I know I've said it before...

...but the thing I hate most about nursing school is the drama.

This week, for example, was Peds clinical wrap-up. Everyone is supposed to be happy because we all, assumedly, passed. My group has done pretty well, so none of us were too worried about suddenly failing out.

This clinical rotation only saw one incident that could have failed someone so far. One student left the hospital sick because she thought the CI (clinical instructor) told her to "go home" when the instructor really said "you should probably go home." The student didn't hand her paperwork in and just left the facility--this all happened on the day I wasn't there due to illness, so at least I got to miss that whole drama! If our CI felt like it, she could have failed this student, but the CI worked it out w/ her and had her bring the paperwork back up to the hospital, docked the student some points, and that was that. The student wasn't even written up. So, I was pretty impressed that my CI was so flexible when a misunderstanding occurred...

So, THIS week, on Thurs, we all brought in snacks and put together a HUGE gift for our CI (we went WAY, WAY overboard--I don't know what happened, but it was too much and kinda embarrassing). One classmate showed up looking kinda miffed and acted VERY strangely all day towards everyone. This girl is normally very talkative and fun, but she was biting peoples heads off all day and being VERY rude in general. We thought it had something to do with the gift or maybe she fought with her hubby or something? Nope.

I gave her a call yesterday morning to ask if she was okay because she left clinical crying after post conference on Thurs. She told me a pretty shocking story: Basically, on Wens, the clinical instructor told this student that she should choose another profession besides nursing because she just isn't cut out for it.

Now, I have always "heard" of instructors saying this kind of crap, but just thought it was another stupid nursing school rumor? I mean, that's pretty harsh, even if it IS true in some cases...

Anyway, this particular student had a couple more run-ins w/ the CI on Wens, and no one really knew anything about what was happening cuz we were all working our butts off w/ our own patients. Then we all went home after a short post-conference that was tense.

On Thurs morning, the CI called this girl at home and told her she had been written up for "surfing the internet on the floor, being unprofessional, and refusing to suction her patient 8 times." The student was informed that the CI called the director of the program Wens night and both had contemplated failing her, but they decided to give her one more chance. The student had to show up early before her last clinical to read her probation sheet, sign it, and then spend the day proving that she was fit to be a nurse someday. Ouch.

This whole thing shocks me a bit--my CI is so reasonable that I can't see her doing this kind of thing for no reason. Of course, my classmate is going to fight the probation, and if she fails clinical, she will take it to the school board.

I guess I feel like I don't know who to "believe" in the situation and it kinda messes w/ what I think of both of them. Trying to let the whole thing slide in my mind 'cuz it doesn't involve me, yet at the same time it makes me nervous. Like what if something like that happened to me? My classmate says this just kind of blindsided her, and honestly, this is my worst-case-scenario in school--that my CI will suddenly decide I just can't do this nursing thing and I will be GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

We all have our evaluations and find out if we pass/fail on 3/5/07. Oh boy.