The Catskill Chronicle

To the editor:

Jackie – unfortunately you are very wrong. I am a Nurse. I am a Licensed Practical Nurse. I passed my NCLEX boards the first time I sat for them. I passed all my skills testing in LPN school at Orange Ulster BOCES in 2006. I have been a practicing Nurse for over 4 years now. I know how to do all the nursing skills we were to do in skilling, and do a lot of them on a daily basis at work, never with a med error or any other types of errors.

If you read all of our appeal letters, and the affidavit’s that were mentioned in the original article, maybe your eyes would open and you would be able to speak with some knowledge regarding this subject.

I am in the LPN to RN program and we did not have 2 years to practice in what SCCC calls a lab, with all the broken equipment and used products. We had very limited time in the lab, as it was only open during the day, for your class to use, not in the evening or weekends, like we should have had since that is the reason this program is in place.

I can honestly say that I had such a better clinical experience and was exposed to many more nursing skills in my LPN program than the SCCC clinical program. In my entire semester last year I was allowed to do one IM injection, and one non-sterile dressing change!!!! That is pathetic.

Skilling should not be a testing process that if you fail, you are expelled from the program. The teaching staff should make sure we are able to do the skills correctly and timely, but not under such time pressure and with the problems we all encountered.

In real life nursing, which you cannot speak about at all, you are not timed, you are oriented to where all your supplies and materials are, your syringes and needles are not in shoe boxes and the narcotics are not stored in Bic Pen boxes!! All the supplies are brand new and in working order. You are not allowed to be on your own until you are skilled and can do the skills 3 times correctly.

I train and skill the new nurses that come into my department at work!!  Next time you want to speak publicly about a subject, you should gather all your facts first.  So, in my opinion, as a Nurse, you don’t belong in the graduating class, since you have no clue as to what nurses do!! Good luck to you Jackie, you really need it!!

Karen Brigham