Things that Students Forget

[Sapphire Silk]

Being book smart does not equal having common sense.

Quoted for Truth.

My best friend in nursing school was incredibly book smart. I wasn't. I struggled in the classroom. She literally got me through the academic portion of school.

We were never in the same clinic group, sadly. I could have helped HER there.

She didn't know one end of a bed pan from the other.

In one incident, in our first semester, she came from another floor to mine looking for our instructor in a panic. I asked her what was wrong.

Friend: I have to find Maureen! (our instructor)
Me: She's in the conference room. What's wrong?

Friend ignores me and goes into the conference room. A moment later, my instructor bursts out, my friend in tow. I can still see her lab coattails flapping behind her as she hit the stairs.

Turns out my friend was told to spray Granulex (a wound treatment for bedsores) into a bedsore before sending the patient to PT. She didn't know what can it was, so she just grabbed one.

It turned out to be Lysol.

She still managed to graduate at the top of our class, and got a coveted job in the OR of a major DC area hospital (unheard of for new grads in the 1980's).

A year or so after I graduated, I ran into another classmate and we chatted and got caught up. She told me my friend had left the OR job, and had a job doing research.

"Thank God," I blurted out.

It was really for the best. She wasn't cut out for patient care.

But she sure was smart.

[dalesys]

No, too inconvenient. We keep a can of liquid nitrogen at the nurse's station . . . a quick squirt, and it's cold enough to shock a heart back to life.

... doctors always keep their stethoscopes in the freezer ...
... and then they pull it out, slap it on your chest, and say: "Take a deep breath!"

Ahhahhahhahhahhahhahhahhahh!

... you can't help but take a deep breath!

The challenge is ever exhaling again.


Dr. Cos, morphed through my microbit memory.

[Metody]

I had a classmate who was angry that she was sent home because of her underwear. It showed through her uniform.

Okay, fine. They're white uniforms. If you wear anything other than your exact skin tone, it'll show through. The teachers are used to that. If your white bra shows, everyone will politely ignore it. We're all in the same boat here, including the teachers.

Your fire-engine-red bra and thong set with the black lace overlay? Not so much.

Later, she missed another day because she wore teeny shorts and a sweatshirt to a clinical prep day, instead of the required business casual. Until she'd bent over to pick something up, I hadn't realized she was wearing the shorts too!

[Sapphire Silk]

I had a classmate who was angry that she was sent home because of her underwear. It showed through her uniform.

Okay, fine. They're white uniforms. If you wear anything other than your exact skin tone, it'll show through. The teachers are used to that. If your white bra shows, everyone will politely ignore it. We're all in the same boat here, including the teachers.

Your fire-engine-red bra and thong set with the black lace overlay? Not so much.

Yeah, I've had this one.

Later, she missed another day because she wore teeny shorts and a sweatshirt to a clinical prep day, instead of the required business casual. Until she'd bent over to pick something up, I hadn't realized she was wearing the shorts too!

Well, that one's different. I've had the torn jeans thing, but nothing THAT sloppy.

[Metody]

She was good at finding new and interesting ways to break the dress code. One of my friends thought she was amazingly unlucky, but I think it was her way to rebel. After the bra thing, she got sent home for wearing knee-high socks that were striped black and red. She got a tattoo on her wrist, then threw a fit about having to cover it up because you're apparently not supposed to cover tattoos for the first week you have them? She got a nose stud, and instead of getting a clear piercing to put in it, she put a huge, obvious piece of tape on her face instead. She'd show up to clinical looking normal, then halfway through the day, you'd see her with hoop earrings - because hey, the nurses and PCTs wear hoops, so it must be okay for her to, right?

The last straw was when she took her hair down halfway through clinical. She had beautiful hair. Beautiful long hair. It dragged through a wound she was cleaning, and she freaked out about it and left the patient sitting there with the wound open to the air while she washed her hair at the sink.

Er. And to make this a little more germane to the thread, she was always forgetting something and bumming it off of someone else while the instructor was around. Stethoscopes. Penlights. Freaking pens, how hard is it to carry a pen? Constantly.

[Sapphire Silk]

She got a tattoo on her wrist, then threw a fit about having to cover it up because you're apparently not supposed to cover tattoos for the first week you have them? She got a nose stud, and instead of getting a clear piercing to put in it, she put a huge, obvious piece of tape on her face instead. She'd show up to clinical looking normal, then halfway through the day, you'd see her with hoop earrings - because hey, the nurses and PCTs wear hoops, so it must be okay for her to, right?

The last straw was when she took her hair down halfway through clinical. She had beautiful hair. Beautiful long hair. It dragged through a wound she was cleaning, and she freaked out about it and left the patient sitting there with the wound open to the air while she washed her hair at the sink.

Er. And to make this a little more germane to the thread, she was always forgetting something and bumming it off of someone else while the instructor was around. Stethoscopes. Penlights. Freaking pens, how hard is it to carry a pen? Constantly.

Oh, good lord. If this girl were my student we'd be having a "Come to Jesus" meeting, and she'd get an ultimatum: clean up your act or I fail you for clinic.

I've had students who have tattoos on their wrists (usually they're higher up, like fore arm or upper arm), and a white tennis sweat band is perfectly acceptable to cover it. One student simply taped a 2x2 over hers. A long sleeved shirt is also acceptable: girls wear a white polo under their white nursing vest and they come both short and long sleeved while boys wear a men's clinic jacket that is short sleeved but they are allowed to wear a long sleeved white shirt underneath it.

I take no prisoners on the long hair. If I have to put mine up, you have to put yours up. I don't care what the staff are doing, as I am not responsible for the staff's violating the hospital dress code. But actually, that has not been an issue (at least not yet).

I did have a staff nurse complain about a male student's goatee once. I saw her point in that it actually was quite ugly and did not look good on him. However, it was neatly trimmed, and the rest of his face was cleanly shaved. I had to tell her I'm not the fashion police, and since he otherwise met the dress code concerning facial hair I actually had no right to ask him to shave it off, nor did I do so.

[trailerparkmedic]

A long sleeved shirt is also acceptable: girls wear a white polo under their white nursing vest and they come both short and long sleeved while boys wear a men's clinic jacket that is short sleeved but they are allowed to wear a long sleeved white shirt underneath it.

I always forget that the best thing about my school is that we are allowed to wear ANY scrubs, as long as they are a specific, incredibly common color and they have our school patch on them. The color isn't a light color, so underwear showing isn't an issue. I am SO thankful that my scrubs are cheap and easy to wear.

One of my classmates forgot her stethoscope 2 weeks in a row and she thought it was ok because she could just use mine. Yeah, because I'm not trying to do assessments or vitals either. I had a smart moment and remembered that the nurses have disposable stethoscopes available for when a patient is on certain types of isolation so we got one of those for her to use the first week. Then my classmate had the balls to complain that the disposable stethoscope just wasn't as good as her Littmann and could she borrow my stethoscope even though it just wasn't as nice as her $300 master cardiology one? I stopped helping her at that point.
I almost feel bad for her because she's going to have a hell of a time as an employee if she's pulling this as a student.

[Sapphire Silk]

One of my classmates forgot her stethoscope 2 weeks in a row and she thought it was ok because she could just use mine. Yeah, because I'm not trying to do assessments or vitals either. I had a smart moment and remembered that the nurses have disposable stethoscopes available for when a patient is on certain types of isolation so we got one of those for her to use the first week. Then my classmate had the balls to complain that the disposable stethoscope just wasn't as good as her Littmann and could she borrow my stethoscope even though it just wasn't as nice as her $300 master cardiology one? I stopped helping her at that point.
I almost feel bad for her because she's going to have a hell of a time as an employee if she's pulling this as a student.

Yes, that's another employability skill. I've had to tell several students they need to bring their own stuff to clinic . . . and I got one who's going to get that message next week.