Choosing a school

[Misscruella]

Hi I have a couple of questions. I have been to nursing school before in Massachusetts. I was failed for clinical for some things. I did great in the lecture portion and was getting Bs but clinical was more challenging for me. I think it was a challenge because I haven’t had any real experience with being a CNA or a Lpn or any kind of healthcare worker for that matter. Most of the other students had. The only real work experience I’ve had was bartending for many years which is a very different environment. Anyways, I am ready to start reapplying at schools but I’m wondering if I should apply at schools out of state. For example, in Massachusetts clinical is part of the class even though it is seperate. If you are failed for clinical then you fail the whole class. I don’t know how it is in other schools, like I don’t know if I were to have a clinical failure but doing well in lecture if I could continue on if it were another state, or if I could have the chance to repeat just the clinical portion of the class (if it were another state).In this state I was told that you can repeat clinical if you aren’t failed for unsafe clinical practice, but I was. That being said, I think it would be very common to be given an unsafe clinical failure if you were failed for clinical since you are working hands on with patients so I am not sure how often students are even allowed to repeat clinical and aren’t failed for “unsafe” clinical practice and instead just failed for clinical without the “unsafe” mark on their grade. In my state if you are failed for unsafe clinical failure you can’t re enter the program at that school. Is it different in other states? 
 

Then I was wondering about this: what If you fail the lecture portion of class one year, say your second semester. And you are having trouble re entering into the program at that particular school. Can you then apply to another school and enter into a second semester at another school or would you have to start all over again wherever you go? I just want to be prepared for all possibilities, I realize nursing school is hard and If you do fail a class it makes it hard to get into other schools. I have read how some people are failed when they are have something stressful happen in their lives like a death in the family and it makes it very difficult for them to continue on sometimes with that failure on their transcript. 
 

my next question, I was thinking of just gaining some experience by going to Lpn school and getting an Lpn license. That way I have some experience in nursing. I could become a CNA but I think it is a waste of money because you do have to pay for it at most schools around here (No financial aid) and I think most jobs are in private care so you aren’t getting the interaction with other nurses and learning new things. But I don’t know if it makes much of a difference. I heard that a year is knocked off of school for the Bridge program If you enter an LPN to RN program so I don’t know if there is a lot more that you learn in that year and if it is a lot more difficult then just doing an RN program because the RN program may be more spaced out with the information you absorb and therefore more doable whether or not you were an LPN or not. I knew one LPN in my class when I was in an RN program and he seemed very frustrated all the time because he said that the things he was taught in the RN program were very different than the things he was taught in the LPN program and at times were conflicting. I guess I would like to hear people’s opinions on this, perhaps anyone who has gone through the bridge program at a school. 
Thanks!

 

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

4 hours ago, Misscruella said:

For example, in Massachusetts clinical is part of the class even though it is seperate. If you are failed for clinical then you fail the whole class.

The clinical and lecture is part of the same class. I do not know of a state BON that allows separate lecture and clinical portions.

4 hours ago, Misscruella said:

Can you then apply to another school and enter into a second semester at another school or would you have to start all over again wherever you go?

State BONs establish what courses that schools must include in their curriculum. It is up to the schools to arrange the courses. One school may have a separate pharmacology class and another school may include pharmacology into each class. It would be very difficult to find a nursing school that will accept other school's nursing credits.