Clinical Question

Katen · Sep 23, 2009

At mine its totaly random...there are two teachers on each clinical day...they each go to a different hospital...whatever teacher the computer stuck you with is where you go.

litchi · Sep 23, 2009

It's totally random at my school too.. They also don't consider requests for a specific location either. You just kinda end up wherever, even if that means a longer drive.

elkpark · Sep 23, 2009

For one thing, they may not use all those hospitals for all clinical rotations -- some may be just for one specialty or another.

It varies -- some schools assign you at random, and some schools allow students to request particular sites that are available for a particular rotation (like, if one hospital is close to your home and the other is 'way across town, you'd prefer to be assigned to the closer hospital, or if you carpool to clinical with a classmate, then you'd both want to be assigned to the same site). However, because the size of clinical groups is capped by the BON, often some "juggling" has to be done by the faculty to make the clinical group numbers work out and some student requests may get overridden. (If everyone wants to go to site A and nobody wants to go to site B -- well, some students are going to have to go to site B. :))

I've taught in schools that did it both ways, and it makes life a heck of a lot harder for faculty to offer students a choice -- so, if you end up going to a program that lets you request sites, be appreciative and remember not to complain too much if you end up, anyway, getting sent to a site that you didn't choose!

TiffanyBCbus · Sep 23, 2009

Thank you everyone for your input. I guess I will find out for sure once I get into a program... fingers crossed!

CrunchyMama, ASN, RN · Sep 23, 2009

I guess it depends. At my school I got to choose which hospital to go to.