Written up!

[as2633]

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of anxiety over being written up today and basically I want to know if getting written up in school will have an impact on my ability to find a job after school.

I'm currently in psych clinical, I was paired with another student and we were sent to a community service board to do home visits with a registered nurse. When we arrived to the clinical site we did not see any cars and it was slightly residential. We waited outside for a few moments, and then my partner suggested we were at the wrong location (there had been confusion about another site earlier in our semester). We decided to go to an active clinical site we passed on our way there to figure out what was going on. When we got there the nurse tried calling the site we were supposed to be at and didn't get an answer. She sent us back, told us she would call someone to make sure we got our clinical time. In hindsight, our actions were silly.

Fantastic.

When we got back to the clinical site people were there and we entered, however, the nurse had already left to do her rounds. We were told to sit and interact with the social workers for the rest of the day. Around 1 our clinical instructor showed up to collect our attendance (a document signed by the head nurse saying we were there the full day). We handed those in and she left. Around 1:30 the nursing staff dismissed us even though we were supposed to be there until 3 p.m.

My partner and I went home and the next day saw we were given zeros for our attendance/assignments. Today I had a meeting with the DON. Basically, we were written up. When I read the sheet it sounded like it was for not contacting the school when we were dismissed to have the paper work corrected. Honestly, this didn't even cross my mind. I'm sort of kicking myself.

Am I screwed when I go to find a job? I graduate in six months and am stressing slightly.

[Ash333]

Not one bit. I have been written up before for something stupid with parking during nursing school. It has no impact on your ability to be a nurse or getting a job after graduation for that matter. When you are hired, the school is alerted, and when you look for a job, it's not like you have a stamp on your resume saying, " I have been written up, DON'T HIRE ME." Just take this experience as a learning one, move on, get over it, and be the great nurse we all know you are.

All the best.

[merlee]

No one I know of ever asks to see your student records. If you graduated and passed your boards is usually all they need to know.

The entire situation sounds confusing to me. So you didn't go to the address you were given, is that correct? Did you call your instructor for clarification? The issue here is will this be enough to fail you for your clinicals in this area.

best wishes!

[tyvin, BSN, RN]

I wouldn't want to make light of this type of thing (or laugh at it) because I know from experience that this very well could be a serious thing. To me I'm surprised you were written up by the DON or was it your school... You're a student right? Even though I can't imagine how anyone could access your records from school on such matters unless you gave it to them.

Now for the nurses telling you to go home early...I would have called the clinical instructor for advice of what to do. You are in school but you need to think when situations such as that arise. In school when in doubt call the instructor...always! Of course until they tell you to stop calling them (lol).

You could take a lesson from nursing process...ADPIE:

A-they are dismissing you

D-they are tired of a nursing student hanging around

P-call the person who is in charge of you being there.

I-call the clinical instructor

E-goal of this step is to be able to evaluate that you contacted the person and cleared things up therefore short and long term goals achieved. Like what to do at that time and what to do in the future should it happen again.

[as2633]

We got the address, but there were three different addresses for three different community service board locations (all had different names). We knew what location we were to be at and the address. When we didn't see any vehicles we figured this was the wrong location. Earlier in our semester two students got lost because the school provided an incorrect address or something. We assumed we had the incorrect address. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there wasn't a whole lot of critical thinking happening on our part either.

As far as our instructor, we aren't given cell phone numbers. We were to arrive at 0700- our school isn't even open at that time so we decided to best course of action was the head over to another location that we knew was active.

Regardless, it was our fault. I just feel so stupid and don't want this impacting my chances of finding a job. I'm also worried people think I don't care or take these things seriously. I'm being a little neurotic though.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

I cannot imagine this will impact you getting a job at all. Don't talk about it in interviews and don't list this clinical instructor as a reference and problem solved. The only information any job ever requested from my school was an official transcript and I think that was just to prove I graduated. I have an entire semester of Ws (had to withdraw a semester and take a medical LOA) and it has never once come up in the real world.

[Pachinko]

Don't sweat it.