but i really wanted to be a nurse and i guess they believed me and i got a lot of help from them.