Would this upset you?

[DroogieRN]

I will try not to be too descriptive, because I would really hate it if somehow, I was identified by peers or instructors because of this post.

My first year class has three clinical groups. Group 1 and, to a great extent, Group 2, are the first to find out "things" that are going on with our class -- there is a huge communication breakdown at my school; don't know if that's common. But frequently, we in Group 3 feel a little out of the loop. And we're small, so we know each other fairly well already, and all of us are serious students. We try to help each other out to learn procedures and at clinicals.

Our first clinicals are at a nursing home -- maybe that's the same for all nursing students, I don't know. After several weeks, the understanding and the plan was that we would move to the hospital for about four weeks until the end of the semester. Now, I personally love the nursing home. I have a genuine affinity for the patients there and can see myself in that setting one day, but I want lots of experiences first. But we were just informed after clinical yesterday that our group will have to remain at the LTC for the entire semester because the hospital cannot accommodate us on our clinical day, or we can split up and go on other days with the other groups.

I am pretty mad, to be frank. I selected the schedule I did based on my own family's schedule. To have to change it now would make things difficult (moreso than they already are with me being in nursing school). Not to mention, I have kind of bonded with the other students in my group. We are just now learning to work with each other. I don't want to lose that. We can keep our little team if we stay at the NH, but that means that while our classmates are in the hospital gaining that experience, we are doing the same tasks over and over and having a very difficult time with our therapeutic communication. Furthermore, wouldn't you think this is something that ought to have been ironed out before we were allowed to schedule for this day? Am I wrong to be so ticked off? I feel quite impotent over it -- I think that if I tell them my true thoughts, I'll be thought of as a troublemaker and my remaining time at school will be more difficult.

Do I just need to suck it up? Tell me; I can take it. And thanks in advance for any words of wisdom.:heartbeat

PS -- I love this website. Thank you from the bottom of my heart :redbeathe for its existence.

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

I am from the west coast but this kind of stuff has happened in my program all the time. Some things much worse than what you describe (half of our class is graduating earlier than the other half because of a screw up) and every time something gets screwed up, which is at least once or twice a semester, they say "this is what nursing is about, dealing with the unexpected...." I think if I hear that one more time I am going to SCREAM!!! Its just their way of taking the blame off of themselves...I probably would not be so disgruntled if they would apologized once in a while; but that is yet to come. I will just be glad when it is over...but yes, you can expect your shift to change when you are a nurse and no one is going to give you extra sympathy because you have a family...so get use to it; but I feel your frustration!!!!