Clinicals: BSN vs ADN

I'm in the RN program at a community college. We have 8 hrs of clinicals each week (2 days), plus 2 lectures each week. How are clinicals different for a typical BSN program? I didn't pursue BSN b/c I alrady have a BS and plenty of mgmt courses. A 2nd BS degree program wasn't an option. A relative was telling me how lucky I am to have the clinical program at the community college. Which confuses me. I already feel like I don't have enough clinicals at this school. I'd go 3 times a week or more if it were up to me! Practice makes perfect. Do BSN programs have fewer clinical sessions? Do you have them every semester?

[tmiller027]

I'm in the RN program at a community college. We have 8 hrs of clinicals each week (2 days), plus 2 lectures each week. How are clinicals different for a typical BSN program? I didn't pursue BSN b/c I alrady have a BS and plenty of mgmt courses. A 2nd BS degree program wasn't an option. A relative was telling me how lucky I am to have the clinical program at the community college. Which confuses me. I already feel like I don't have enough clinicals at this school. I'd go 3 times a week or more if it were up to me! Practice makes perfect. Do BSN programs have fewer clinical sessions? Do you have them every semester?

I'm in the ADN program at my school. For us, the BSN and ADNs go to the same lecutres, and have the same amount of clinical hours, but they keep us separate for our actual clinicals though. Guess they don't want us ADNs corrupting the BSNs LOL

[RedSox33RN]

Same here. BSN and ADN take the same lectures and clinicals. Most of the younger people in my clincal group are getting their BSN. Our school does it a little differently though, in that we all do everything together, including taking the NCLEX after the 2nd year. Then (hopefully!) we all have our RN, and those going on to get a BSN just do, and have already passed the NCLEX.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

i am in an ADN program, and we get 12 hours of clinical a week.

BSN's? i have no idea how much they get.

love, rose

[Fraggle]

Same here. BSN and ADN take the same lectures and clinicals. Most of the younger people in my clincal group are getting their BSN. Our school does it a little differently though, in that we all do everything together, including taking the NCLEX after the 2nd year. Then (hopefully!) we all have our RN, and those going on to get a BSN just do, and have already passed the NCLEX.

So, if you take the same lectures and clinicals, what is different? The ADN has fewer Prerequisites than the BSN? And fewer nursing courses, I suppose? But you share core courses to take the NCLEX, right?

[LeesieBug]

I'm sure clinical time varies school-to-school. Our BSN program does twelve hours a week for 6 semesters. We have clinicals with every semester.

You can't really judge a program based on the degree that it awards.

[RedSox33RN]

So, if you take the same lectures and clinicals, what is different? The ADN has fewer Prerequisites than the BSN? And fewer nursing courses, I suppose? But you share core courses to take the NCLEX, right?

The ADN has the same prerequisites as the BSN, but most don't have any pre-req's - at least most of the BSN students, because they are right out of HS. They do spend the first year taking English and sciences, but are technically IN the nursing program. The only difference is those going on to get their BSN take more nursing theory - higher level courses, and Biostatistics/higher level Ethics courses, in addition to more English.

[danu3]

Well I am, the ADN clinicals are 16 hours a week for 5-6 weeks in a 12 week quater. Lots of people I've heard will go to a "bridge" program for a BSN with a local state college. For the "bridge" program, there are no clinical, or minimum clinical and basically you take upper division nursing courses and it takes 1 1/2 year.

-Dan

[UTRN2005]

For my BSN program our first semester we have one clinical day for 6 hours, then after that it's two days at 7 hrs a day (so 14 hours a wk). In our third semester add on family public health at 4 hrs a week. Additionally, our last semester we do a preceptorship the last 3 weeks at 40 hrs a week. In my experience the main differences I've noted between the two is that my BSN has public and management while the local CC doesn't do any public or management. Also in terms of general student population, my school has a lot more people who came out of high school (we have 2 yrs for pre-reqs before we apply to the nursing sequence) but seeing as I'm at a public state university this isn't really surprising. The CC has a lot more students who are returning to school after having done some other occupation/job/career. I think that's a lot of the reason why some people think ADNs are better than BSNs, if you compare clinical hours I haven't found a whole lot of difference, but that the ADN students *in general* tend to be a little older, have more life experience and are more comfortable just walking into pt rooms than 20 yr olds with not a lot of work experience. This is especially difficult when the staff still views you as kids. Just my opinion. Please don't take offense to anything written, I tried to state everything as politically correct as possible and mean no disrespect to any program. I've just seen way too many messages get taken out of context and people getting angry on this board, particularly regarding the ADN vs BSN debate.

[Fraggle]

Oh, I wasn't trying to stir anything up. I just thought it was odd my relative said that the ADN had more clinicals than the BSN. I've heard that before, but never really looked into it. It doesn't really make sense. I could see that with a diploma program having more, but not AA vs BS. I also knew BSN had more theory classes and looked into different areas little more, which definitely has it's pros/cons depending on the individual. I want to do RN to MSN in Public Health, so I would like to have a course in Public and Community health, if it were offered.

I definitely see strengths in both programs. For me, "better" was determined by whichever schedule fit mine :) . When I didn't have a mortgage, broader course of study would have definitely been the priority!

I don't get all of the Diploma vs ADN vs BSN vs MSN wars. It's pretty stupid to me.

[UTRN2005]

I didn't take anything you said to be of offense. I just know that people tend to be touchy about the ADN/BSN thing so I didn't want to have to defend myself against anything like that. For many people with previous degrees, family, bills, etc the ADN is a good deal because you do get to start working faster. I'm 21 and don't have a previous degree and my parents are generously paying for my college education, so for me a BSN is better, especially since I want to go on and get a master's.

[manna, BSN, RN]

My school is a senior college that offers both a BSN and an ASN program. As stated by my clinical instructor - the main difference between the two programs here is that the ASN is more skills-based and the BSN is more geared towards leadership/research, etc (management and grad-school). I'm not exactly sure of any differences between the two as far as clinical hours go, but I do know about check-offs..

ASN students have to check off on EVERYTHING - making beds, washing hands, etc. ASN students here don't get to do IV starts/checked off on that until 2nd year.

BSN students have lesser checkoffs or peer checkoffs instead of instructor based - only real checkoffs first term were for IV starts, sterile dressings, NG tubes, and catheters.

I certainly don't think any one degree/program is better than another (and I'll refrain from listing which program I'm enrolled in), obviously people choose different degrees for different, highly individualized reasons. :)