More Nursing Placement Woes

[miniGMgoit]

So another day, another nursing placement. A majority of my placement have been awful at best however today takes me to a whole new world of crap.

I've been placed in an indigenous health service in a small inner city community. I was told by the manager to get there at 8:00am because they have daily team meetings.

At 8:30 he admin worker arrives (up until then I've been sitting outside waiting for anyone to turn up). I introduce myself and she lets me in. The phone rings and the health worker the manager assigned me too has phoned in sick. The admin worker calls the manager who is not around and the manager tells her to send me home as there's no one else around today.

After double checking that they were actually sending me home resulting in me having to make the whole day up again another day thus missing 2 days of paid work in my normal job I go home and immediately contact my unit coordinator. A couple of hours later she calls back and I double check that I'm going to have to make this time up in a 3rd week. They confirm that I will.

At this point I think I should let you know that I'm so broke right now due to this fucking degree and placement requirements and am utterly fed up with these cunts not taking student welfare seriously. They regularly tell us to suck it up or quit.

I then very politely and apologetically tell my coordinator that due to being constantly bullied, abused and victimized while on clinical placements (and we're talking ALL my clinical placements) I am now regretting ever bothering to study nursing as it seems full of bitter and hateful people who all seem to be both incompetent and hell bent on ruining new nurses lives.

The system is broken

To my surprise my lecturer agreed with me and said that all is not what it seemed. She then suggested I try and turn these bad experiences into good ones
I advised her I that as soon as I had figured out how I was going to pay my rent and feed myself I would be sure to take some time to reflect on my experiences.

Just before she left I also advised her that there are no Registered Nurses working in the clinic on Mondays and Fridays. I can ONLY be supervised by RN's and the fact that they put me with a health worker means I can't get anything signed off or indeed learn anything. This could mean that my placement goes on for 3 weeks instead of 2 (LOSS OF INCOME)

She also mentioned that they had stopped using this service because this keeps happening. I of course asked why I had been sent there???
No answer

Another fuck up by the Uni no doubt.

I've had enough.

[/rant]

 

[equationgirl]

That sucks I hope you manage to speak to someone at your uni at get it sorted out - can you be sent to a different placement where there is an RN?

Hang in there, nurses like you are few and far between.

 

[Cornetto]

Universities are at the mercy of employers regarding health and social care placements, however telling students to suck it up or quit is crap. Health and Social care courses under grad and post grad pre reg are ridiculous I remember having £400 a month to live off to feed, clothe, pay rent and bills and get to work and back. That was in the good days of getting the hallowed bursary!

 

[kalidarkone]

Royal college of nursing union? By the way this all sounds really familiar-how ever I have decided to 'suck it up' they will have to kick me off the course Im not fucking walking away as have invested so much time and effort....

 

[Cornetto]

Navigating two institutions:university and the health service is a ball ache, i would like to tell you it gets better once you get the job, I would be lying. University is currently sold as a consumer choice as an undergrauate or postgrauate, this premise is negated on a vocational course you have to prove your worth by 'sucking it up' or get told you are not up to standard. It is a crap system that reproduces the same crap system. I may have a whisky to negate it. Good luck with it!

 

[oddworld]

Hi MiniGMgoit I'm actually a nursing placements officer at a Uni - I'm on maternity leave at the moment. What you are experiencing is certainly not acceptable - what branch of nursing are you in?

If you want some help feel free to PM me

 

[stuff_it]

Universities are at the mercy of employers regarding health and social care placements, however telling students to suck it up or quit is crap. Health and Social care courses under grad and post grad pre reg are ridiculous I remember having £400 a month to live off to feed, clothe, pay rent and bills and get to work and back. That was in the good days of getting the hallowed bursary!

Really? From my experience of how nursing can be I can imagine there's a non-zero chance that the placement was deliberate as the OP had already complained about other placements. I am not of course able to say how great that non-zero chance is.

Most people in nursing are perfectly nice people but there is a significant minority that are full on bitchy twats who will rally together - it can be very much like policing where the nasty ones will back each other up etc. knowing that the junior person will not be believed.

It's sad that it's come to that and please do try and stick it out as you've come so far. Does the time have to be made up straight away the next week after the placement or could it be made up in a more flexible manner? Maybe plan out what you will say and suggest a slightly better work-around to make the time up, and of course try and change placements as well. At least it sounds like you have the backing of your lecturer.

Royal college of nursing union? By the way this all sounds really familiar-how ever I have decided to 'suck it up' they will have to kick me off the course Im not fucking walking away as have invested so much time and effort....

Well done, I tried to do that but eventually got kicked off for complete lies that some nursing staff made up about me on a placement...the sort of stuff that if I'd really been doing it the should have phoned the police, which of course I said at the time. I was failed half a mark in the exam and refused a reset because I wouldn't take counselling and admit to hitting, slapping and swearing at patients and staff.

The glowing reports from all my other placements and the offer of a job in A&E as an HCA that I wasn't allowed by the trust to take up having been kicked off my course show that there was nothing wrong with my skills, and I've never (touch wood) failed an exam in my life.

Watch your backs, seriously.

 

[Cornetto]

I work as an academic in HE within health and social care, placements are a nightmare to arrange/negotiate, more so in social care than health. You get what you are given, if its bad they will change it, however this is not as rapid as should be IME. I ahve had to sort out plenty of wonky placemnts in my 4 years of working in the sector 90 per cent are good though.