Clinicals when you work Mon-Fri?

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I know the obvious answer is that your employer has to be flexible enough to allow you a couple of days off a week for your clinicals, but has anyone ever had to get really creative about scheduling clinicals around their job? I'm hoping to get offered a job as a NP in LTC but the hours are Mon-Fri 8am-5pm and I just don't see how I can schedule clinicals around this, unless I can do clinicals on a Saturday.

I really want to get my FNP as I would like to work in urgent care.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
I know the obvious answer is that your employer has to be flexible enough to allow you a couple of days off a week for your clinicals but has anyone ever had to get really creative about scheduling clinicals around their job? I'm hoping to get offered a job as a NP in LTC but the hours are Mon-Fri 8am-5pm and I just don't see how I can schedule clinicals around this, unless I can do clinicals on a Saturday. I really want to get my FNP as I would like to work in urgent care.[/quote']

Preceptors are tight as it is, and you will need quite a bit of primary care setting clinical experience, which mostly happens on M-F business hours.

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Good luck to you, Mountain. I had every intention of working my 9-5 M-F job and doing my clinicals in the off hours/ weekends but very quickly into my clinical rotations realized it was next to impossible, even with using up all of my vacation time. Mostly because we are at the mercy of other people's schedules, and most of the people we have available to precept are trying NOT to have to work in the off hours/ weekends : ) Ended up taking a different job somewhere else with a more flexible schedule (12 hour shifts) and am so glad I made the switch and did it early on. I was able to really focus on getting quality clinical rotations instead of searching for 'whatever would fit' into the off hours time, which would not have given me the necessary exposure that I needed- particularly when it came to peds and OB. Most of the students in my class (final semester) at this point have made the switch to prn or jobs with longer shifts/ less days a week. I cannot think of anyone out of the ~60 of us who managed to keep a M-F schedule going with clinicals. Sorry for the long post, and again, good luck! But I do think you would have to be superwoman and have NO other comittments (family, etc).

Cardiac-RN

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I know the obvious answer is that your employer has to be flexible enough to allow you a couple of days off a week for your clinicals but has anyone ever had to get really creative about scheduling clinicals around their job? I'm hoping to get offered a job as a NP in LTC but the hours are Mon-Fri 8am-5pm and I just don't see how I can schedule clinicals around this, unless I can do clinicals on a Saturday. I really want to get my FNP as I would like to work in urgent care.[/quote']

Are you going back to school for FNP?! Well, what I did was work one weekend shift and two weekday 10hr shifts totaling 28hrs and then I used 2 hrs of earned (vacation) time a week to make me a full time RN still (30 hrs is minimum for full benefits etc). Do you have any time in your vacation bank, could you do something like that?

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Specializes in Med/surg, Tele, educator, FNP.

What I did was do 12 hour shifts perdiem and make my job work for me how I wanted it. I know a student FNP who is an nurse manager and she comes in on the weekends and keeps a few weekdays open. She is very stressed out though.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

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Specializes in Emergency.

I did the same as OCRN3. I work perdiem. At my facility they have enough needs that I could work almost every day if I wanted to, so I try to adjust my schedule around my school work needs. I'm not always successful at it, I had to burn the candle at both ends and in the middle last week, but I got through it and this week, it's more sane, so it's not a perfect solution, but I can handle the occasional crazy week if they aren't very frequent! lol

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I think the obvious answer is that if it is important to you to finish your NP program, you have to make adjustments to your work schedule. I quit my m-f day job (in nursing!!) and started working per diems on weekends and nights to get my clinicals done....you do what you gotta do

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One of my NP'S worked with my schedule and on the weekends when I was off, she would test my clinical knowledge by drilling me and going over some techniques with me. She also would work extra shifts ti accommodate me.

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Specializes in Trauma 4yr Flight 8mn.

I'm going to straight weekend nights to make time. Blessed to have found a unit the pays extra hours for the weekend gig

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