Week One Down

No more days of getting up at 4:45. At least I hope so. Now I'm going to be orienting on the 3-11 shift. So I still get somewhat nervous because of a new schedule. It's up and down. The bed count is still low so it's not as busy. I make rounds. It'll be interesting to see if things pick up with 3-11 but a lot of times people go to bed by 9. Though there will be less physical therapy and occ therapy so that won't be keeping patients busy.

I took another orientee in to empty a colostomy bag and she said, "You should have warned me, I would have worn a mask," when we got out of the room. I was surprised she made it through nursing school without having to do that. But you never know what kind of issues patients have.

A girl who is also orienting and is 19 told me she was in a "serious relationship." She's been dating a guy since she was 15. Do people really do that? Weird.

There's definitely a separation between nursing students and "career" CNAs but it's not too bad so far. This week I should receive hours after I finish training. Though I hate working and want to work as little as possible, I said I'd like to work 32 hours a week in the summer and then two shifts in the fall when school begins.

I'm not getting any bad or weird vibes so I think I can last for 6+ months.

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.

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.

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.

Failed test, bad mood

Clinical today was lousy. Didn't learn a single thing. Observed the woman the entire time. Didn't do anything hands on even though I said that I had been a CNA and a Medical Assistant. My clinical teacher said that the nurse "thought" I "didn't want to do anything." What crap that is! She didn't give me a chance.

She said every time she looked at me in class I looked angry which is also bullshit. How am I supposed to have that empty look on my face. I said I was "agressive" and she said I "came across as insecure." I may have some insecurities but I am certainly not insecure about everything.

When I said that preferred to live in Boston, she suggested that I should think about MGH Institute for Health Science. Is she high? I have 90K in debt from Boston University to deal with. And I would have also gone to Simmons or BC if I could have afforded it but instead I am at a community college for now.

I am so insulted. How can people look at me and make such assumptions? It's so unfair.

Why do I do so much and still feel so crappy?

The day:
0620 left my house
ate banana in the car

0730 Arrived in Saugus
Stopped at Starbucks for a Venti iced latte from Starbucks. Called Nicole (way behind) and Robert (already arrived and down at the building and at the Panera-- said I would meet him there).
Got a blueberry bagel with margarine at Panera.

0830-1215 Listened to elder law attorney and then teachers talk about what to expect and what assignments we would have with this rotation. A lot in a short period of time but not all that bad.

12:30 Black bean soup and salad at Panera with Robert.

Stopped at Sketchers and bought new pair of shoes.

1400 Arrived at John Kerry campaign HQ. Spent two hours making GOTV calls. Phonebanking is not much phone but it's part of the campaign process.

1600 Left Kerry HQ with t-shirt, lawn sign and button.

1630 Picked up pen lights at Uniforms of America. Realized I am way out of money.

1800 Voted.

1810 Arrived home and wanted to cry. But I have things to do. But do I want to do them or just get in bed and never wake up again? I have very few friends. B wouldn't even miss me. He'd just move along with some airhead Match.com girl and forget he even knew me.

First Week Down and Still Nervous

It's second semester and second week of nursing school for me and I feel like crying, getting into bed and not getting up again. I'm frustrated and doubting myself and my decision to do this program. Of course I will finish it and I do find it interesting at times, but must parts of it be so annoying. And must some of the faculty be so daft and threatening?

Yesterday in lab, we went over injection sites and it should be review even though since I graduated from the Medical Assistant program (at the same school), I have done very few injection (none actually) but it all comes back to me with some practice (or will). I made a comment how it was awkward. She had me mapping the spot with my dominant hand. I had learned to map it with my non-dominant hand and then clean it with my dominant hand and inject. Not mark it and keep switching hands like switching forks back and forth. I guess I'm European that way. I said I had learned it a different way and she said dismissively, "Everyone teaches it a different way, just do it this way, blah blah." But what annoyed me is that these nurses have such disdain for my experience and my DEGREE from the SAME school in Medical Assistant and I'm now a Certified Medical Assistant (I worked hard in that program too) only a year and a half ago. I call BS on the whole thing and it got me so upset that I felt my old anger boil up again and nearly exploded, told her she was an idiot and walked out. It's all under the same health studies umbrella at the same school. I'd think they'd be happy that I kept going to pursue nursing. They are getting my money instead of another school.

I'm so tired. I don't want to read tonight. So I'm not going to and last night I went for a bike ride and cried for over an hour thinking about how this was not going to improve my life because whether or not I became a nurse, Brian was going to be out of my life in the near future and it upsets me to think about that. It hurts. I feel I'm good enough and smart enough, pretty and cultured and we have fun, as often as we fight, we have fun.