Weird/ Dumb Nursing School Rules

Purple_roses · Mar 12, 2016

Am I the only one who cares? If you can't bother to to keep up with your hygiene/hair, what does that say about you?
Edited to add: Long hair needs to be tied up & kept out of patient care. I wouldn't want someone's beard or any hair in me or my loved one. That is so disgusting.

I definitely care about hygiene and hair. And if one of my classmates came to clinical in a wrinkled uniform, with long fingernails, and had clearly not groomed, I would be ticked. I like that nursing is a respected and trusted profession and I sympathize with wanting to uphold the profession. Totally justified. I'm talking more along the lines of petty little rules--they don't bother me very much. And every single environment has rules. But I still think some of them are silly. (Again, not the hygiene ones....one of my coworkers had her hair graze through a C-diff depend.....hair up! Yuck!)

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2016

I seriously believe the OP intended this thread to be on the lighter side about what nursing students go through....I had a nursing instructor that walked around with shoe polish in her pocket. She had an aversion to scuff marks...LOL

vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN · Mar 13, 2016

My LVN/LPN school had lots of rules I made sure to follow:

No panty lines, no panty designs showing, no thongs:

So I bought "clinical undies" in a flesh tone brief style.

All white wipe-able non skid shoes:

So I bought danskos.

Hair off your neck:

So I wore a bun every clinical day for a year.

A few weeks before I was set to graduate, we had a substitute clinical instructor who was new to our school.

She told me she would write me up and send me home because of my sock color.

I didn't know we had a sock rule, or else I would have followed it. I bought these thick pink socks compression socks with arch support and cushioned toe and heel pads specifically for clinicals because danskos have hard insoles. I had been wearing them since 1st or 2nd semester.

I never wore those socks again.

When I started RN school, I bought thick white socks. But was never able to find solid white super thick compression socks. Oh well! My feet have survived!! Lol!

lavenderskies, BSN · Mar 13, 2016

I thought it was embarrassing to wear a nursing cap with whites to clinicals (late 80's). None of the nurses in the hospitals we did clinicals at wore caps any more, and scrubs were becoming more common in areas other than OR/ED. It felt a little like we were being snickered at but it's possible that was in my head. But I figured it was all apart of the process so I just wore it knowing eventually it'd be a bye gone. :woot:

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Mar 13, 2016

I think the weirdest thing was that, at the time, we were so entrenched in our white uniforms, that even the hair ties had to be white. That seemed really strange to me as this seemed to be more "flashy" than if we just had black or brown hair ties. It was just....so much control.

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Mar 13, 2016

Oh, I wanted to add that I despised that we were made to bring our skills bag to sim lab every single time throughout the entire program.
I would park off campus and walk to class, and in the summer, it was awful. Our school scrubs were dark red and black and made of the most inhumane material. Carrying that bag plus my backpack was seriously the pits. I would curse under my breath the whole walk!
We only used those stupid bags for fundamentals, but I still had to lug it each time. oh the perils of being a student...at the mercy of everything.

Yes!!! What is it with those bags?!?!? We got ours, too, used them maybe for 2 days and still carried them wherever for any sims day and never used them again. WHAT WAS THE POINT?!?!

jinki · Mar 13, 2016

I graduated last June (in case anyone thinks I went to a nursing school in the 60's), but we weren't even allowed to attend lecture (or enter the nursing building) if we weren't wearing our specific shade of royal blue scrubs, id badge, and solid black or white nursing shoes (with matching solid white or black socks, of course, ankle-length minimum, mid-calf length preferred, which some instructors actually do make you pull up your pants to check at random).

That, even if you're just popping in for a minute to give the nursing office secretary paperwork or whatever.

Oh, and our hoodies/cardigans should only be solid black, white or blue. If you plan to use it during clinicals, it has to have the school's badge on the left deltoid area.

The girls were allowed to wear their hair down during lecture, but some instructors still gave sass to girls who do. One girl got chewed out when she bent down to pick something off the school hallway floor, and an instructor saw she was wearing a thong. lol

In hindsight, it was actually convenient to not have to think of what to wear to class.

I'd assume it's normal (but then again, I thought it was normal to wear scrubs to lecture), but a couple instructors would also lock students out of lecture if they're 15 minutes late-- some would fail you if you do that three times, or once, if you do it in clinicals. And you can never be absent. I mean, unless it's okay for you to fail, which you can only do twice (or just the one time during the first semester) until you're kicked off the program and barred entry from any nursing program in our district.

Oh, and for clinicals, some instructors explicitly state that students should never ever sit down or else.

Also, I had someone in my clinical group get kicked off the program for using a blue pen to fill out his NPW. To be fair, it was the second or third time he did it, and I was just like, "dude. what are you doing."

Before I graduated, I heard that the department was planning an alumni dinner/fundraiser. I don't know how well that turned out. I appreciate the education-- and I ADORE some of the faculty, but I'm not in a hurry to be back there myself. The PTSD is still real. lol

Silverdragon102, BSN · Mar 13, 2016

Can we please keep to topic in this thread. I have moved several off topic posts from this thread

Luckyyou, BSN, RN · Mar 13, 2016

No nurses are going to agree with you on the the fact that you think those rules are bs. It's not gonna happen. Maybe a pre-nursing student will agree with you.

I'm a practicing nurse who went to class 99.9% of the time in t-shirts and sweat pants. Or gym shorts. Or oversized hoodies. Oddly enough, people take me seriously just fine. Nobody cared what we wore outside of clinicals, just that we were serious about learning the information.

OrganizedChaos, LVN · Mar 13, 2016

I'm a practicing nurse who went to class 99.9% of the time in t-shirts and sweat pants. Or gym shorts. Or oversized hoodies. Oddly enough, people take me seriously just fine. Nobody cared what we wore outside of clinicals, just that we were serious about learning the information.

I still think it's wrong to dress like that once you get into the program. You are held to a different level & nursing is so respected.

Purple_roses · Mar 13, 2016

I'm a practicing nurse who went to class 99.9% of the time in t-shirts and sweat pants. Or gym shorts. Or oversized hoodies. Oddly enough, people take me seriously just fine. Nobody cared what we wore outside of clinicals, just that we were serious about learning the information.

My staples are my Blackhawks sweat pants, yoga pants, my hoodies, and comfy sweaters. I listen during lecture, never skip class, and get As on most of my tests. Always in dress code for clinicals. My teachers still like me even though I dress for comfort.

MamaBeaRN · Mar 13, 2016

I still think it's wrong to dress like that once you get into the program. You are held to a different level & nursing is so respected.

So it's highly respected.... That means we have to look like conservative, stick up the you know what every where we go? We are still human, no? We all get hot when it's hot out.

And what's the big problem with facial hair, I'm unable to grasp that. It's on a man's face, it doesn't dangle down into anything.