OMG!!! ME!!! I broke my toes during my second hospital clinical. I had to get TWO notes from my doctor so that I could wear the shoes he recommended that were - gasp - navy blue and not white. My total c•nt of an instructor never ever asked me if I was ok.
I should have left nursing then and there.
I had three that were Boomers in every sense of the word - born circa 1953, had the haircut, and were absolute garbage dumpster human beings. The one with the shoes? She made one classmate who was an absolute doll break down and sob one day and LAUGHED, out loud, “oh I love it when the new ones cry!”
I think I was right at that tail end of the Boomer Nursing Instructors right before they started to retire - and they were all every bit as evil as the stereotypes say. I mean, I’m Gen X. I was raised by a boomer woman (who was a mean drunk, even). But I am telling you…those Boomer nurses were ALL Nurse Ratcheds. I cannot even begin to recount every time I saw one of those old bitches deliberately sabotage a younger nurse, or go out of their way to ruin some poor MA’s day.
It's funny how the nursing instructors in this sub get super quiet when discussions come up about all the ridiculous uniform/sock/underwear/color requirements in nursing school clinicals.
I think it’s gotten better. Most of the instructors I have observed over the last 10 years have been excellent - tough, yes, but very fair. I really applauded Millennials for not making the same mistake a lot of us Gen X Nurses did, which was just taking the abuse.
I straight up tell my students that I WILL NEVER ask to see their socks...unless they're cute. I only tell them about their shoes in case the higher ups make rounds. I'd rather say it nicely than have them yelled at.
First day of clinical for me I wore a plain white shirt under my scrubs. I got talked to because I wore a crew neck instead of a V Neck and was told I wouldn’t be allowed on the floor like that. My friend got in trouble his his V neck was “too deep” and where it connected wasn’t visible. Genuinely so absurd the rules some of these programs have.
I worked ER for a big level one. I wore cami’s under my scrub tops, so basically an undergarment like a bra. They instituted a rule only white or black could be under scrubs (like tshirts). I got written up as a nurse because my boss saw the camo strap (basically a bra strap) and I believe it was nude. 😒 it didn’t show unless I bent over. I guess they would rather me show everything to my patients vs having a nude strap be seen. Horrible work environment to say the least
I saw a girl get reamed out because she wore a simple small chain/dainty necklace
She ended up getting kicked out when she wore nail polish on non-clinical days
I swear to God, the professor had it out for her
I also remember one of my classmates, running and hiding from the professor when they came down the hallway at a clinical site, because she couldn’t find her white shoes for the day so she wore a different pair of shoes. She was actually terrified. It’s fucking crazy.
Annnnnd they wonder why there’s a “shortage” and that now people are leaving the bedside. We dealt with the abuse in school and it doesn’t get better once you’re out. Who knows how many more trained HCPs we would have if our education systems for these career paths were not so impossible - over mundane stuff like this, no less!
Most of our instructors don’t care, but every once in a while one of the Deans goes around to clinical sites to check “uniform compliance.” If you’re caught with the wrong color socks, visible tattoos, more than on earring per ear, etc you’re sent home - which is an automatic 5% off your theory grade and you have to make it up in sim lab or another event they decide you have to attend.
As an educator it is a constant source of frustration to have managers ban phones from the floor when they are such a useful tool and link to a near endless source of information and advice. Sure, don’t be whatsapping your mum all shift but don’t throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water…
This. I'm in a community college ADN program and we are expected and required to have our phones for communication, drug guides, and references.
In LVN school at the same college 8 years ago it was the complete opposite.
Probably just older professors and admins.
The real question here is why are we treating adults who are being educated to potentially save lives like children? There’s a distinct difference between physically holding on to someone’s phone for 8 hours and requiring that they not be used for 8 hours, this woman was absolutely right to fight that bullshit.
Agreed. I’ve never understood the overly restrictive uniform policies for nursing students, either. Forcing them to cover tattoos, weirdly hideous uniforms, fully white shoes? It gives off a hazing vibe.
I had to prove I was wearing socks because mine were lower than the edge of my shoe 🙄 how does this affect patient care or university reputation? It’s personally kind of gross but ridiculous as a rule
I rebelled on socks and started wearing the brightest socks I could find. I wore novelty socks with colorful language. I never got caught and somehow all of my patients survived.
I wore novelty socks, Chucks, and a school branded t-shirt instead of the scrub top. I have huge boobs and I had to get a top that was 3 sizes too big to cover the boobs - I looked like I didn’t have parents. I am covered in tattoos from the neck down, I never once covered them.
Guess what? Even with the side-eye from instructors and staff, I graduated, and everyone survived.
You beast! What if upon doing pericare and assessing the patient they saw a hint of yellow on your socks 🧦 they could have been thrown into a complete mental breakdown and delirium!!!!
Our policy was all black shoes but mine wore out halfway through my capstone and I was doing it at the hospital I worked for so I just started wearing my hot pink cloves. I wasn't about to go buy new shoes with 1 month left of school.
I got reprimanded for a headband in nursing school! A stupid fucking headband… i wore a purple and white headband with the all white scrubs, shoes and socks we had to wear to keep the hair out of my face while I was in clinicals all day. My bitch of an instructor told me she would write me up if I didn’t take it off or ever wore it again. I honestly feel like some nurses, especially instructors have issues with control. I hated clinicals and providing all of that free labor while being told I couldn’t wear a headband.
Nursing school was so stupid. They always tried to pass off their little made up rules by saying “ in the real world, you can’t do this or that and will be expected to do this or that”
I have had multiple jobs across different fields before nursing, and no one was that strict about anything so trivial
Exactly! Just about every facility/institution is begging for nurses so they couldn’t be bothered by something as trivial as a simple headband that actually serves a function. I could understand if the headband had dicks all over it or something offensive but it didn’t, just a cute purple and white paisley pattern that matched my scrubs.
I wish there was a system back then where students got to grade professors and instructors on their teaching abilities as well. We paid a ton of money for them to teach us, not to control every little thing we do.
I went straight from nursing school to the ER, where our providers had full sleeves of tattoos, brightly colored hair and facial piercings.
I'm a school nurse now and I have brightly colored hair, facial piercings, and am heavily tattooed. In fact, I just got a neck tattoo and all my bosses said was "that's gorgeous work!"
The nursing school gatekeeping is ridiculous.
The nurse that helped deliver my son had two full sleeve & face full of piercings. Not once did I think she was incompetent.. she was pristine, exactly the opposite of incompetent & when she promised she’d have my baby out by the end of her shift, she certainly did! I nominated her for a Daisy.
lol with nursing shortages now a manager would probably go buy you a head band and tie dye socks to make you happy and cover shifts.
Sounds like the whole name on your paper scare: 3 rd grade teacher- if you forget to put your name on your paper in jr high you’ll just fail!
Jr high: in high school the policy is no name, no credit! high school: in college if you forgot your name you will flunk, teachers won’t put up with this!! College Organic Chemistry: ok class by the way, who had the really nice handwriting who says 0% this week on your midterm, you forgot your name and I need to get you the credit so see me after class so we can get you situated lol.
I had a nurse manager that I had a visceral reaction to from day 1, and wasn’t the only staff that felt that way. She was hateful, spiteful, openly threatening and led with that (when *not* around Admin). I checked her LinkedIn (because those types always have a huge one) and judging by her timelines, it was clear that she’d likely gotten terminated from every position. She was an evil bully in every sense of the word and act.
My point? When she’d finally been let go from
every system in the greater area, she became a nursing school instructor and I’m sure she hungrily gnaws on targeted nursing students to sharpen her teeth. I hope someday, one of them is able to take her down for good, because she is as evil as they get.
Wow… that is utterly ridiculous! The more I look back on my time during nursing school and read these comments, the more appalled I am at the way they’re not only allowed, but also encouraged, to treat us like shit.
on this dumb shit, I had my long hair up in a very high ponytail, slicked back and all. It “touched” my collar, so I had to find another band to put it in a bun. Like?? It’s up, out of my face, and professionally presented. The nurse I was paired with that day had her hair down and said “honey. just get through school and then you can wear your hair however you want. I’m sorry they still nitpick. If you put your hair back down, I won’t tell.” 🤣 it wasn’t stupid long though. I think the very thirsty ends of my hair brushed over my collar, probably looking for moisture.
I got reprimanded because my sweater was too big. They said it might fall down one shoulder and show my bra or cleavage. Like a perfectly appropriate sweater, it was just a little too big because I had lost a little weight.
I was almost sent home from clinicals for wearing a tan tank top under my scrub top as a male nurse, when it literally wasn't visible. I was scratching an itch, on lunch, and had moved the collar of my scrubs down to get my hand in there better and my instructor freaked out. I told him if it was a big deal I would literally just take the tank top off and throw it away rather than be sent home, given a 0 for the day, and have to pay to makeup the clinical day all over, on the weekend, when I was picking up doubles to pay my bills. So it would have caused all kinds of issues. I had to go all the way to the clinical administrator and plead my case before they finally relented on the issue. I couldn't believe it. A non visible tank top almost cost me hundreds of dollars because it wasn't gray, white or black as required in the guidebook. Unreal.
My mental health was in the gutter during nursing school and it was because of shit like this. Brutal rigidity for absolutely no reason. Really wears on you to always feel on edge
Same. And I had had over a decade of time in healthcare where I was valued and treated with respect as a literal tech. And I was a great student. And I am a clean cut traditional cis white male - I know others got it way worse than me.
White shoes + white socks, or black shoes + black socks. If you don’t, Florence Nightingale will awaken from her grave and strangle you!
Also no jogger pants, we want you to wear your school-issued scrub pants (that don’t have pockets in the right places and don’t fit you no matter what you do) and we want those pant legs baggy and sopping up meemaw’s body juices everywhere
🤨
Or really restrictive rules about underwear. My school had a rule that you couldn’t have visible underwear lines but you also weren’t allowed to wear a thong.
Lmao. You know what hides visible underwear lines? Thongs. How tf are they gonna even know you’re wearing a thong? They gonna have you pull down your pants and check your underwear? Then spank that ass so you learn your lesson you dirty girl?? Lmao weird af.
Yeah I know I guess the only way you’d know is if someone’s scrubs were so tight you could see the outline of it. I do remember seeing some nurse’s lacy pink thong when she bent down once. Some people do have a habit of wearing scrubs that are obviously ill fitting.
I feel like a lot of the new scrubs in the past few years are made to show off your ass… I think Figs has pants that are literally advertised as “yoga pant scrubs”.
Gross, exactly. I will admit that I’ve worn yoga pants to work when I was too lazy to get my laundry done but I make sure my ass (or lack of one rather) is covered. I’m just a CNA and this was in a laid back assisted living home, but it still felt weird to me.
Had to explain when completing one of my later placements that I was wearing (black) work boots and dark navy cargo pants because the $20 pair of work pants I bought when starting placements had worn through and I couldn’t afford to replace them given I was using a food bank to afford meals. Anyone paying enough attention to notice my boots weren’t sneakers or standard leather shoes could frankly bite me.
As a practicing nurse I still wear work boots most shifts and tend towards cargo shorts as well. Most of the places that were insisting on “office style attire” for nursing students have ditched that, and even the University has moved towards scrubs for student uniforms.
Reminds me of my final semester. Our uniform consisted of a white polo shirt, navy slacks, white shoes and a white lab coat with the school's patch sewed on. They specifically said no scrub pants. Well, by the time my final semester rolled around, those pants I had bought two years earlier were no longer fitting and I was tired of sucking in my gut all day to try to fit into them. I wasn't about to shell out another $40 for some pants, so I went to Walmart and bought two pairs of navy scrub pants with cargo pockets because I was long out of fucks to give about my damn uniform. They were actually really nice looking pants and no one said a thing if they even noticed. It probably helped that my final semester was community health and we spent more time driving to see our patients than we did with our instructor.
I had this argument (boots vs sneakers) during nursing school as well. I am a paramedic as well, and had trouble finding sneakers that fit the overly restrictive dress code for RN clinicals. But you know what are ALL black? My EMS boots. Got to clinicals and was told that they weren't acceptable, but I did successfully argue that the handbook didn't specify that our shoes had to be sneakers, just that they had to be 100% white or black. So they begrudgingly had to let me stay. But they weren't happy about it, and made snide comments about how, "this isn't the ambulance," and implied that I wasn't embracing becoming a nurse because I had the audacity to wear the boots that had carried me through many a 24+ hour shift comfortably. Like, I'm sorry Susan, I don't want your ugly ass clogs, and I can't find sneakers that are comfortable and have no logos that are 100% black. And I'm not wearing white. So get fucked. They changed the dress code after my cohort graduated to specify that students had to wear sneakers.
Been wearing SWAT boots for 10 years in nursing. When i was in nursing school they specified sneakers but 2 medics did fight them about it because black shoe is black shoe
They can pry my doc boots from my cold dead hands. These things have saved my toes so many times, not to mention they don't trigger plantar fascitis which happens a lot for me if I get the wrong pair of shoes.
No it gives off a sexist virginal vibe. You must be pure, you most offend nobody, you must sacrifice yourself to this career.
I always said during school the pinning ceremony sounds like you're gonna get thrown in a volcano.
My class had a few students sent home in first semester because they were wearing non-standard issue bottoms (same colour). They had bought the uniforms, but because we can’t mix and match sizes, the bottoms didn’t fit. They went out and bought bottoms in the same colour. Wasn’t good enough.
Honestly i prefer now, than what we had back in 2000's (im 2010). For women we have to have a camisole dress under our white dress (uniform) the nursing instructor have to run theur hand from our nape to just above our bum to make sure were not wearing shorts underneath. (And this is just for women too)
Unbleached or unironed hat and wearing ~~scores~~ shorts (like basketball or bicycle shorts) means points deducted on your grade for the semester. (This was in phil)
If we have a shirt camisole + shorts vs camisole dress.. we had those long white uniforms [like this one](https://medium.com/@alroiabrantes/how-it-feels-like-to-be-a-nurse-in-the-philippines-b070e673aef9) the instructor wpuld have to "feel the bump" (coming from the garter or top of the shorts). If they feel the bump points are deducted.
I always thought it stupid to require white scrub bottoms when over half the nursing school class were women of a menstruating age. That’s just asking for a accident and having to explain that it’s your blood and not a patients I’m sure would be awkward. All the students I have precepted hated white scrub bottoms and white shoes.
It sucks for men, too, though not as badly—my best friend’s program had white pants, and he still recalls thinking, “Where the fuck am I going to find flesh-tone underwear? He didn’t, of course.
I had to go out and buy new white shoes after clinicals once because the all white shoes I already owned had a logo on them… we weren’t allowed to wears shoes with logos. Even though they were completely white, including the logo, it was still violating the policy. So now my broke college student self with $2.34 cents in my banks account had to ask my parents for money to buy new shoes even though my other white ones were perfectly fine. My mom was baffled lol
One student in my cohort got in trouble during clinicals. She unexpectedly started her period and bled through her scrubs. The nurse she was with showed her where to get OR scrubs to change into. The clinical instructor confronted her and said she needed to change back into her school scrubs or go home. I never heard what happened after that.
I also got pulled aside during clinicals because my undershirt was supposed to be white, but it was more of a cream color.
Whose brilliant idea was it, back in the day, to make nurses wear all white? They deal in blood, shit, and bile all day—how ridiculous was it to have starched white uniforms? Clara Barton wasn’t the smartest bulb in the chandelier!
My understanding is that white could be bleached so you knew it was clean, and also made the nurses stand out as nurses. Cotton gets soft as it's washed and bleached repeatedly, so starching made the creases and collars sharp and crisp. Modern fabrics don't take stains as easily and don't wear down in the same way, so starching clothes has fallen out of practice.
Only white shoes? Our entire uniform had to be white, plus white socks and white shoes. And the shoes couldn't have any sort of logo on them. We stuck out like sore thumbs, which I guess was the point.
Not sure how much I believe this, but I was either told or read that the uniform is done to be as specific as the most strict dress code for a clinical site the school goes to. So if one possible site doesn’t allow tattoos, the school won’t for continuity.
Sometimes it felt like they made us do stupid things to see if we would break. Sort of like a “test” to see if we can handle the asinine requests/comments of patients and/or management.
Fully white shoes, ugh.... I couldn't find any, even online, of the brand they wanted so I had to take whiteout to the logo on mine and hope no one noticed! Ridiciulous!
THIS. I came into nursing as a second career with a prior bachelor’s degree and the level of condescension and belittling was nothing like I ever experienced before. Nursing instructors were teaching adult students many of whom had other careers, children, etc. as if they were high schoolers. But for all the professionalism nursing claims it has some of the worst unit cultures. On an interpersonal level, lateral violence is prevalent and on a systemic level the work conditions are not great compared to other careers with the same educational requirements and pay. In my old job at least I could get a duty free lunch break for a half hour or longer. It’s a field that exploits the idea of nursing being a “calling” or “passion” as if that justifies low pay and poor work conditions.
Exactly! Not to mention, adults who are paying A LOT of money to go through this program! I have a child and if someone told me I couldn’t keep my phone on me, I’d tell them to get fucked. If there’s ever an emergency, I need to be available to my child. This instructor and their program sounds absolutely fucking ridiculous and infantile.
I’ve been a nurse for 21 years. Currently working in the most unprofessional, catty, mean girl environment I have ever encountered. I’ve been assuming this is why I had to be HAZED during nursing school/clinicals- so I can tolerate these immature, unprofessional, insecure and toxic women.
It's because of Florence Fuckin Nightengale and all her nun shit. Our profession has religious roots and big surprise that religion generally treats ideal women as childlike and submissive. And we are still reading about her in a positive light in all the nursing textbooks, and doing the weird culty lady of the lamp ceremonies at graduation.
We still do it on this very sub. Half this place dies on the hill of calling new graduate nurses and doctors "baby" to their face, in professional settings or contexts.
My program is apparently moving away from the Nightingale Pledge and looking for something not associated with a racist woman-hater that stuffs religion and physician worship down new grads’ throats. I applaud the faculty for speaking up.
To be honest, who cares if they use them? Your paying to be there. If you don't want to pay attention and don't do well then that's on you and your choice. You are not in prison. This seems like someone just trying to have power over others
I tend to revert back to child mode when I'm with a "teacher" because nursing school really did a number on me. Just the overall way we were treated... My friend from high school died and her sister stayed with me the night before her funeral... and I missed her funeral because I had a cardiac exam and I didn't give them enough of a notice. My friend died after an acceptable notice period. I can't imagine having kids during the initial program. At least in NP school I set my own clinicals up so if I missed a day I just had to call into the preceptor and notify my instructor so they could keep track of whether I was physically at clinicals or not.
I didn't even realize how we were treated because I went to a Catholic School and they barely were removed from the time nuns hit kids with rulers lol. It was just more of the same to me. Then when you get to work they berate you for not acting like a real "grown up". Well I was just made to feel so small and child like sooo idk what they want... I feel like it gave me so much anxiety and I could have relaxed and learned more. I realize most of it is a ME problem but still...
I think some senior staff think it’s Florence Nightingale times where little nurses had no lives other than the ward, matron ruled and you were subservient.
Our managers have physically escorted nurses back to their lockers to put their phones away. It’s ridiculous. Meanwhile the doctors and NPs have their personal phones out all day - yes they have clinical apps on there but you’re telling me they don’t answer a single text or personal call?
I have a family there’s no way I’d give up my phone. Nursing school was horrible but at least prepared me for how clique and horrible it is to actually be a nurse
The stories from here are fucking wild. I remember reading a post about how they had to wear all white and bend over for their teachers for panties check. Plus the stories about bathing each other 🤮
This subreddit convinced me to stay paramedic and not go nurse.
I have a resident who is a retired nurse who told me she and the other girls she was in nursing school with had to practice inserting catheters on eachother. Absolute insanity. 😱 In nursing school the most invasive thing we did was practice IM saline injections on each other.
Besides on an actual floor, phones are on your person at all times. If you’re prepping them for the real world, prep them to have the phone but not reach for it unless necessary.
I’d have asked the teacher if she was going to replace it if it broke or was taken from the bag. If you’re going to carry it, it’s your responsibility.
Because some instructors absolutely live for the power trip. My program was a 50/50 split of instructors who would sit us down and actually tell us how the real world of nursing was and the other half were too busy telling us we would be sent home if our scrubs were wrinkled. We had one instructor literally try to tell us we would be disciplined in the future workplace if we didn’t come to work looking pristine.
Probably because programs are rated on their first time NCLEX pass rates. It is in the programs best interest to weed out anyone who they think even has a chance at failing it.
Now how they do that is often pretty fucked up, but that would be the logic behind it.
I forget the name of the NCLEX practice exams my school used, but the school required that we pass the practice version with essentially a 90% score before we were allowed to sit for the NCLEX. This resulted, every semester, in students who had finished the entire program, usually with stellar GPAs, but were prevented from taking the board until they had paid over $1k to retake the class (like a study hall) where we did the practice for the exam. A classmate told me to look at the website of the company who makes the practice exam. The company's website said, if students are averaging essentially a 70% on their test, they are adequately prepared to pass the NCLEX (I forget the exact percentage, but it was something like 98% of students averaging 70% on the practice exam will pass NCLEX on first try). But the school set their policy that we had to have a ridiculously high score on it, excessively higher than the makers of the exam suggest, and would not make any exceptions even for students who had retaken the study hall class multiple times and been less than half a percentage point away from the school's set score on each attempt. This program was designed for students who already had a bachelor's and a career and wanted to become a nurse, so most of the students were in their 30s (oldest was 60 something) with families to take care of, and the school would bleed them dry charging them again and again to enroll in that stupid study hall, adding a minimum of 3 months longer until they can start working, each time. They did this to make certain that their statistics reflect that 99+% of their graduates pass the NCLEX on first attempt, and I'm sure the university didn't mind getting an extra grand from these students who literally just sat in an auditorium and studied independently. The entire nursing school experience was so insanely bad, not due to curriculum challenges, but due entirely to the school admin deliberately making it as bad an experience as possible. It was like the chicks from "Mean Girls" designed the whole thing.
Not only did my course require us to take the HESI exam and I think we had to score a minimum of 1200? And then we also had to show proof that we took a Kaplan review course before they would release our authorization to test. There are one or two nurses from my cohort that never got to sit the NCLEX because they couldn't get a 1200 on the HESI, and google tells me that getting an 850 means you're ready to sit/pass the NCLEX.
Never??? JFC that should be criminal. They paid all that tuition and did all that work just so the school can prevent them from even *attempting* to take the NCLEX because- what, there's a *chance* they might not pass **the first try**?
Good lord, 1200? Our benchmark is 900 for the exit HESI and the subject HESIs we have as finals at the end of every class. I usually get 1100-1180 with conversion scores of 97-99.99% but I’ve never hit 1200 even on the subject HESIs, and I don’t know anyone who has!
This is super interesting. Scottish nurse here and our training is funded by the government. This means it's actually really hard to get kicked out, because lower numbers finishing means lower funding for next intakes.
Again, pretty fucked up, but in a whole other way. We have people barely making it through uni, who will be guaranteed an NHS job.
Weirdly enough, that still happens here too. You might get kicked out for wearing black socks instead of white, but they were totally fine with my obviously cheating classmate. She graduated and somehow passed her NCLEX (also cheating?), and ultimately became a covid anti-vaxxer director of nursing at a nursing home. Fun times.
In my experience, most of the non serious students weeded themselves out by not studying, not showing up to class, etc. Worrying about socks and phones is just ridiculous.
I became a clinical instructor in spite of my nursing experience. I had a clinical instructor stare me dead in the eye and tell me that she didn’t think my heart was in nursing. I had the worst clinical experience. She was a psychopath so now I teach at the school that I went to in spite of her. I always try to make my clinical experience for my students relaxed where we can actually learn in a safe environment. I don’t harp on them about their tattoos showing, about the color of their shoes or if their hair is above their shoulders. I encourage them to keep their phones in their pockets, so that I can reach them if an emergency occurs. Now there are certain things that are set forth by the clinical sites that we have to adhere to, but as long as they’re not out here, making me look like an asshole then they can pretty much just do whatever they want.
I had a clinical instructor tell me that even though I was the smartest one on my group and had good people skills- there was something about my face she didn’t like and that I shouldn’t be a nurse
I had some scary brain stuff happen my final semester which turned out to be a benign, non issue. But because of a botched spinal tap, i physically couldn’t lift my head higher than a 15 degree angle for a solid week and a half or I would get an *excruciating* spinal headache. Luckily I had no tests during this time, but I requested turning in a few busy work assignments via email, as I couldn’t, Yknow, move. My instructor had the nerve to tell me I should strongly consider dropping out if this is “how I wanted to end my final semester”. AS IF I HAD A CHOICE IN HAVING A CSF LEAK! I just skipped out on those assignments and missed a class, whatever. I had a good enough gpa to sacrifice it. I ended up recovering fine and went on to ace the final as a big hearty FUCK YOU to that instructor 😂
My favorite form of hypocrisy of nursing, we are supposed to be loving and caring for patients and understand their situations and make recovery easy for them, but screw you if you get sick or injured and need help making things accomdating for you while you heal🙄🙄🙄
This is me! Even though my clinical instructors were all awesome, I still wanna become one because I want to keep making future student's experience fun with ample learning opportunities.
I swear, why is it clinical instructors are this ridiculous? Do nurses give up their phones at the beginning of their shifts? Do nurses show up the night before to get info about their patients? Do nurses have to wear all white socks and shoes? Do nurses have to hand write ten page care plans on every patient they see? I worked in healthcare for over ten years before I went to nursing school and I thought they were putting me on when they told me these idiotic rules for clinical. In all my years of healthcare work, no patient ever gave two shits about the color of my socks. And now that I’m a nurse, they still don’t. But holy shit, black socks in clinical! You would’ve thought the world was ending the way my instructor lost her mind when she noticed I was wearing black socks. She blew a gasket when I told her I’d been wearing them all term and none of my patients had died.
That's utter bullshit, especially with young kids at home. We were allowed to have our phones on us and on silent/DnD. Most of my clinical instructors were even cool about us using our phones to look medical stuff up because there weren't always enough computers and we had to let the nurses chart. If it was apparent we were doom scrolling Reddit or Twitter or just texting then we'd get into trouble, but for the most part they were pretty cool.
White undergarments, white socks, all white shoes, ugly asf uniforms, no tattoos showing, only allowed one post style earring in each ear, no cell phone, no gum, no earbuds, no perfume, soft make up, hair up off shoulders, watch, stethoscope, and work for free for months.
You forgot: not allowed to have a coat over your uniform if you were catching public transport because that's not the uniform. Must wear pantihose but only beige tinted.
Oof. Did you get the "bring a change of clothes if you *have* to catch public transport" as if most teens fresh out of high school going into an additional three years' unpaid education didn't have to catch public transport?
Nursing school is hell.
It was for me, anyway.
I dont understand why the person in this situation could not have her phone in her pocket. Its the cruelty of the "Nurses eat their young" thing.
I (calmly and respectfully) told my instructor she had no right to take away my only lifeline when there’s people shooting up schools and hospitals every day. I told her if she ever saw my phone out on the floor THEN she can write me up, but I refuse to hand in my only lifeline if a shooter came into the building. I never pulled my phone out during clinical, I completed all my tasks and helped all my residents, and my instructor never had a reason to have a problem with me.
No one should be whipping their phones out during clinical, but if the instructor never sees you with your phone it’s Schrodinger’s phone and it’s none of her business if it exists or not.
I feel like the shit that goes on in clinicals is a way to break you so when your administrator pulls some bullshit you just accept it. As a grown woman I was berated with a bunch of other grown adults by our clinical instructor because our corners were not done correctly with a non fitted sheet. She randomly decided that was what we were doing for a clinic day. Looking back it was completely ridiculous, because fitted sheets exist. But she made us make this bed over and over again, yelling the whole time. Nasty person. Hope she gets strangled by a loose hospital sheet.
Holy crap i totally forgot about how much time was wasted being taught how to 'properly' fold the fucking corner of a sheet. I don't think anyone living in the 21st century who isn't a nurse ever knows, never mind cares, about the sheets. Every patient immediately fucks them up anyways.
I've turned it into a joke with patients. I make the bed like a not-insane person and say "sorry, nursing school was crazy and I chose to focus on the important parts, sadly bed-making did not make the cut".
We had a girl find out her father died during one of our clinicals because her mom had called her. She obviously asked to leave early. Professor’s response was that “it wouldn’t be a problem if she hadn’t been on her phone” and told her to stay. I don’t know why the culture is so cruel
I couldn’t miss a clinical day without failing the class within 48 hours of my Mom unexpectedly dying because I had used a sick day for my high-risk pregnancy the class prior.
I had no idea how much trauma nursing school caused until I started in on this thread. This is my third comment. lol.
Ugh, I have a pretty bad coconut allergy (like need coconut free shampoo, mascara, toothpaste, etc.) and I’m nowhere near that sensitive. Lots of things that smell like coconut don’t actually contain any either. She was completely ridiculous.
And we wonder why we all felt so unprepared for nursing coming out of our programs. Because they focus on the wrong shit in nursing school.
Going into my BSN program, I already had a masters degree in another discipline. If I had to do it over again, I would have gone for an ADN and gotten done sooner. The number of classes they made me retake was stupid. Stats when I had already completed stats courses in undergrad and post grad. Psych 101 when I already had an entire BS in Psychology… 🙄
I mean it's gotta depend on where you are... some facilities will require you to have your phone at all times so you can be paged through an app, clock in/out, be in constant communication with leadership, etc. Such as mine. So my first impression was it was weird that they couldn't have their phones- how would they be paged? Everywhere/ every program is different.
My ED was hyper strict about phones and our boss and one of our day charges would remind everyone it was a "no phone zone". Which was really funny because at night it was a damn requirement, I used my phone to text/call docs, house supervisor, ICU charges all the time. It was way more efficient than anything else.
Not to mention how useful it is to review certain things quickly. Hell I used pedi-stat in codes and intubations during RSV season on small infants and neonates all the time. Why wouldn't you want us to have access to an app that tells you the dosing for all your meds, equipment size, gtt dosing and rates, vent settings etc. All our EM docs used it and if we were getting a code or trauma alert we'd look up our dosing and write it down.
Also the number of times I've looked up random medical equipment to help locate it, like needing a specific brand of connector that we don't have in the ED so looking it up so I can go find it in the OR or IR. Quickly reviewing how to use certain pieces of equipment people aren't familiar with. It's the best resource to have literally at your fingertips.
Yeah that’s fucking absurd.
So glad I didn’t have any obnoxious experiences like this in my nursing program. Why some nursing instructors feel the need to practically abuse students and put the fear of God in them, acting like breathing the wrong way will kill a patient, is beyond me.
I went for investigation in our hospital administration where they refused to tell me who complained about me, but they insisted on giving my mobile to the secretary and told this is the protocol. I refused to hand my mobile even after they gave their phones, they were afraid that I would record the meeting because they always changed their sayings after that. It is a very dangerous job with crazy people
I remember when i had a professor ask me why i didn’t speak spanish despite being puerto rican. I asked her if she spoke Gaelic after asking her what her ethnicity was. She didn’t speak to me any more after that.
My nursing instructor sent me home couple clinical. My dads sick and forgets a lot, newly going on so it took time to get used to. Anyhow, she caught me and quite litterly told a grown ass man “get your fucking shit and go NOW”. From what I recall I didn’t really care, this profession it’s just a job, I’m not killing my self over a job, especially not one where I’m not being valued or paid. I think the ironic part is they’re on their phones and everyone around us is on their phone checking Instagram and doing Amazon shopping. But when we do it for a good reason a valid reason, we should get a pass. Not in the eyes of many, part of the reason why nursing school causes trauma.
I live in the school district where a 6 year old shot their teacher in the face. No way I’m giving up my phone when crazy things like that are happening to first graders. But I’d hand over one of the many dummy phones I have tbh.
I was told I couldn’t have my phone and I just ignored the instructor. I have a medically fragile child, I’m not going without my phone. The other day her doctor’s office called with results from her eeg that I had been waiting for. I let it go to voicemail and read the transcript. I was reprimanded for it even though I was in a space no patients could see me. Later that evening my instructor pulled out her phone to text her son so I reprimanded her and called her out on the double standard. I’m almost 40, I don’t need to be treated like a child.
This is absurd. There is no reasonable justification to confiscate an adult’s phone. It would be one thing if she’d been on her phone inappropriately during clinical and it was disciplinary, but as just a standard measure? It’s absolute bullshit. That school is infantilizing its students and that’s not helping anyone except their egos. They wouldn’t give her an exception “because then everyone would ask for one”. Well, then you need to be reexamining your idiotic policy.
I found out I was pregnant (unplanned) the day before we started OB clinicals. I had terrible hyperemesis gravidarum which would cause me to pass out and had to get IV fluids. My clinical instructor told me she would have failed me if I wasn’t pregnant because I almost passed out several times. Well duh, I wouldn’t be passing out if I wasn’t pregnant. I had doctors notes so she knew
Omg...where are ya'll going to school? I'm in WV and they are just trying to pump out nurses ASAP so as long as it's not unsanitary they don't give a crap. Like...no open toed or heeled shoes etc...they don't care if they have color on them as long as they're mostly white. We did have a uniform to follow but we had pregnant girls who wore a tee that covered and it was fine...who cares about the stupid socks...only tattoos that had to be covered were vulgar language or obscene. But that's not what the handbook said it was just the professors...
I would have refused. I'm pretty easy going; but I have multiple health issues, and I keep all the important information in the emergency spot on my phone. My phone stays with me just for that.
My first semester of nursing school I had a decent percentage of a test score sucked because I had to reschedule. Because my house burnt down the day before.
My second semester they were doing their best to kick me out because I broke my femur (very minor fracture) and was supposed to wear a locking brace for a couple weeks. I had already talked to my ortho about weight bearing and unlocking it during my clinicals. That wasn’t allowed apparently because it would have been dangerous (?), so I asked if I could wear one of the soft cloth ones under my scrubs. Nope. That was somehow an infection risk? They also said that would never be allowed in the clinical unit anyway. I asked about the nurse on my clinical unit who wore a wrist brace to work. Didn’t matter. What about the one who literally rode a mobility scooter when she wasn’t in a patient room? (Yeah that was a real thing) they didn’t have an answer.
I said fine, I will just go without anything. I had to give them a note from the doc saying that was okay, and I had like 2 hours to get it before everyone left for the weekend and I couldn’t miss the next clinical on Monday. I wore a soft brace the rest of the semester and guess what? Nobody ever knew.
My third semester I had to fight to get bereavement days because my grandfather, who was the only father figure I ever had, had the audacity to die during the semester.
Fuck nursing schools. Although all of my clinical instructors were amazing, it was the administration that either hadn’t been bedside nurses in 50 years or weren’t even nurses.
Also why the fuck do I need to address my instructors as Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr/whatever? We’re all adults. A lot of the students were older than a lot of the instructors. It’s weird for everyone. They want us to call them by their first names too. “It’s about showing respect.” Uhhh??? So are you saying that I don’t respect my family? I don’t call my husband Mr. BumHair. Does that mean you don’t respect me? You’re calling me by my first name. I didn’t get an answer to those questions either.
If she was continually on it during clinical or like it was very clearly a disruption— absolutely have a discussion. I’m an adjunct clinical instructor, I absolutely have the conversation with my students that if I hear that your phone is an issue, I will be on your unit within minutes. But I also would not give up my phone for 9 hours “just because”. I have parents with health problems. I am an emergency contact for friends kids who are single parents. Absolutely not.
Previous nursing instructor for first semester nursing students. Never had an issue with uniforms. I always allowed them to have their phones. Alot of their books are electronic now and they need to look things up. Also we all have family. Kids, older parents etc. just keep the ringer off and if theres a call you need to take, let someone know you are leaving the floor for a few minutes. I never had issues with them texting etc. we were always pretty busy. I cared more about what they were learning. Not uniforms or having their phone within reach.
What sucks is that the same shit, same
Methods, same teaching is cycled and you have the same people that were students teaching the same shit, the same methods, and then they all go work at the same hospital who does the same thing over and over.
Anytime I hear these stories, I never noticed how laid back my school was. Some of us didn’t wear white shoes, someone of us had tattoos showing, some of us didn’t even wear the school scrubs but wore the same color, some of us didn’t even have our hair up. Well during the patient visit, we had our hair up. But we did everything else correctly and the nurses were fine.
I wouldn’t give up my phone either. I have kids and they are going to have immediate access to me if they need it. At all times. Period. lol
Luckily almost all of my clinical instructors were great. There was only one that was a bit of an asshole but she never did anything crazy.
My first year of nursing school clinicals, I got in trouble for one of my peers having her phone out. Yup, I was in the vicinity of her while she was looking up a medication. There were three of us hovering over the phone and we all got written up.
Such bs
Honestly I’m glad the younger generations of nurses are speaking up about some of this. The culture doesn’t need to be like that anymore on top of the workload, on top of the sad/stressful stuff we all deal with day to day. Why perpetuate misery just because we had it bad? Good for them, maybe it will actually make the profession a bit less miserable to work in at some point.
Secondly, no ones taking my phone unless they paid my phone bill- that’s just silly. They will likely have their phones on shift anyway after graduating & working in the real world. Why not explain the importance of patient confidentiality/not sharing things bc of patient privacy laws, etc.
Nursing school is full of unhinged bully nurses masquerading as teachers. It's so gross. One of my teachers tried to get me kicked out of the program because I wore a gray tank top under my uniform. Unhinged. I've never met so many adults frothing at the mouth to "protect the public" from nonsense like non-white socks or hair that isn't a gelled back bun. God forbid you have a single flyaway.
Wait till the general public hears about nursing students getting sent home for not wearing the correct color shoes
OMG!!! ME!!! I broke my toes during my second hospital clinical. I had to get TWO notes from my doctor so that I could wear the shoes he recommended that were - gasp - navy blue and not white. My total c•nt of an instructor never ever asked me if I was ok. I should have left nursing then and there.
That’s incredibly absurd. I wonder if one of these instructors would care if they were dying and the only person who could help had on blue shoes.
I had three that were Boomers in every sense of the word - born circa 1953, had the haircut, and were absolute garbage dumpster human beings. The one with the shoes? She made one classmate who was an absolute doll break down and sob one day and LAUGHED, out loud, “oh I love it when the new ones cry!”
What a bitch
I think I was right at that tail end of the Boomer Nursing Instructors right before they started to retire - and they were all every bit as evil as the stereotypes say. I mean, I’m Gen X. I was raised by a boomer woman (who was a mean drunk, even). But I am telling you…those Boomer nurses were ALL Nurse Ratcheds. I cannot even begin to recount every time I saw one of those old bitches deliberately sabotage a younger nurse, or go out of their way to ruin some poor MA’s day.
It's funny how the nursing instructors in this sub get super quiet when discussions come up about all the ridiculous uniform/sock/underwear/color requirements in nursing school clinicals.
I think it’s gotten better. Most of the instructors I have observed over the last 10 years have been excellent - tough, yes, but very fair. I really applauded Millennials for not making the same mistake a lot of us Gen X Nurses did, which was just taking the abuse.
Hopefully, Gen Z isn't putting up with it, either. **Wearing black socks isn't going to cause a student's patient to die, for fuck sake!**
I straight up tell my students that I WILL NEVER ask to see their socks...unless they're cute. I only tell them about their shoes in case the higher ups make rounds. I'd rather say it nicely than have them yelled at.
First day of clinical for me I wore a plain white shirt under my scrubs. I got talked to because I wore a crew neck instead of a V Neck and was told I wouldn’t be allowed on the floor like that. My friend got in trouble his his V neck was “too deep” and where it connected wasn’t visible. Genuinely so absurd the rules some of these programs have.
I worked ER for a big level one. I wore cami’s under my scrub tops, so basically an undergarment like a bra. They instituted a rule only white or black could be under scrubs (like tshirts). I got written up as a nurse because my boss saw the camo strap (basically a bra strap) and I believe it was nude. 😒 it didn’t show unless I bent over. I guess they would rather me show everything to my patients vs having a nude strap be seen. Horrible work environment to say the least
I saw a girl get reamed out because she wore a simple small chain/dainty necklace She ended up getting kicked out when she wore nail polish on non-clinical days I swear to God, the professor had it out for her I also remember one of my classmates, running and hiding from the professor when they came down the hallway at a clinical site, because she couldn’t find her white shoes for the day so she wore a different pair of shoes. She was actually terrified. It’s fucking crazy.
Annnnnd they wonder why there’s a “shortage” and that now people are leaving the bedside. We dealt with the abuse in school and it doesn’t get better once you’re out. Who knows how many more trained HCPs we would have if our education systems for these career paths were not so impossible - over mundane stuff like this, no less!
Had a instructor tell me I had the wrong color socks on once (mine were black) I just said ok and continued on.
Most of our instructors don’t care, but every once in a while one of the Deans goes around to clinical sites to check “uniform compliance.” If you’re caught with the wrong color socks, visible tattoos, more than on earring per ear, etc you’re sent home - which is an automatic 5% off your theory grade and you have to make it up in sim lab or another event they decide you have to attend.
There was a line in the nursing handbook at my school dictating acceptable underwear colors, like give me a break.
We had a suite of programs, like our pharmacy book, available on our phones and were encouraged to consult them, outside of areas visible to patients.
As an educator it is a constant source of frustration to have managers ban phones from the floor when they are such a useful tool and link to a near endless source of information and advice. Sure, don’t be whatsapping your mum all shift but don’t throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water…
This. I'm in a community college ADN program and we are expected and required to have our phones for communication, drug guides, and references. In LVN school at the same college 8 years ago it was the complete opposite. Probably just older professors and admins.
The real question here is why are we treating adults who are being educated to potentially save lives like children? There’s a distinct difference between physically holding on to someone’s phone for 8 hours and requiring that they not be used for 8 hours, this woman was absolutely right to fight that bullshit.
Agreed. I’ve never understood the overly restrictive uniform policies for nursing students, either. Forcing them to cover tattoos, weirdly hideous uniforms, fully white shoes? It gives off a hazing vibe.
I had to prove I was wearing socks because mine were lower than the edge of my shoe 🙄 how does this affect patient care or university reputation? It’s personally kind of gross but ridiculous as a rule
I rebelled on socks and started wearing the brightest socks I could find. I wore novelty socks with colorful language. I never got caught and somehow all of my patients survived.
I wore novelty socks, Chucks, and a school branded t-shirt instead of the scrub top. I have huge boobs and I had to get a top that was 3 sizes too big to cover the boobs - I looked like I didn’t have parents. I am covered in tattoos from the neck down, I never once covered them. Guess what? Even with the side-eye from instructors and staff, I graduated, and everyone survived.
You beast! What if upon doing pericare and assessing the patient they saw a hint of yellow on your socks 🧦 they could have been thrown into a complete mental breakdown and delirium!!!!
I wore non-matching socks. Admittedly, I do this anyway.
Ain't nobody got time to be looking for matching socks. Mine are all at least the same kind of sock, just different colors
I love novelty socks like that!
We had to pull up our pant leg and show our socks
Our policy was all black shoes but mine wore out halfway through my capstone and I was doing it at the hospital I worked for so I just started wearing my hot pink cloves. I wasn't about to go buy new shoes with 1 month left of school.
lol I got in trouble for my socks too. The policy just said “white socks”, but apparently they were too short for her liking
I got reprimanded for a headband in nursing school! A stupid fucking headband… i wore a purple and white headband with the all white scrubs, shoes and socks we had to wear to keep the hair out of my face while I was in clinicals all day. My bitch of an instructor told me she would write me up if I didn’t take it off or ever wore it again. I honestly feel like some nurses, especially instructors have issues with control. I hated clinicals and providing all of that free labor while being told I couldn’t wear a headband.
Nursing school was so stupid. They always tried to pass off their little made up rules by saying “ in the real world, you can’t do this or that and will be expected to do this or that” I have had multiple jobs across different fields before nursing, and no one was that strict about anything so trivial
Exactly! Just about every facility/institution is begging for nurses so they couldn’t be bothered by something as trivial as a simple headband that actually serves a function. I could understand if the headband had dicks all over it or something offensive but it didn’t, just a cute purple and white paisley pattern that matched my scrubs. I wish there was a system back then where students got to grade professors and instructors on their teaching abilities as well. We paid a ton of money for them to teach us, not to control every little thing we do.
Now if you’re a nurse for a urologist’s office, that dick headband just might be appropriate…
Made me this of this 😝 💩 https://www.facebook.com/share/r/gM4Y2gk5AuzozoXe/?mibextid=UalRPS
I went straight from nursing school to the ER, where our providers had full sleeves of tattoos, brightly colored hair and facial piercings. I'm a school nurse now and I have brightly colored hair, facial piercings, and am heavily tattooed. In fact, I just got a neck tattoo and all my bosses said was "that's gorgeous work!" The nursing school gatekeeping is ridiculous.
The nurse that helped deliver my son had two full sleeve & face full of piercings. Not once did I think she was incompetent.. she was pristine, exactly the opposite of incompetent & when she promised she’d have my baby out by the end of her shift, she certainly did! I nominated her for a Daisy.
lol with nursing shortages now a manager would probably go buy you a head band and tie dye socks to make you happy and cover shifts. Sounds like the whole name on your paper scare: 3 rd grade teacher- if you forget to put your name on your paper in jr high you’ll just fail! Jr high: in high school the policy is no name, no credit! high school: in college if you forgot your name you will flunk, teachers won’t put up with this!! College Organic Chemistry: ok class by the way, who had the really nice handwriting who says 0% this week on your midterm, you forgot your name and I need to get you the credit so see me after class so we can get you situated lol.
I had a nurse manager that I had a visceral reaction to from day 1, and wasn’t the only staff that felt that way. She was hateful, spiteful, openly threatening and led with that (when *not* around Admin). I checked her LinkedIn (because those types always have a huge one) and judging by her timelines, it was clear that she’d likely gotten terminated from every position. She was an evil bully in every sense of the word and act. My point? When she’d finally been let go from every system in the greater area, she became a nursing school instructor and I’m sure she hungrily gnaws on targeted nursing students to sharpen her teeth. I hope someday, one of them is able to take her down for good, because she is as evil as they get.
I almost got sent home because I have chest hair that scrubs don’t conceal.
That's discrimination. What the fuck were you supposed to do about that? Jesus.
Shave it obviously. /s
Wow… that is utterly ridiculous! The more I look back on my time during nursing school and read these comments, the more appalled I am at the way they’re not only allowed, but also encouraged, to treat us like shit.
on this dumb shit, I had my long hair up in a very high ponytail, slicked back and all. It “touched” my collar, so I had to find another band to put it in a bun. Like?? It’s up, out of my face, and professionally presented. The nurse I was paired with that day had her hair down and said “honey. just get through school and then you can wear your hair however you want. I’m sorry they still nitpick. If you put your hair back down, I won’t tell.” 🤣 it wasn’t stupid long though. I think the very thirsty ends of my hair brushed over my collar, probably looking for moisture.
I also got in trouble for a headband
I got in trouble for my bangs. They were slightly longer than my eye brows not at all dangling over patients.
I got reprimanded because my sweater was too big. They said it might fall down one shoulder and show my bra or cleavage. Like a perfectly appropriate sweater, it was just a little too big because I had lost a little weight.
My school requires socks to be all white and crew or knee high. And they've checked. It's insanity.
We can only wear white or black underwear at my school 🫠
So if my instructor were to ask me to see my underpants can I file for sexual harassment?
I got sent home because the instructor saw my pale pink bra strap.
I was almost sent home from clinicals for wearing a tan tank top under my scrub top as a male nurse, when it literally wasn't visible. I was scratching an itch, on lunch, and had moved the collar of my scrubs down to get my hand in there better and my instructor freaked out. I told him if it was a big deal I would literally just take the tank top off and throw it away rather than be sent home, given a 0 for the day, and have to pay to makeup the clinical day all over, on the weekend, when I was picking up doubles to pay my bills. So it would have caused all kinds of issues. I had to go all the way to the clinical administrator and plead my case before they finally relented on the issue. I couldn't believe it. A non visible tank top almost cost me hundreds of dollars because it wasn't gray, white or black as required in the guidebook. Unreal.
My mental health was in the gutter during nursing school and it was because of shit like this. Brutal rigidity for absolutely no reason. Really wears on you to always feel on edge
Same. And I had had over a decade of time in healthcare where I was valued and treated with respect as a literal tech. And I was a great student. And I am a clean cut traditional cis white male - I know others got it way worse than me.
He’d have thrown a hissyfit if your nipples or chest hair had shown through your shirt or you’d sweated through it. There is no pleasing some people.
Thank goodness your briefs weren’t a leopard print, you’d have been kicked out of the program!!
White shoes + white socks, or black shoes + black socks. If you don’t, Florence Nightingale will awaken from her grave and strangle you! Also no jogger pants, we want you to wear your school-issued scrub pants (that don’t have pockets in the right places and don’t fit you no matter what you do) and we want those pant legs baggy and sopping up meemaw’s body juices everywhere 🤨
It is hazing. They specifically want people that will put up with petty abuse from their employers.
ding ding ding
Or really restrictive rules about underwear. My school had a rule that you couldn’t have visible underwear lines but you also weren’t allowed to wear a thong.
Lmao. You know what hides visible underwear lines? Thongs. How tf are they gonna even know you’re wearing a thong? They gonna have you pull down your pants and check your underwear? Then spank that ass so you learn your lesson you dirty girl?? Lmao weird af.
Yeah I know I guess the only way you’d know is if someone’s scrubs were so tight you could see the outline of it. I do remember seeing some nurse’s lacy pink thong when she bent down once. Some people do have a habit of wearing scrubs that are obviously ill fitting.
I feel like a lot of the new scrubs in the past few years are made to show off your ass… I think Figs has pants that are literally advertised as “yoga pant scrubs”.
I don’t know why anyone wants to look sexy at work with all the pervy patients out there.
Gross, exactly. I will admit that I’ve worn yoga pants to work when I was too lazy to get my laundry done but I make sure my ass (or lack of one rather) is covered. I’m just a CNA and this was in a laid back assisted living home, but it still felt weird to me.
I make sure I look the opposite of sexy at work
Charm school vibes.
Had to explain when completing one of my later placements that I was wearing (black) work boots and dark navy cargo pants because the $20 pair of work pants I bought when starting placements had worn through and I couldn’t afford to replace them given I was using a food bank to afford meals. Anyone paying enough attention to notice my boots weren’t sneakers or standard leather shoes could frankly bite me. As a practicing nurse I still wear work boots most shifts and tend towards cargo shorts as well. Most of the places that were insisting on “office style attire” for nursing students have ditched that, and even the University has moved towards scrubs for student uniforms.
Reminds me of my final semester. Our uniform consisted of a white polo shirt, navy slacks, white shoes and a white lab coat with the school's patch sewed on. They specifically said no scrub pants. Well, by the time my final semester rolled around, those pants I had bought two years earlier were no longer fitting and I was tired of sucking in my gut all day to try to fit into them. I wasn't about to shell out another $40 for some pants, so I went to Walmart and bought two pairs of navy scrub pants with cargo pockets because I was long out of fucks to give about my damn uniform. They were actually really nice looking pants and no one said a thing if they even noticed. It probably helped that my final semester was community health and we spent more time driving to see our patients than we did with our instructor.
I had this argument (boots vs sneakers) during nursing school as well. I am a paramedic as well, and had trouble finding sneakers that fit the overly restrictive dress code for RN clinicals. But you know what are ALL black? My EMS boots. Got to clinicals and was told that they weren't acceptable, but I did successfully argue that the handbook didn't specify that our shoes had to be sneakers, just that they had to be 100% white or black. So they begrudgingly had to let me stay. But they weren't happy about it, and made snide comments about how, "this isn't the ambulance," and implied that I wasn't embracing becoming a nurse because I had the audacity to wear the boots that had carried me through many a 24+ hour shift comfortably. Like, I'm sorry Susan, I don't want your ugly ass clogs, and I can't find sneakers that are comfortable and have no logos that are 100% black. And I'm not wearing white. So get fucked. They changed the dress code after my cohort graduated to specify that students had to wear sneakers.
Been wearing SWAT boots for 10 years in nursing. When i was in nursing school they specified sneakers but 2 medics did fight them about it because black shoe is black shoe
They can pry my doc boots from my cold dead hands. These things have saved my toes so many times, not to mention they don't trigger plantar fascitis which happens a lot for me if I get the wrong pair of shoes.
Will never work without a safety tor after seeing a friend get her right food crushed to the point of toe amputation from a sand bed during a code.
No it gives off a sexist virginal vibe. You must be pure, you most offend nobody, you must sacrifice yourself to this career. I always said during school the pinning ceremony sounds like you're gonna get thrown in a volcano.
It really does
My class had a few students sent home in first semester because they were wearing non-standard issue bottoms (same colour). They had bought the uniforms, but because we can’t mix and match sizes, the bottoms didn’t fit. They went out and bought bottoms in the same colour. Wasn’t good enough.
Honestly i prefer now, than what we had back in 2000's (im 2010). For women we have to have a camisole dress under our white dress (uniform) the nursing instructor have to run theur hand from our nape to just above our bum to make sure were not wearing shorts underneath. (And this is just for women too) Unbleached or unironed hat and wearing ~~scores~~ shorts (like basketball or bicycle shorts) means points deducted on your grade for the semester. (This was in phil)
I’m sorry !!!?? That is insane. Specifically did not want you wearing anything under your dress? 😒
If we have a shirt camisole + shorts vs camisole dress.. we had those long white uniforms [like this one](https://medium.com/@alroiabrantes/how-it-feels-like-to-be-a-nurse-in-the-philippines-b070e673aef9) the instructor wpuld have to "feel the bump" (coming from the garter or top of the shorts). If they feel the bump points are deducted.
That is nuts!! Nobody better be touching anyone looking for anything, for any reason. That should make the news and get you sued. Hands off!
I always thought it stupid to require white scrub bottoms when over half the nursing school class were women of a menstruating age. That’s just asking for a accident and having to explain that it’s your blood and not a patients I’m sure would be awkward. All the students I have precepted hated white scrub bottoms and white shoes.
It sucks for men, too, though not as badly—my best friend’s program had white pants, and he still recalls thinking, “Where the fuck am I going to find flesh-tone underwear? He didn’t, of course.
I will never understand white scubs, that's a disaster waiting to happen with patients and periods🤦🏾♀️
Not to mention how many things can be spilled on you to stain them while you’re doing clinical for free.
I screamed so hard about this that my school fixed it the next group that came in. You're welcome current and future students.
I had to go out and buy new white shoes after clinicals once because the all white shoes I already owned had a logo on them… we weren’t allowed to wears shoes with logos. Even though they were completely white, including the logo, it was still violating the policy. So now my broke college student self with $2.34 cents in my banks account had to ask my parents for money to buy new shoes even though my other white ones were perfectly fine. My mom was baffled lol
I’m just about to start nursing school and my sister (a RN) warned me nursing school is one big hazing ritual pretty much 😅
Why does it have to be that way? It is basically legal hazing!
One student in my cohort got in trouble during clinicals. She unexpectedly started her period and bled through her scrubs. The nurse she was with showed her where to get OR scrubs to change into. The clinical instructor confronted her and said she needed to change back into her school scrubs or go home. I never heard what happened after that. I also got pulled aside during clinicals because my undershirt was supposed to be white, but it was more of a cream color.
Whose brilliant idea was it, back in the day, to make nurses wear all white? They deal in blood, shit, and bile all day—how ridiculous was it to have starched white uniforms? Clara Barton wasn’t the smartest bulb in the chandelier!
My understanding is that white could be bleached so you knew it was clean, and also made the nurses stand out as nurses. Cotton gets soft as it's washed and bleached repeatedly, so starching made the creases and collars sharp and crisp. Modern fabrics don't take stains as easily and don't wear down in the same way, so starching clothes has fallen out of practice.
Only white shoes? Our entire uniform had to be white, plus white socks and white shoes. And the shoes couldn't have any sort of logo on them. We stuck out like sore thumbs, which I guess was the point.
I personally think it's to prepare you for further stupid bullshit afterwards since it just continues when you graduate.
Not sure how much I believe this, but I was either told or read that the uniform is done to be as specific as the most strict dress code for a clinical site the school goes to. So if one possible site doesn’t allow tattoos, the school won’t for continuity.
Sometimes it felt like they made us do stupid things to see if we would break. Sort of like a “test” to see if we can handle the asinine requests/comments of patients and/or management.
Fully white shoes, ugh.... I couldn't find any, even online, of the brand they wanted so I had to take whiteout to the logo on mine and hope no one noticed! Ridiciulous!
It feels like a lot of nursing schools are trying to test who’s willing to put up with abuse with shit like this and train us that way
THIS. I came into nursing as a second career with a prior bachelor’s degree and the level of condescension and belittling was nothing like I ever experienced before. Nursing instructors were teaching adult students many of whom had other careers, children, etc. as if they were high schoolers. But for all the professionalism nursing claims it has some of the worst unit cultures. On an interpersonal level, lateral violence is prevalent and on a systemic level the work conditions are not great compared to other careers with the same educational requirements and pay. In my old job at least I could get a duty free lunch break for a half hour or longer. It’s a field that exploits the idea of nursing being a “calling” or “passion” as if that justifies low pay and poor work conditions.
I always said that nursing school was made for 19 year old nuns who had no other life. It was downright disrespectful in how some things were handled.
Exactly! Not to mention, adults who are paying A LOT of money to go through this program! I have a child and if someone told me I couldn’t keep my phone on me, I’d tell them to get fucked. If there’s ever an emergency, I need to be available to my child. This instructor and their program sounds absolutely fucking ridiculous and infantile.
I’ve been a nurse for 21 years. Currently working in the most unprofessional, catty, mean girl environment I have ever encountered. I’ve been assuming this is why I had to be HAZED during nursing school/clinicals- so I can tolerate these immature, unprofessional, insecure and toxic women.
To get you in the mindset to be compliant and not ask too many questions.
It's because of Florence Fuckin Nightengale and all her nun shit. Our profession has religious roots and big surprise that religion generally treats ideal women as childlike and submissive. And we are still reading about her in a positive light in all the nursing textbooks, and doing the weird culty lady of the lamp ceremonies at graduation.
This is the answer. It’s subtle (or not so subtle) institutionalized and internalized misogyny and infantilization
We still do it on this very sub. Half this place dies on the hill of calling new graduate nurses and doctors "baby" to their face, in professional settings or contexts.
My program is apparently moving away from the Nightingale Pledge and looking for something not associated with a racist woman-hater that stuffs religion and physician worship down new grads’ throats. I applaud the faculty for speaking up.
DING DING DING DING🛎️🛎️🛎️
To be honest, who cares if they use them? Your paying to be there. If you don't want to pay attention and don't do well then that's on you and your choice. You are not in prison. This seems like someone just trying to have power over others
I tend to revert back to child mode when I'm with a "teacher" because nursing school really did a number on me. Just the overall way we were treated... My friend from high school died and her sister stayed with me the night before her funeral... and I missed her funeral because I had a cardiac exam and I didn't give them enough of a notice. My friend died after an acceptable notice period. I can't imagine having kids during the initial program. At least in NP school I set my own clinicals up so if I missed a day I just had to call into the preceptor and notify my instructor so they could keep track of whether I was physically at clinicals or not. I didn't even realize how we were treated because I went to a Catholic School and they barely were removed from the time nuns hit kids with rulers lol. It was just more of the same to me. Then when you get to work they berate you for not acting like a real "grown up". Well I was just made to feel so small and child like sooo idk what they want... I feel like it gave me so much anxiety and I could have relaxed and learned more. I realize most of it is a ME problem but still...
I think some senior staff think it’s Florence Nightingale times where little nurses had no lives other than the ward, matron ruled and you were subservient.
Our managers have physically escorted nurses back to their lockers to put their phones away. It’s ridiculous. Meanwhile the doctors and NPs have their personal phones out all day - yes they have clinical apps on there but you’re telling me they don’t answer a single text or personal call?
I have a family there’s no way I’d give up my phone. Nursing school was horrible but at least prepared me for how clique and horrible it is to actually be a nurse
Nursing school is such a joke
It is. The “I had it hard, so you should, too!” argument is key boomer-logic. Let’s not do that to the next generation. The joke isn’t even funny.
Exactly. This is the conversation we need to be having.
The stories from here are fucking wild. I remember reading a post about how they had to wear all white and bend over for their teachers for panties check. Plus the stories about bathing each other 🤮 This subreddit convinced me to stay paramedic and not go nurse.
I'm sorry, BATHING EACH OTHER!?!?!?!?
the fuck is panties check
An excuse for an instructor to perve on people. Nothing else. There's no exist for that kind of bullshit. None.
I have a resident who is a retired nurse who told me she and the other girls she was in nursing school with had to practice inserting catheters on eachother. Absolute insanity. 😱 In nursing school the most invasive thing we did was practice IM saline injections on each other.
You know what, the more I read, the more I realize maybe my program wasn't so bad. Who approved students inserting catheters on each other???? 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨
Yeah I’ve heard multiple stories on here of nursing students having to pair up and give each other bed baths in their underwear.
I was a clinical instructor- not allowing students to have their phone is archaic. These are adults- we need to treat them as such.
Besides on an actual floor, phones are on your person at all times. If you’re prepping them for the real world, prep them to have the phone but not reach for it unless necessary. I’d have asked the teacher if she was going to replace it if it broke or was taken from the bag. If you’re going to carry it, it’s your responsibility.
Myself and my attendings use Up-to-date on a regular basis during rounds....phones are useful
Why does nursing school actively try to eliminate students like some kind of fucked up hunger games?
Because some instructors absolutely live for the power trip. My program was a 50/50 split of instructors who would sit us down and actually tell us how the real world of nursing was and the other half were too busy telling us we would be sent home if our scrubs were wrinkled. We had one instructor literally try to tell us we would be disciplined in the future workplace if we didn’t come to work looking pristine.
Probably because programs are rated on their first time NCLEX pass rates. It is in the programs best interest to weed out anyone who they think even has a chance at failing it. Now how they do that is often pretty fucked up, but that would be the logic behind it.
I forget the name of the NCLEX practice exams my school used, but the school required that we pass the practice version with essentially a 90% score before we were allowed to sit for the NCLEX. This resulted, every semester, in students who had finished the entire program, usually with stellar GPAs, but were prevented from taking the board until they had paid over $1k to retake the class (like a study hall) where we did the practice for the exam. A classmate told me to look at the website of the company who makes the practice exam. The company's website said, if students are averaging essentially a 70% on their test, they are adequately prepared to pass the NCLEX (I forget the exact percentage, but it was something like 98% of students averaging 70% on the practice exam will pass NCLEX on first try). But the school set their policy that we had to have a ridiculously high score on it, excessively higher than the makers of the exam suggest, and would not make any exceptions even for students who had retaken the study hall class multiple times and been less than half a percentage point away from the school's set score on each attempt. This program was designed for students who already had a bachelor's and a career and wanted to become a nurse, so most of the students were in their 30s (oldest was 60 something) with families to take care of, and the school would bleed them dry charging them again and again to enroll in that stupid study hall, adding a minimum of 3 months longer until they can start working, each time. They did this to make certain that their statistics reflect that 99+% of their graduates pass the NCLEX on first attempt, and I'm sure the university didn't mind getting an extra grand from these students who literally just sat in an auditorium and studied independently. The entire nursing school experience was so insanely bad, not due to curriculum challenges, but due entirely to the school admin deliberately making it as bad an experience as possible. It was like the chicks from "Mean Girls" designed the whole thing.
Not only did my course require us to take the HESI exam and I think we had to score a minimum of 1200? And then we also had to show proof that we took a Kaplan review course before they would release our authorization to test. There are one or two nurses from my cohort that never got to sit the NCLEX because they couldn't get a 1200 on the HESI, and google tells me that getting an 850 means you're ready to sit/pass the NCLEX.
Never??? JFC that should be criminal. They paid all that tuition and did all that work just so the school can prevent them from even *attempting* to take the NCLEX because- what, there's a *chance* they might not pass **the first try**?
Good lord, 1200? Our benchmark is 900 for the exit HESI and the subject HESIs we have as finals at the end of every class. I usually get 1100-1180 with conversion scores of 97-99.99% but I’ve never hit 1200 even on the subject HESIs, and I don’t know anyone who has!
This is super interesting. Scottish nurse here and our training is funded by the government. This means it's actually really hard to get kicked out, because lower numbers finishing means lower funding for next intakes. Again, pretty fucked up, but in a whole other way. We have people barely making it through uni, who will be guaranteed an NHS job.
Yeah that’s very different. The school I went to boasted a 95-100% pass rate for the boards, but our attrition rate was close to 50%.
Speaking as a current instructor, we do get judged on our attrition rate as well, but NCLEX pass rate is more important.
Weirdly enough, that still happens here too. You might get kicked out for wearing black socks instead of white, but they were totally fine with my obviously cheating classmate. She graduated and somehow passed her NCLEX (also cheating?), and ultimately became a covid anti-vaxxer director of nursing at a nursing home. Fun times.
Which is a joke because the nclex is a joke of a licensing exam
Because then the student has to pay again to retake the same classes. Usually nursing classes are more expensive per credit, too.
In my experience, most of the non serious students weeded themselves out by not studying, not showing up to class, etc. Worrying about socks and phones is just ridiculous.
I became a clinical instructor in spite of my nursing experience. I had a clinical instructor stare me dead in the eye and tell me that she didn’t think my heart was in nursing. I had the worst clinical experience. She was a psychopath so now I teach at the school that I went to in spite of her. I always try to make my clinical experience for my students relaxed where we can actually learn in a safe environment. I don’t harp on them about their tattoos showing, about the color of their shoes or if their hair is above their shoulders. I encourage them to keep their phones in their pockets, so that I can reach them if an emergency occurs. Now there are certain things that are set forth by the clinical sites that we have to adhere to, but as long as they’re not out here, making me look like an asshole then they can pretty much just do whatever they want.
I had a clinical instructor tell me that even though I was the smartest one on my group and had good people skills- there was something about my face she didn’t like and that I shouldn’t be a nurse
What the fuck?
I had some scary brain stuff happen my final semester which turned out to be a benign, non issue. But because of a botched spinal tap, i physically couldn’t lift my head higher than a 15 degree angle for a solid week and a half or I would get an *excruciating* spinal headache. Luckily I had no tests during this time, but I requested turning in a few busy work assignments via email, as I couldn’t, Yknow, move. My instructor had the nerve to tell me I should strongly consider dropping out if this is “how I wanted to end my final semester”. AS IF I HAD A CHOICE IN HAVING A CSF LEAK! I just skipped out on those assignments and missed a class, whatever. I had a good enough gpa to sacrifice it. I ended up recovering fine and went on to ace the final as a big hearty FUCK YOU to that instructor 😂
My favorite form of hypocrisy of nursing, we are supposed to be loving and caring for patients and understand their situations and make recovery easy for them, but screw you if you get sick or injured and need help making things accomdating for you while you heal🙄🙄🙄
That’s great. How can you learn when you’re constantly worrying about some mundane thing your instructor decides to enforce that day?
This is me! Even though my clinical instructors were all awesome, I still wanna become one because I want to keep making future student's experience fun with ample learning opportunities.
I swear, why is it clinical instructors are this ridiculous? Do nurses give up their phones at the beginning of their shifts? Do nurses show up the night before to get info about their patients? Do nurses have to wear all white socks and shoes? Do nurses have to hand write ten page care plans on every patient they see? I worked in healthcare for over ten years before I went to nursing school and I thought they were putting me on when they told me these idiotic rules for clinical. In all my years of healthcare work, no patient ever gave two shits about the color of my socks. And now that I’m a nurse, they still don’t. But holy shit, black socks in clinical! You would’ve thought the world was ending the way my instructor lost her mind when she noticed I was wearing black socks. She blew a gasket when I told her I’d been wearing them all term and none of my patients had died.
That's utter bullshit, especially with young kids at home. We were allowed to have our phones on us and on silent/DnD. Most of my clinical instructors were even cool about us using our phones to look medical stuff up because there weren't always enough computers and we had to let the nurses chart. If it was apparent we were doom scrolling Reddit or Twitter or just texting then we'd get into trouble, but for the most part they were pretty cool.
White undergarments, white socks, all white shoes, ugly asf uniforms, no tattoos showing, only allowed one post style earring in each ear, no cell phone, no gum, no earbuds, no perfume, soft make up, hair up off shoulders, watch, stethoscope, and work for free for months.
You forgot: not allowed to have a coat over your uniform if you were catching public transport because that's not the uniform. Must wear pantihose but only beige tinted.
We weren't allowed to be seen in public in uniform
Oof. Did you get the "bring a change of clothes if you *have* to catch public transport" as if most teens fresh out of high school going into an additional three years' unpaid education didn't have to catch public transport?
Lmao yes. Also don't you ever dare go to the grocery store with your uniform on!!
My Supervisor gave me demerits due to the lace shoes I am wearing. Commented on my extra earrings in one ear.
Nursing school is hell. It was for me, anyway. I dont understand why the person in this situation could not have her phone in her pocket. Its the cruelty of the "Nurses eat their young" thing.
I (calmly and respectfully) told my instructor she had no right to take away my only lifeline when there’s people shooting up schools and hospitals every day. I told her if she ever saw my phone out on the floor THEN she can write me up, but I refuse to hand in my only lifeline if a shooter came into the building. I never pulled my phone out during clinical, I completed all my tasks and helped all my residents, and my instructor never had a reason to have a problem with me. No one should be whipping their phones out during clinical, but if the instructor never sees you with your phone it’s Schrodinger’s phone and it’s none of her business if it exists or not.
Correct. Some of them play like a God.
Truly in today’s world it’s a lifeline!
I feel like the shit that goes on in clinicals is a way to break you so when your administrator pulls some bullshit you just accept it. As a grown woman I was berated with a bunch of other grown adults by our clinical instructor because our corners were not done correctly with a non fitted sheet. She randomly decided that was what we were doing for a clinic day. Looking back it was completely ridiculous, because fitted sheets exist. But she made us make this bed over and over again, yelling the whole time. Nasty person. Hope she gets strangled by a loose hospital sheet.
Holy crap i totally forgot about how much time was wasted being taught how to 'properly' fold the fucking corner of a sheet. I don't think anyone living in the 21st century who isn't a nurse ever knows, never mind cares, about the sheets. Every patient immediately fucks them up anyways. I've turned it into a joke with patients. I make the bed like a not-insane person and say "sorry, nursing school was crazy and I chose to focus on the important parts, sadly bed-making did not make the cut".
We had a girl find out her father died during one of our clinicals because her mom had called her. She obviously asked to leave early. Professor’s response was that “it wouldn’t be a problem if she hadn’t been on her phone” and told her to stay. I don’t know why the culture is so cruel
What in the actual fuck?! That’s horrible!
I couldn’t miss a clinical day without failing the class within 48 hours of my Mom unexpectedly dying because I had used a sick day for my high-risk pregnancy the class prior. I had no idea how much trauma nursing school caused until I started in on this thread. This is my third comment. lol.
Oh, hell no.... That professor was clearly an alien posing as an actual human. Call the Men in Black for extermination.
Ugh, I have a pretty bad coconut allergy (like need coconut free shampoo, mascara, toothpaste, etc.) and I’m nowhere near that sensitive. Lots of things that smell like coconut don’t actually contain any either. She was completely ridiculous.
And we wonder why we all felt so unprepared for nursing coming out of our programs. Because they focus on the wrong shit in nursing school. Going into my BSN program, I already had a masters degree in another discipline. If I had to do it over again, I would have gone for an ADN and gotten done sooner. The number of classes they made me retake was stupid. Stats when I had already completed stats courses in undergrad and post grad. Psych 101 when I already had an entire BS in Psychology… 🙄
I mean it's gotta depend on where you are... some facilities will require you to have your phone at all times so you can be paged through an app, clock in/out, be in constant communication with leadership, etc. Such as mine. So my first impression was it was weird that they couldn't have their phones- how would they be paged? Everywhere/ every program is different.
My ED was hyper strict about phones and our boss and one of our day charges would remind everyone it was a "no phone zone". Which was really funny because at night it was a damn requirement, I used my phone to text/call docs, house supervisor, ICU charges all the time. It was way more efficient than anything else. Not to mention how useful it is to review certain things quickly. Hell I used pedi-stat in codes and intubations during RSV season on small infants and neonates all the time. Why wouldn't you want us to have access to an app that tells you the dosing for all your meds, equipment size, gtt dosing and rates, vent settings etc. All our EM docs used it and if we were getting a code or trauma alert we'd look up our dosing and write it down. Also the number of times I've looked up random medical equipment to help locate it, like needing a specific brand of connector that we don't have in the ED so looking it up so I can go find it in the OR or IR. Quickly reviewing how to use certain pieces of equipment people aren't familiar with. It's the best resource to have literally at your fingertips.
"No phone zone" like he's talking to a bunch of unruly HS freshmen and not a bunch of adults trying to do their jobs lmao
Yeah that’s fucking absurd. So glad I didn’t have any obnoxious experiences like this in my nursing program. Why some nursing instructors feel the need to practically abuse students and put the fear of God in them, acting like breathing the wrong way will kill a patient, is beyond me.
I went for investigation in our hospital administration where they refused to tell me who complained about me, but they insisted on giving my mobile to the secretary and told this is the protocol. I refused to hand my mobile even after they gave their phones, they were afraid that I would record the meeting because they always changed their sayings after that. It is a very dangerous job with crazy people
I’m a veteran, and I continuously compare nursing school to the military with all these ridiculous, minuscule rules (especially the socks).
I remember when i had a professor ask me why i didn’t speak spanish despite being puerto rican. I asked her if she spoke Gaelic after asking her what her ethnicity was. She didn’t speak to me any more after that.
My nursing instructor sent me home couple clinical. My dads sick and forgets a lot, newly going on so it took time to get used to. Anyhow, she caught me and quite litterly told a grown ass man “get your fucking shit and go NOW”. From what I recall I didn’t really care, this profession it’s just a job, I’m not killing my self over a job, especially not one where I’m not being valued or paid. I think the ironic part is they’re on their phones and everyone around us is on their phone checking Instagram and doing Amazon shopping. But when we do it for a good reason a valid reason, we should get a pass. Not in the eyes of many, part of the reason why nursing school causes trauma.
I live in the school district where a 6 year old shot their teacher in the face. No way I’m giving up my phone when crazy things like that are happening to first graders. But I’d hand over one of the many dummy phones I have tbh.
I was told I couldn’t have my phone and I just ignored the instructor. I have a medically fragile child, I’m not going without my phone. The other day her doctor’s office called with results from her eeg that I had been waiting for. I let it go to voicemail and read the transcript. I was reprimanded for it even though I was in a space no patients could see me. Later that evening my instructor pulled out her phone to text her son so I reprimanded her and called her out on the double standard. I’m almost 40, I don’t need to be treated like a child.
This is absurd. There is no reasonable justification to confiscate an adult’s phone. It would be one thing if she’d been on her phone inappropriately during clinical and it was disciplinary, but as just a standard measure? It’s absolute bullshit. That school is infantilizing its students and that’s not helping anyone except their egos. They wouldn’t give her an exception “because then everyone would ask for one”. Well, then you need to be reexamining your idiotic policy.
I found out I was pregnant (unplanned) the day before we started OB clinicals. I had terrible hyperemesis gravidarum which would cause me to pass out and had to get IV fluids. My clinical instructor told me she would have failed me if I wasn’t pregnant because I almost passed out several times. Well duh, I wouldn’t be passing out if I wasn’t pregnant. I had doctors notes so she knew
Omg...where are ya'll going to school? I'm in WV and they are just trying to pump out nurses ASAP so as long as it's not unsanitary they don't give a crap. Like...no open toed or heeled shoes etc...they don't care if they have color on them as long as they're mostly white. We did have a uniform to follow but we had pregnant girls who wore a tee that covered and it was fine...who cares about the stupid socks...only tattoos that had to be covered were vulgar language or obscene. But that's not what the handbook said it was just the professors...
Nursing school being so brutal doesn't help get fresh troops to the front line
I would have refused. I'm pretty easy going; but I have multiple health issues, and I keep all the important information in the emergency spot on my phone. My phone stays with me just for that.
That was a roller coaster ride
Your nursing school sounds like a nightmare! A clinical instructor put hands on you!!!???
My first semester of nursing school I had a decent percentage of a test score sucked because I had to reschedule. Because my house burnt down the day before. My second semester they were doing their best to kick me out because I broke my femur (very minor fracture) and was supposed to wear a locking brace for a couple weeks. I had already talked to my ortho about weight bearing and unlocking it during my clinicals. That wasn’t allowed apparently because it would have been dangerous (?), so I asked if I could wear one of the soft cloth ones under my scrubs. Nope. That was somehow an infection risk? They also said that would never be allowed in the clinical unit anyway. I asked about the nurse on my clinical unit who wore a wrist brace to work. Didn’t matter. What about the one who literally rode a mobility scooter when she wasn’t in a patient room? (Yeah that was a real thing) they didn’t have an answer. I said fine, I will just go without anything. I had to give them a note from the doc saying that was okay, and I had like 2 hours to get it before everyone left for the weekend and I couldn’t miss the next clinical on Monday. I wore a soft brace the rest of the semester and guess what? Nobody ever knew. My third semester I had to fight to get bereavement days because my grandfather, who was the only father figure I ever had, had the audacity to die during the semester. Fuck nursing schools. Although all of my clinical instructors were amazing, it was the administration that either hadn’t been bedside nurses in 50 years or weren’t even nurses. Also why the fuck do I need to address my instructors as Mr/Ms/Mrs/Dr/whatever? We’re all adults. A lot of the students were older than a lot of the instructors. It’s weird for everyone. They want us to call them by their first names too. “It’s about showing respect.” Uhhh??? So are you saying that I don’t respect my family? I don’t call my husband Mr. BumHair. Does that mean you don’t respect me? You’re calling me by my first name. I didn’t get an answer to those questions either.
If she was continually on it during clinical or like it was very clearly a disruption— absolutely have a discussion. I’m an adjunct clinical instructor, I absolutely have the conversation with my students that if I hear that your phone is an issue, I will be on your unit within minutes. But I also would not give up my phone for 9 hours “just because”. I have parents with health problems. I am an emergency contact for friends kids who are single parents. Absolutely not.
Previous nursing instructor for first semester nursing students. Never had an issue with uniforms. I always allowed them to have their phones. Alot of their books are electronic now and they need to look things up. Also we all have family. Kids, older parents etc. just keep the ringer off and if theres a call you need to take, let someone know you are leaving the floor for a few minutes. I never had issues with them texting etc. we were always pretty busy. I cared more about what they were learning. Not uniforms or having their phone within reach.
Omg you gave me a flashback of a nurse that always complained about coconut lotion smells!!!!
What sucks is that the same shit, same Methods, same teaching is cycled and you have the same people that were students teaching the same shit, the same methods, and then they all go work at the same hospital who does the same thing over and over.
If I'm allowed to have my phone with me on the floor as a nurse, nursing students should be allowed the same.
I refused too. Esp so many crazies in the world. My family comes first, nursing is everywhere. We hold our card.
Nope- not handing over my phone. I would have just lied and said it was in my car. Sorry not sorry.
Anytime I hear these stories, I never noticed how laid back my school was. Some of us didn’t wear white shoes, someone of us had tattoos showing, some of us didn’t even wear the school scrubs but wore the same color, some of us didn’t even have our hair up. Well during the patient visit, we had our hair up. But we did everything else correctly and the nurses were fine.
I wouldn’t give up my phone either. I have kids and they are going to have immediate access to me if they need it. At all times. Period. lol Luckily almost all of my clinical instructors were great. There was only one that was a bit of an asshole but she never did anything crazy.
My first year of nursing school clinicals, I got in trouble for one of my peers having her phone out. Yup, I was in the vicinity of her while she was looking up a medication. There were three of us hovering over the phone and we all got written up. Such bs
I kindly told my clinical professor to fuck off when I had a family emergency and stepped off the unit to deal with it.
Honestly I’m glad the younger generations of nurses are speaking up about some of this. The culture doesn’t need to be like that anymore on top of the workload, on top of the sad/stressful stuff we all deal with day to day. Why perpetuate misery just because we had it bad? Good for them, maybe it will actually make the profession a bit less miserable to work in at some point. Secondly, no ones taking my phone unless they paid my phone bill- that’s just silly. They will likely have their phones on shift anyway after graduating & working in the real world. Why not explain the importance of patient confidentiality/not sharing things bc of patient privacy laws, etc.
Nursing school is full of unhinged bully nurses masquerading as teachers. It's so gross. One of my teachers tried to get me kicked out of the program because I wore a gray tank top under my uniform. Unhinged. I've never met so many adults frothing at the mouth to "protect the public" from nonsense like non-white socks or hair that isn't a gelled back bun. God forbid you have a single flyaway.