One of the biggest adjustments to CRNA school has been going from being a respected professional back to the bottom of the totem pole – a newbie with very little respect.
I was of course an adult in nursing school, but I was still young. It was a lot easier to swallow the disrespect and mistreatment.
However, being a full grown adult now, having lived an adult life for some time, and working an adult job for many years makes it much harder.
As an ICU nurse, I was certainly not an expert but I could definitely hold my own. As a SRNA, you are back to knowing nothing. It is a difficult adjustment.
I understandled a lot better.
From my experience, it is not just my school but rather the whole system of being a novice student. It is assumed that you live, eat, breathe, and sleep anesthesia.
Changes are made to the schedule with absolutely no notice and you are absolutely expected to drop everything to show up. It does not matter if you are notified the night before of a sudden meeting or lecture, you WILL be there or there are consequences.
So you suck it up and shoot dirty looks at your faculty members when they aren’t looking (don’t deny it, you know you’ve done it).
This has been particularly bothering me lately. I’ve been sick since my mission trip. I’m currently on my 2nd round of antibiotics. I am taking 6 pills a day to try to fight this thing, whatever it is.
I’ve had at least 1 doctor’s appointment a week since I’ve been home. I’ve been poked and analyzed.
At my most recent appointment a few days ago, my doctor suggested a week off from clinical to rest and rehydrate.
However the director of my program has decided this is not necessary. I was essentially told that as long as I can get out of bed, I can go to clinical. We are allowed sick days, but they have to be made up.
Missing a week of clinical would result in a week added on to the end of my program or missing my only vacation week between now and take boards, but people get sick. Life happens.
We are still human beings even though they like us to pretend otherwise. Trust me, this is not fun for me and I certainly would rather NOT be sick right now. With the holiday weekend, it all boiled down to missing TWO days of clinical.
As long as I am meeting my case requirements, why can’t I take TWO sick days? It is frustrating to not have the support of my faculty and to feel like they don’t care in the slightest about our well-being. I feel like I am being punished. I should not have to choose school over my health.