Saturday, October 11, 2008

Enemy #1

I'm SO glad I have an app't with my therapist on Monday before my Tuesday meeting with the Dean of Students and the Dean of Health Services (apparently people are wasting their time reading this blog. thank you if you are and comment on it and pass on the word so I can turn it into a web page and make some money. that's why I need a steady job so I can have a salary and write and no, blogging is not writing, it's venting and just doing some general writing here and there (I have another site to review films and music and entertainment if I don't submit it elsewhere)-- I'm not quite done fighting but I think I'm at the end of the line after seeing the reaction of the Ass't Dean of Nursing and some of the faculty.

What is SO wrong with me that this happens again and again? I have to move somewhere and be alone and just wait to die. No friends. No interaction with others. no boyfriends. no superiors. just me and a cat and welfare money. I'll last maybe five years.

BTW, I have two trust funds due to generous grandparents. Not huge that I can live off them and never work again but they supplement my income nicely. I see the films I want to see. B and I have frequented nearly every really great restaurant in Boston/Cambridge at least once. We go to the theater once a month. I enjoy memberships to an indie movie house and several museums.

I'm working on Obama's campaign, as I always get involved w/ some political campaign being a liberal feminist activitst (who dates Republicans) and also who enjoys the political scene and almost became a press secretary.

I went to very good private schools and that is why I am now at a community college because I have an enormous student loan from BU. I'm just frustrated professionally. Whoever is so cowardly that they read this and actually know me and cannot email or call or text me than you will NEVER succeed in healthcare. You cannot handle tragedy, emotions, disappoints, depression which many people will have that you deal with. So shame on you.

You kinda know who your friends are when the chips are down and no one calls.. I trust you to use good judgment. I've heard from Robert, Dawn, Nancy Nicole and Susan.

I have theories about who's spreading rumors and talking to teachers and deans about this blog. I know who likes to gossip and talk and cluster and be in cliques like high school.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Middlesex Community College has ruined me

Kicked me out over something that happened this summer at New England Rehabilitation. No investigation. They did not ask my side of the story. I was told this is it. "There is nothing that can be done."

Really? This is the way you treat smart, dedicated, promising nursing students?

Dean Kathy Gehly did not even have the decency to sit down to speak with me and give me the letter I requested. I had asked her to mail or fax it to me but she told me to make an appointment with her secretary to come in to get it. When I arrived, she stood there, handed it to me and I said, "Should I read it now?" If it were not a big deal why didn't she mail or fax it!!! Also for someone who is a nurse and in healthcare to treat a student like dirt is truly uncalled for. She could have given me a copy of the student handbook or told me something.

here is the email I sent her:
Amy Steele to gehlyk
show details Oct 7 (2 days ago)



Dean Gehly,
As I mentioned on the phone I need a letter stating why you gave me a clinical failure. I can either pick it up from your office or you can mail it or fax it to you (information below). Please let me know what is easier. I would also like to know where the policy is that states this and also why there is no other alternative for a student in good standing. It seems rather sad/detrimental that due to one person's opinion, I have to drop out of a program I am doing quite well in unless I am delusional about that as well.

Is there any recourse for me to fight this?
------------------------------------------------
In the "meeting" (I use that term very loosely)
I said that I was dedicated to the program. I wanted to be there. I really wanted to be a nurse. I had been doing well. This was not an academic or disiplinary problem. This is a problem from several months back from an institution that holds a grudge. My wonderful therapist, Mark, who has a MSW and PhD teaches at BU and says there is ALWAYS another option for students there. I guess you get what you pay for at a community college.

I just passed the injection certification on Monday and the instructors could see how well I did and the technique I have and how well prepared I was. I emailed both Professor Nancy Mizzoni and Professor Tina Cormio and neither have emailed back or even called and I find it appalling. Not very supportive. Shows they didn't think I would have been a good student and are glad I'm not in their classed anymore.

Professor Pherson said I was "a pleasure to watch" do my cert even though I made a few mistakes-- passed still. One bottle had a minute amount of fluid and I had to pull the needle almost entirely out. I'm really going to miss school and the class and am going into the Bell Jar as we speak. It's awful. I was so close and geting back into the groove with my meds etc. and one woman had to ruin it for me with her sour puss face (the bitch Nancy Gondek at New England Rehabilitation Hospital)?

A classmate sent me this email but if no one SAYS anything it doesn't help:
s.x@xx to me
show details 8:48 PM (18 hours ago)


We are all so mad at the school on your behalf. The folks who just finished clinical at Woburn told horror stories of the way the nurses and aides there treated them.

Hang in there,
Susan
--




I also just cannot believe that no professor will help me or answer any of my emails.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I got kicked out of nursing school because I had a summer job

I worked at New England Rehab Hospital where I was slandered this summer. Someone said I threw a walker which I never did and vehemently denied but the nursing manager did not believe me. No one believed me apparently. They believed the distraught wife of the patient instead of the Nursing Assistant. So I quit because I could not be in an inenvironment that lacked that kind of support.

Yesterday, we had our clinical orientation at NERH on the same unit that I worked at this summer and the sour-faced nurse manager Nancy Gondek noticed me and immediately talked to my clinical instructor and told her she wasn't "comfortable" with me doing clinical here unless I was under 1:1 supervision. The clinical instructor, Sue Ryan, said that it wasn't possible and next thing I knew I had "bad news" to hear: if I didn't do this clinical that I couldn't pass clinical at all (thus out of the program). NO OPTIONS PROVIDED. [Oh, Ps. Sue Ryan also said maybe nursing wasn't for me and I should consider something else in the healthcare field and she had known me for about an hour! How dare she? I've been studying to be a nurse for five years and have wanted to be a nurse for much longer!]

WHAT KIND OF "TOP NOTCH" PROGRAM IS MIDDLESEX COMMUNITY COLLEGE SUPPOSED TO ME IF THEY DO NOT HELP THEIR STUDENTS WHO ARE DOING WELL (BESIDES ONE C) CONTINUE TO DO WELL AND TO DO WHAT THEY NEED TO DO TO SUCCEED INSTEAD OF JUST CUTTING THE ROPE AND LETTING GO OF THE DEAD WEIGHT BECAUSE IT'S JUST EASIER FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS TO MOVE ON WITHOUT THINKING AND BEING DRAGGED DOWN. HOW UNFAIR IS THAT? THERE HAS TO BE SOME OTHER OPTION? THERE HAS TO BE SOME OTHER WAY?

Katherine Gehly, MSN, RN, Assistant Division Dean for Nursing, was very matter of fact in her presentation to me of the fact that I would not be able to continue in the program. No options. No plans to fight it. No apologies. Nothing. She could care less. Another student down. Good, I guess. That's how I felt. She didn't care if I would become an excellent nurse. Perhaps she has already decided that I couldn't possibly make a good nurse if someone wouldn't want me at such a divine, lovely establishment as New England Rehab.

I would also like to know where the policy is that states this and also why there is no other alternative for a student in good standing. It seems rather sad/detrimental that due to one person's opinion, I have to drop out of a program I am doing quite well in unless I am delusional about that as well.

On a positive note:
Just Monday, I passed my injection certification which was grueling and difficult. I spent many hours of prep time in and out of the lab. Prof. Pherson told me it was a pleasure to watch me. I said, "Really?" She responded, "Yes, it's been a rough morning." What a lovely compliment and then the above had to occur.