# of Clincal Hours

[goodknight]

How many hours do you think a nursing student should spend in clinical's each week?

What are your proffessional opinions? How many hours are good? How many are the bare minimum? What's too much?

I ask because it's a hot topic at my school. Usually mentioned somewhere in the program dissing and one-up manship. :angryfire

[Finallyat40]

and I think it was 240 clinical hours per semester (which is usually 13-14 weeks). We spent two or three 8 hour days or two 10 hour days and a couple of times did two 12 hour days. The key is that you spend enough clinical time to have the opportunity to prove that you can safely care for the patients.....it's not about how many days, but how many opportunities.

One thing that I found at one of the hospitals where I did clinicals is that Monday clinicals were worthless because there were very few patients there until after noon, because all those that could have been d/c'd on Friday had been. I had a very difficult time that semester getting all my skills in.

Jamie

[Nemhain]

I'm in an ADN program and we have clinical 2 days a week for 2 years. Our hours vary from semester to semester, but I think that we get a little over 700 hours total. But to answer your question: We spend about 12 - 15 hours a week in clinical. I think nursing students should have a minimum of 12 hours per week. I think anything over 20 hours is too much.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

I would like to say I think its the quality of the clinicals more so than the amount. If you have a ton of clinicals but no chance to do skills, then what does it matter how many hours you had? I'm graduating this May, and I never really counted how many hours I've had. Close to 700 I guess. I've had some units where skills were very few, and some where the skills are many.

Quality, not quantity!