Externships?

Jen2 · Jan 8, 2005

Externships are usually over the summer at certain hospitals. You can do an externship between year one and year two if you are in an ADN program or between year three and four for a BSN program. I was paid $10.00 an hour over this past summer at my externship that was for a total of 10 weeks. I did 5 weeks on a med surg floor and 5 weeks in the ED. After my externship ended I was awarded a $5,000 scholarship from the hospital which will be paid to me this comming April and I must work for them for 1 year.

I highly recommend externships. I just ended up getting a GN position in the ED (my dream job by the way) because I did my externship there for 5 weeks over the summer and they were impressed. Hope this helps. Best of luck!

LilPeanut, MSN, RN, NP · Jan 8, 2005

They sound great, unfortuantely unavailable to me in my program because we have to go even full time during the summer.....but darn, I wish I could!

Jen2 · Jan 8, 2005

Awe thats too bad. I would hate to not have a summer break. After the spring semester I can't stand anymore. The positive side is at least you don't have a chance to get lazy.

kathy_79 · Jan 8, 2005

i work now as a nurse extern on medical surgical unit. we have also pts with dialysis, oncology, and TB. as far i know my floor is called second icu in this hospital cause of pts who we get. i am glad to work there cause my future goal is to become critical care nurse. experience i gain here is very helpfull for me. i am more independent, courage, develop critical thinking, better comunication with pts, and many others. i would recommend it to others. to gain experience and learn more pratical skills that it is available to us students at school.

godd luck to all, :)

manna, BSN, RN · Jan 8, 2005

Externships here are 5 weeks of full-time work (you're partnered up with a nurse on the floor and you work the same shift as he/she does) the summer between our junior and senior year (BSN program).

Application is competitive - you have to interview, have a recommendation from a clinical instructor, and they look at your grades in nursing courses. For ours, we choose 3 areas in the hospital we might be interested in externing, and are interviewed by RNs from each of those departments. We get college credit for our externship, although it does require a small amount of paperwork to be turned in (journaling, etc - nothing like what's due during a regular semester!)

We also get paid around $10/h, and many externs are offered part-time jobs in the hospital during their senior year of school.

I haven't done mine yet (summer '05 - will be applying soon), but everyone I've heard speak of externship programs recommends them highly!