Clinical hours for LPN, AAS, and BSN

[RNIAM]

Okay after emailing all of the state nursing boards I found this out. Their are no mandated number of clinical hours for any program. Each individual program dictates its own hours. The program has to contain about 60% nursing courses.

what I found was on average

LPN programs offered between 300-400 hours in a 1 year program.

RN programs offered 700-900 clinical hours in a two year program

BSN programs offer 1,100-1,300 clinical hours in a four year program.

It looks to be about even to me. I think what is important to remember is not the hours you have but what you do with them. I have witnessed a college that does clinical at a local hospital. Their is more time spent in pre-and post clinical then in actual clinical.

okay I am tired. Has anyone lese noticed how difficult it is to find out how many clinicla hours are in most programs? I hope I shed a little light on this. If your interested in where i got this information please feel free to leave me a post with your email and I will send you copies of the mail I received.

[Level2Trauma]

She may just be making up excuses for not learning what she should have learned in her clinicals. You see them...those that sidestepped, hid, procrastinated, avoided, etc. etc. ...and by the way, they're in every program... ADN, BSN, MSN...and believe it or not even the LPN.

[Flo1216]

You mean what she should have been TAUGHT. I don't believe she was sidestepping anything. It is the responsibilty of the school to insure the students are at least minimally prepared. She said all they ever did was bedbaths and PO meds. It is not her fault that they school did not prepare her well clinically.

[mark_LD_RN]

yes it is her fault, she needs to take responsibility and blame, no one can tell me she did not know it was wrong to avoid experience . as an instuctor in both ADN and BSN programs i find it appaling to what some students will do to avoid experience. it is worse with the larger programs. the bsn program I attended and the one i work for requires small groups for clinical but some of the larger schools the groups are larger and very hard for instuctors to check each student they often depend on the honasty apporoach.

i warn my students early that they are to choose the hardest patients with the most procedures and meds available if they dont i will ad more patients to them the first time, next time i will send them home and fail them in clinicals for that day. they are also instucted to seek out procedires being done on the floor and to never turn down experiences. i never want to hear them refuse to do or witness any procedure done while we are there.

but it is still the students responsibility to insure her learning, never make excuses for your self. if i were in a program and only did bed baths i would file complaint and insist on corrective action being taken.not doing so i am cheating my self, my future patients and all others in the profession.

she may also just be saying those things out of fear, maybe she does not have any confidence and is using that as a scape goat. not realizing it makes her look bad as well as the program she attended. I have visited numerous programs around the country and have never witnessed one that only let student do bed baths and po meds before graduation. it may exist if it does it needds to be stopped!

[Flo1216]

We aren't allowed to "choose" our own patients in my school. They are assigned to us. I remember last year, for the first couple of weeks, I kept getting assigned very easy patients and finally I said something and I never had that problem again. But that is my school. There are a million nursing programs and unfortunately not all of them are good. They may prepare you for the boards but not the actual hands on experience. Plus, there are often too many students for instructors and unfortunately there are not enough experiences to go around, depending on where you are. Like I said, I have an EXTREMELY small class(10) divided into 2 groups so I get a lot more clinical hands -on experience.She told me her pediatric rotation lasted 2 days and all they did was observe. Mine lasted a month and a half and I did all kinds of things. I don't know why you are attacking someone you never even met. It IS possible that her particular program sucked.