Booted

I have a picture sitting in front of me of 4 students and a clinical instructor. I am in the picture as a student. So, how many students in my picture do you think actually made it through the entire nursing program? Keep reading to find out...

Recently on the allnurses.com board, a bunch of posts popped up about why people get kicked out of nursing school. Here is the deal--there is no guarantee any student will make it through the program. Yeah, getting A's in lecture helps--but it doesn't get you anywhere w/out passing the clinical component--you fail clinical, you fail lecture. You fail lecture, you fail clinical, capiche?

In my school, you can get booted out for the following reasons:
-Failing a drug calculation test
-Missing clinical
-Getting less than a 75% (no rounding) in lecture
-Getting a "U" in clinical (any variety of reasons for this from going to clinical unprepared to unsafe practice--the unsafe practice thing usually means you can't come back and try the semester over--depending on what you did)
-Missing lecture
-Missing a skills checkoff (You get two chances on this. Ex: taking a blood pressure [and you take a fellow student's with the instructor listening]: if you mess up the first time, you get to try again. Can't do it? You're out!)

There is some grace in some of these areas. The point is--if you can't make it in the program, THEY know and will get rid of you somehow.

A little story: Molly (her name changed) was a 1st semester nursing student. The night before her 1st clinical, Molly needed to pick up her patient assignment and complete a packet of paperwork to bring with her the following morning to clinical. This paperwork normally takes many hrs to complete, so Molly needed to stay up VERY late that night. The following morning, Molly went to clinical. Once there, her instructor told her and the other students to go ahead to their patient's rooms and start working--the instructor would be around to check paperwork, etc.

So, the instructor got to Molly's patient's room right at lunch time--only to find the patient still in bed, in her nightgown, without having had any of her ADL's(activities of daily living). The nursing aids normally assigned to this patient had assumed Molly would be doing her job as a student, so they had left her to it. Bewildered, the instructor started looking for Molly, but could not find her on the floor, the bathroom, the break room, etc.

The instructor went back to the patients room and began getting the patient up, etc. Walking to the closet to get the patient's clothing, she opened it, only to find Molly sitting in the closet and using a penlight to complete the paperwork due hours before. Molly was promptly booted from the nursing program, and banned from this particular program forever...

Yes, a true story. Now, as to the picture...Of the four students, two made it all the way. One of those two failed the NCLEX and has yet to pass. One (me) moved away after 1st semester and is back to finish. One other student was failed two weeks before graduation in clinical. No, she was not Molly from the above story...This student had her own unpleasant story-- and I'll save it for later.

So, tally it up--1 out of 4 students made it all the way and is an RN, today. 25%. Hm.