Question for students in clinicals!!

[LadyTiger44]

Hi. I don't live in FL, and I heard that when you are in school you get paid to do clinicals. Is this true? Thanks!

[misswhitney]

I'm pretty sure you don't. You really are not doing them any favors quite yet; they are doing you the favor.

[elkpark]

I've been in and around nursing education for many years now, and have never heard of such a thing. Clinical is part of your education, and you are paying tuition for your clinical experiences, not getting paid for doing them.

Some hospitals offer "nurse externship" programs for nursing students, where you basically work as a CNA (plus some extra nurse-y stuff) and get paid for doing that -- but that's separate and different from school.

[untamable07]

yea right.... even though you may work yourself like a dog during clincals, sometimes more than the paid staff, you don't get any compensation except for the experience.

[nursegreen]

No, clinicals are part of your education and you infact are paying for the experience. Like an above post stated, you can work as a "nurse tech" after you complete Fundamantals of Nursing in an RN program. You basically work as a patient care tech at higher pay(at least in my area) and depending on the facility you can perform some skills that fall under the nursing role.

[pattylpn54, LPN]

no -- it's part of schooling.

[AmericanRN]

I live in Florida and am towards the end of my 2nd quarter of nursing school. I don't get paid for clincials thats for sure but I do get real life work experience or as one of my classmates say on the days of clinicals "good morning your slaves are here" to nurses who don't mind a joke in the morning. Of course she never jokes with the sourpuss one. Another nurse calls us "my 17 sets of volunteer hands." Since there are 17 of us out our class of 43 in a single clincial site.

Perhaps what the person meant that told you that is that one can qualify as a patient tech after they have passed Fundamentals of Nursing sucessfully. Or in my school we do Fundamentals of Nursing for 2 quarters but we had a lecture and corresponding lab class in Assessment qtr 1 for 2 days out of the week and so we qualified for patient tech jobs when that was done because we had "lab background."

However any interested student must also get two letters of reccomendation from their instructors in addition to their transcript or certain hospitals will just trash the apps without all of the paperwork.

I have to say though still we have students that passed Assessment but did not get a single instructor to write them letters because they were deemed "emotionally immature" at this stage of their lives. Others did get their letters and are interviewing all over town.

[Pinkster]

I WISH!!

lol, the only thing you get paid in clinicals would be knowledge, experience, and networking...WHich you can get that in any state.