Hi! all,
I am a nurse and was a nursing instructor. We built in 10 absent days to our LPN program. After that, the student was dismissed from the program. They signed a policy form statement that they understood this strict rule. We actually counted tardy and absent time in 15 minute increments. If a student came to clinical too ill to work, with safety and wellness of our patients our priority, we would send that student off duty.Those hrs. were counted as absent hours as well. All the teachers understood that no one chooses to be sick, and with certain students, who truly used their absent time for responsible necessary reasons, i.e., being a single parent with two sick kids, it was the instructor's discrection to assess how sick, and decide if clinical goals could be met that day by sending the student to a conference room with an alternative to direct pt. care assignment. We always had those certain few students who blew through their 10 days of PTO in the first two months of our 10 month program........ hangover, slept in, didn't do my homework, had to go on vacation, had to babysit, (and on certain limited occasions we all had a child "visit" our class when the parent was absolutely desperate). When I worked staff in ICU, we all agreed we hated to/didn't and should call in sick when we needed to. Working short staffed was usual for us, and if I learned anything in 35 years of nursing: call in sick when you really need to. We used having a fever as the golden rule, because that's when you are very contagious, and you can't take care of anyone if you can't and don't take care of yourself first.
hugs,
suetoo