Can't really blame the students when the PDs are the ones having these expectations because the poor guys are flooded with so so many apps (and need something to compare applicants)... even though of course a simple solution exists
200+ MS1s and MS2s have already proudly signed up. Now we wait to see them rave on Twitter (and perhaps on SDN) how amazing and inspiring this experience is.
Do you care to share specific stories, rather than just post unsubstantiated rumors? 🙂 I've heard some of the same things, but I don't think blanket statements like this do anyone any good.
Experience is great, but if other people are getting paid for the same work, you should too. Otherwise you’re being taken advantage of.
You realize there are better ways to obtain clinical experience than getting exploited by the hospital system right? If this is literally the only clinical experience available at UTSW, there's a problem
How many logical fallacies are you going to try to fit in one thread?
I'm saying there are better ways to get clinical experience than willingly being used for free by a hospital system that can clearly pay for nurses but won't.
I gotta say I greatly preferred the general medical school approach a year ago when they:
I’d buy the exploitation argument if this were in any way compulsory, but it’s not. Students for years have asked for earlier and more involved clinical experiences. They complain when they feel like they’re just shadowing and not part of the team delivering real care. Now a school comes along offering a chance to do something real and people are getting their panties in a wad because they aren’t being paid for it. Given the need I have no doubt the idea of paying students was raised, but probably slapped down because of policies against students having any job while in school and the inherent conflict of interest.
If a student were already a licensed RN I think you’d have an excellent point here. As it is, students aren’t yet licensed professionals in most cases and would not only require supervision and training by someone accountable for their work, but there would also be big liability issues.
The nurses apparently had left because of the conditions resulting from malignant admins according to that Reddit thread and not because of a nursing shortage, which is where the exploitative arguments are coming from (in addition to not paying students). The admins clearly thought about paying more but maybe they chose not to?
The nursing shortage is part of why they can’t fill their spots with nurses.
This is ridiculous. No one is going to look at a med student’s eras and wonder why they didn’t volunteer to work as a nurse for free as they toss their app in the trash.
Seems a little harsh. There are reasons for doing it that don’t involve being taken advantage of or lacking common sense.
Not directly eras but peer and probably faculty pressure can be real
What do you mean by diploma program? There are over 2,600 nursing degree programs in the US and almost 1,000 BSN programs.
Dude, pressure like that is imagined. No one is pressuring you to volunteer to work as a nurse with the threat of not matching.
I'm not even saying what they're doing is at the level of a licensed RN to warrant payment. Emptying bedpans and assisting in ADLs does not require extensive training. Like the post above me mentioned, if it's truly a volunteer experience, the hours and duties expected shouldn't be rigorously enforced, since anything done will be a net benefit for the hospital. That would be fine. But treating the med students as effectively CNAs and expecting the same amount of work from them for no payment is not. Med students are in a uniquely vulnerable position when it comes to their home program's hospital due to the threat of dismissal or "red flags" on their residency applications, and using them as unpaid labor is exploiting this position.
Right. It would be. Except that’s not what’s happening here. It literally says in the email that your first priority is med school, so don’t volunteer if it’s going to hurt your studying or performance. And then it goes on to say that further instructions on how to sign up for shifts will be provided, which heavily implies that you just volunteer for as many or as few shifts as you want.
Right, but the actual expectations of the job itself are fairly vague in the email and I’m willing to bet likely encompasses any and all nursing duties not being currently covered. Once these students sign up for these shifts they’re not going to have the same leverage that an employee or a volunteer who could work somewhere else could and are going to be subject to the whims of whoever’s in charge. That’s what puts them in a vulnerable situation, and in an unpaid position to boot. And I know this is not currently the situation, but it would not surprise me if this evolved into a “volun-told” scenario here or somewhere else with students essentially being conscripted to unpaid nursing duties with dubious educational value.
So basically you’ve already decided this is sinister despite having zero evidence that it is.
This is true, though even CNAs have to have some kind of certification and then are hired by the hospital and added to their institutional insurance policy. So even though the basic assisting an overworked RN is pretty easy, most of the students will start without any experience on that unit or in that role.
A diploma program was generally a three year program where all didactics and clinicals were directed by a hospital rather than a university or community college. Graduates of these programs were eligible to take the exam that led to licensure. Here's a link:
www.nursingexplorer.com
From what the email says, it appears they will be given ppe. I also am betting they won’t be seeing covid patients, but that’s just a hunch.
One of the issues in an institution that big is that often the problematic or malignant admins are far removed from the ones who make big decisions about other things. I’m sure the medical school admin are separate in many ways from hospital admins and even further removed from the unit level nursing managers that seem to be on the receiving end of most of the grievances.
How about rotating with housekeeping to see what ONE housekeeping shift looks like. It may be a good learning experience to clean the toilets.
You should be getting tons of practice on this anyway. if not, its a huge red flag!
Which is why I don’t really care to post too much on Reddit and engage in that community. Reddit has always been more of an echo chamber of the consensus. Highly pro-medical student. Highly anti-midlevel to a fault IMO. Here everyone’s views are represented equally unless someone says something against ToS.
