Nursing school and vaxing - Page 2

[CookieMonsterMommy]

Originally Posted by amnesiac

Would a hospital be legally obligated to allow an unvaxed college student patient care access?

That's what I'm saying....I don't think they'd have to. I had to show proof of immunity--not a vax record. We *had* to have our titers in....they didn;t care what we were vaxed against or what we got naturally, as long as we showed immunities.

This was especially important in Peds and the PICU especially.

[tb12342002]

Thank you everyone for helping me out so much.

Going the RN route is my backup if the midwifery school doesn't accept me. So hopefully I'll have no worries there.

I suppose I could do a ton of leg work and find all these stupid vax records, but as mentioned, immunity does go away.

Gads, the whole thing ticks me off. :

[CookieMonsterMommy]

Immunities (showed via titers) should ALWAYS trump a vax record, especially if you're older. And you can get them with ONE tube of blood (maybe two depending on the lab/lab tech).

[moneca]

I went the R.N. route and had to get all my adult boosters plus hep B series (but this was years before I researched vax) and my health records show that I received the chicken pox vax 3 times: after my titers kept coming up negative. After all this and much additional reading I'm so disillusioned with the whole world of allopathic medicine that I'll only go back if I become a direct entry midwife for homebirthing. Save yourself the time and pain of nursing school if you already know you want to be a midwife go directly into that.

[marilynmama]

I'm in a BSN program and just went through all this recently.

You will need to somehow show you have immunity against Rubella because of pregnant women you will be around. They don't care how you have immunity, just that you have it because it's a liability for them is there way of thinking.

I got a titer for chickenpox done for $15.

I was able to find my old MMR records from childhood but also got titers done and I still showed vaccine induced immunity. If you do have to get the MMR for some reason, your health dept should be able to give that one for free. The titers here for MMR was only $15 as well, I would go with that first if you can't find your vax records. I'm not sure about the waivers on that for hospitals because of the rubella part.

HepB you should be able to decline because that is for your protection, not the patients. So it is a bit different--make sure you research that one. My school handed out waiver forms and I think I was the only person who waived it...lol But I was thankful it was so easy to do. And really your going to be working around a LOT more HepC patients than HepB.

Our program didn't require anything else except 2 step PPD test which is fine with me.

It's hard with nursing school. The school really doesnt' care, it's all the hospitals that care and your going to be rotating through a LOT of different hospitals and you must comply with all of them--public and private.

I LOVE nursing school though, it is a lot of fun! Even though I don't always agree with every single thing, I'm learning and seeing A LOT. It's good experience either way. I have to have my BSN because I want to get either my NP or PA masters. We have some seriously awesome CNMs here where I work too, they are just awesome---the OB/GYNs all can't stand them so that tells me the CNMs are doing what they do best

Good luck!