Community Health Nursing - NUR 448

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I am currently enrolled in Excelsior's RN-BSN program. It started out great. This semester, however, has been rough. I am taking NUR 336 Becoming influential and NUR 448 Community Health Nursing. The CHN class requires that we spend 35 hours onsite at a community agency. I am confused being that I signed up for an online course because of the convenience. How am I suppose to incorporate going to an agency into my full time work schedule, family and still work on my assignments each week? Has anyone already taken this course? Any words of advice or encouragement. I am so overwhelmed with the amount of work NUR 448 requires.

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Specializes in EMS, ED, Trauma, CEN, CPEN, TCRN.

I think this is pretty common, even among online programs. I attended a different school for RN-to-BSN and also had a community health requirement of 40 hours. Have you talked to your instructor to get some ideas about where to complete the requirement? He/she might have some insight about how to balance it all. Is this class 8 weeks or 15 weeks?

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Specializes in Emergency Department, ICU.

I hear you, CHN was definitely a time sucker.

I too worked full time and took another course while taking CHN, so it is doable (albeit exhausting). Have you picked a place for your clinical hours? PixieRN is right, the clinical hours requirement is common among RN-BSN programs for certain classes, especially CHN. You can be happy to know that CHN is the only EC course with such a requirement (at this time, anyway; who knows what can happen in the future).

I did my hours at the local county council on aging. I volunteered and helped at an adult day health care center. They were really flexible; I was working a midshift at the time and they let me come in in 3 hour increments prior to going to work. I went in for longer stretches on days I didn't work, and I got it all done within a month's time. I am taking the BSN capstone right now and I can tell you that CHN was honestly the most time intensive course of the program, so take heart- it's smooth sailing once you've navigated this semester.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTACH, LTC, Home Health.

Oh wow! I completed my BSN with them in 2014; those hours weren't required then. But I will tell you that while doing the project requirements in this course, I found my passion finally after 28 years of nursing!!

We had to present topics of interest to members of the community, but we didn't have a set amount of hours. We dud have to turn in an evaluation form and a sign-in sheet from the attendees. That was just one project. There were others...I can honestly say that it changed my career. Before, I thought I'd be stuck at the bedside forever, unless I quit nursing altogether.

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