Rejection...

Life can certainly get complicated at times.

I had to take anatomy and physiology before I could get into nursing school. I had to take microbiology, pharmacology, English, Speech, and Child Development, too. And then, all the nursing courses, and pass each before going on to the next.

After graduation, I had to find a job, and then go through an orientation period. My graduating class actually got to participate in a pilot program: a nursing residency designed to prepare us to work anywhere in the hospital where we were employed.

And then, there were the State Boards. That was two grueling days of testing, in five subject areas, on anything and everything that we had been taught. Then came the six-week wait for the results…

There were two of us from my graduating class, among those working at our hospital, who did NOT receive our notification letters on April 2nd. The rest of our peers could start writing “RN” after their names; my classmate, John, and I had to continue writing “RN Permittee” after our names.

That was the longest nursing shift of my entire career. John kept coming up to me with a new and improved reason why we didn’t get our notifications. The most plausible was that we were the only two members of our class who had moved since taking boards.

Fortunately for both of us, our notifications came in the mail the very next day. At last, we were RNs, too.

For more than three decades, I have practiced the art and science of nursing to the very best of my ability. For more than three decades, I have made sure that I took classes and received my Continuing Education Units to qualify to renew my license.

And now…..this.

I received a letter in April of this year: the Board of Registered Nursing finally found me. They have required fingerprinting of every RN licensed in the state of California since 1990. Since I had already been an RN for a dozen years in 1990, they didn’t have my fingerprints on file.

And they still don’t.

I took the required forms and the cash, to a local pack and ship place that also does Live Scan fingerprinting. Basically, they roll your fingers on a glass platen and your fingerprints show up on a computer screen.

Theoretically, your fingerprints will be legible and readable. At the first place I was fingerprinted, there was an indicator light on the screen: green for a good print, yellow for one that was almost good, and red for prints that were unacceptable.

I had three yellows and seven reds. Do the math: none of my fingerprints were green.

A couple of months later, I got my rejection letter. I didn’t lose my license, but I have to be fingerprinted again. And so, I went this afternoon to another place. This time, I figured I would go to a place that ONLY did fingerprinting, and not a pack and ship.

I was getting quite hopeful when the technician had me rub corn husker oil on my fingers; I thought that might be the magic ingredient for getting my fingerprints! On her computer, the fingerprints each garnered a number; any print with a number >30 is a “pass” and anything <>

I failed….

It seems that thirty plus years of scrubbing my hands has removed more than germs. My fingerprints are gone, too!

What next? Apparently the Department of Justice and/or Federal Bureau of Investigation will run a name check. I went to that website that tells you how many people in the US have the same name as you do? I have 22 chances at a criminal record….

Wish me luck!