If you've completed your entire nursing program, minus your pre-graduate experience at the same school, what are your options if you relocate, does anyone know if there is any way to complete the pre-graduate experience with a different school?

I've just finished my RPN, my cousin was a semester behind me and is now faced with the probability of having to move (Niagara area to Toronto) the only thing she has left to do is her pre-graduate experience. Is there any way she'd be able to complete it at a Toronto school, or does she have to stick with her current school where she's been this whole time?

Thanks!

She would have to ask her current school. They would be the ones that would know the answer to that.

I had a classmate who had to move to Ontario from Alberta. Norquest arranged a final placement for her in a hospital in her new town.

It didn't seem to be a major problem for the Nursing Department.

Her current school *might* consider arranging for her to do her pregrad in Toronto, but bear in mind this might be very hard - her school likely has contacts with local hospitals and LTCs to take their students. Schools in the Toronto area have contacts with those hospitals. If her school is able to arrange something for her, advise her to take whatever she can get, and not be picky. She loses the right to be picky by requesting an assignment outside of the school's normal area.

That said, the school may also say she needs to do it wherever they see fit, and therefore might just need to commute to her pregrad. Lots of people work in Toronto who live in Niagara, and vice-versa, so she might need to do that. Most schools have it right in their info that by agreeing to attend their school, they agree to placements within a 200 km radius of the school, and are fully expected to commute to and from placements. "I don't have a car" is not a valid excuse in their eyes.

Tell your cousin to talk to the person who arranges clinical placments at her school ASAP. I very much doubt that another school will take her in just to do pregrad with them, so her only option is likely to do her pregrad with the school where she completed her studies. Usually during pregrad in Ontario, once or twice during the pregrad a clinical teacher from the school comes out to chat with the preceptors at the location, to find out how the student is doing. This is another reason why it might be difficult to arrange a placement so far from the school, although it may work if someone who teaches at that school lives in Toronto...

Good luck to your cousin! Hope they figure something out for her.

My classmate had her evaluations done via IM and phonecalls. This was ten years ago, so I don't think it's a totally off the wall request.

My classmate had her evaluations done via IM and phonecalls. This was ten years ago, so I don't think it's a totally off the wall request.

I'm not saying it's totally off the wall, just that it might not be easy for the college to do, due mainly to the shortage of clinical placements in the GTA in recent years.

The final placements are hard to come by these days as there are so many people in the programs, so clinical placement coordinators are having a hard time finding enough placements for everyone. They rely on their contacts at the hospitals and LTCs in their area, and so it's more difficult (though not necessarily impossible) for them to set up placements at hospitals and LTCs where they don't have pre-standing relationships. For example, Seneca, Centennial and Humber College all utilise hospitals in Toronto for their placments. Mohawk usually uses hospitals in Hamilton and Burlington. If Mohawk wants a placement in Toronto, it's a bit more difficult to set up, as there are already so many other students vying for those spots who attend schools that have pre-existing relationships with the right people at those hospitals. It's not impossible, just more work to set up.

If the OP's cousin knows anyone who would be willing to take her on and precept her, that might make things easier for her clinical coordinator as well.