day vs. evening clinical

[macalania54]

Hey y'all; I did a search and found just a couple of short older threads on this, and I wanted to hopefully get a wide range of responses/experiences for my question.

I start clinicals this September, and haven't gotten my clinical assignment yet. But I looked at my schedule and foresaw a serious conflict with one of the potential clinical days, I emailed my clinical prof. about it and she (awesomely) gave me the option of choosing to do evening clinical instead of daytime, to avoid the conflict.

So, for those of y'all who have some clinical rotations under your belt, do you feel like there's any significant difference between doing clinical at evening/night and doing them during the day, in terms of learning/experience/etc? I realize it depends on the person, but I'm curious.

[peanutsauce]

I think it depends most on what type of unit you will be on, and the acuity level of the patients. On high-acuity units, the "busyness" and learning opportunities might not differ much, if at all, between days, evenings, or nights. When I was in nursing school, I did all clinicals on days, except for my capstone, which was primarily on nights with an occasional day shift - the acuity of the unit was such that I was equally busy and challenged in both settings.

Here is another huge thing: Your experiences in clinical are 100% what you make them. It's all about jumping in with both feet (safely, of course), and getting experience communicating, organizing your time, and performing nursing skills. I'd be willing to wager that you could have GREAT experiences on days, or evenings.

Best of luck!

[metal_m0nk, BSN, RN]

I LOVE evening clinicals. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them.