Greets all
My partner a former cardiac registered nurse out of practice for nine years started the (expensive!) nurse re-entry course in QLD last year. Due to illness (we all had whooping cough) she was able to do it part-time over two semesters. Everything went well at first, she consistently scored high in her assignments. She also did fine at the three day clinical workshop at the university.
They told her since she was a former cardiac nurse, they had arranged her clinical placement in the cardiac ward at a Brisbane hospital. Two days before she was due to start her clinical placement, they told her the plan had changed, she was being placed in a Critical Care Unit (CCU) instead. She was not happy to hear this, as she said CCU is a high pressure environment.
During her four weeks of clinical placement she experienced issues. The preceptor told her outright she did not like or agree with being a preceptor. The preceptor was absent most of the time, even changing her shifts to not coincide with my partner. My partner was paired with a variety of other nurses. She felt she received little direction, and almost no feedback. The educator at the hospital likewise was well-meaning, but was busy teaching new staff about new digital monitoring equipment due to be installed at the hospital in a few weeks. So the educator was also absent and unaware of the situation.
On the third last day during the clinical placement my partner made an unsafe mistake - a monitor was alarming due to low oxygen saturation, she was unfamiliar with it, saw the heart readings were OK and switched it off thinking it was faulty - the nurse she was paired with immediately told her it was a mistake and switched the monitor back on. Still it was an error. But no one discussed the incident with her, or tried to teach her the proper procedure.
She thought everything was fine until the last day, when her preceptor told her she would not be passing her clinical due to unsatisfactory performance. She would not explain what that unsatisfactory performance was. My partner was devastated. A few days later the hospital educator contacted my partner to ask why she has not submitted finalizing documentation. My partner told her the preceptor had not signed off on her clinical practice due to unsatisfactory performance but had not provided further details - the hospital educator was shocked, she had not been told anything by the preceptor. The preceptor had gone on a long leave of several days, so the hospital educator could not contact her. She promised to sort it out, citing the situation as 'unprofessional' on their behalf.
A few days later the university educator contacted my partner and it was only then that she was told it was due to the monitor incident she had not passed her clinical placement. By this point my partner had become an emotional wreck, and her confidence had been completely destroyed. She was ready to quit. To their credit, the university educators running the re-entry course have bent over backwards to try to resolve the situation. They offered an option for my partner to do a clinical challenge at their unit, and then more clinical placement at a different hospital in a rehab ward.
Myself, and various members of my partners family have worked tirelessly to support my partner during this, and help motivate her to continue when so far all the process had brought her was emotional pain and suffering. We went through a protracted process with AHPRA to gain an extension (since her 10 years out of practice was looming) to enable her to do the clinical challenge and extra placement.
A few days ago I drove my partner to the clinical challenge. She had spent days in tears with anxiety, and not slept the night before. While changing into her nursing clothes in the toilets, she threw up out of anxiety. She went into the challenge with her hands visibly shaking. Unsurprisingly she did not pass the clinical challenge either, due to a few mistakes (forgot to wash hands once, carried a document between patients violating infection control) which in my mind were entirely caused by anxiety. The person overseeing the clinical challenge told her it was likely the re-entry course was over for her, she had failed. (she has yet to hear from the university educator overseeing the whole process)
As far as I am concerned, the trouble started with placing her in a CCU at the last minute (she is nearly 10 years out of practice, this seems to set the bar way too high - a fellow student she did the course with was placed in a nursing home and was not challenged at all, and easily passed!). It was worsened by a disinterested, hands-off preceptor, a distracted hospital educator, and little monitoring, feedback or guidance on the clinical placement. I applaud the university educators for making every effort to provide another pathway for success, but once my partner's confidence and self-belief was destroyed in the clinical placement, it was nearly impossible to regain it. This has wasted alot of our time, a huge amount of finances we sacrificed immensely for, and this has ruined her nursing future - and shaken her to her core, she has been robbed of her confidence and self-respect.
