nursing student clinical hours!

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Hello,

I am in a 2 year program, and at the end of my 2nd semester. We have 1 day at clinical a week. We are in the hospital for 6 hours, and are on the floor for about 3-4 hours. I DO NOT FEEL like this is adequate! I was wondering about the hours and experiences of other students in clinical.

In the actual clinical setting, we do bed bath, vitals, some oral meds (if prof. assigns) some ims and subq(again if you get assigned) and one or 2 students a week get to work with ivpb. We work on a med surg unit.

What are your clincical hours/ experieces like?

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In second semester we had 2 clinical days, and were on the floor for about 4-5 hours each day.

I'm in 3rd semester now and we only have one clinical day and are on the floor for about 8 hours.

Next semester we have 2 clinical days but I'm not sure how long they are.

I still feel like I haven't done anything. The time they give us in clinical is definitely not enough to feel really comfortable with what we are doing in my opinion.

Megan

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In second semester we had 2 clinical days, and were on the floor for about 4-5 hours each day.

I'm in 3rd semester now and we only have one clinical day and are on the floor for about 8 hours.

Next semester we have 2 clinical days but I'm not sure how long they are.

I still feel like I haven't done anything. The time they give us in clinical is definitely not enough to feel really comfortable with what we are doing in my opinion.

Megan

I am in my last quarter of my first year and we have clinicals once a week, for ten hours, with eight hours on the floor.

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Specializes in CIC, CVICU, MSICU, NeuroICU.

Wow you guys are lucky. At LA county College of Nursing, we started with 2 days clinical from 7 to 1430 in first semester, on second and third semester we are there until 1530 and our last semester we are there until 1630. I'm finishing up third semester right now and we have to take care of four patients. At the end of the clinical days I am usually pretty exhausted and need to take a fifteen or twenty minutes nap.

Last week none of my classmate and my self didn't even take lunch. We were extremely busy with admission, IVPB, PO meds, dressing change, IV push, ADL, vitals, foley, and many other stuffs. We are allowed to call the MD about our pt, to request test or suggesst medication so we are usualy super busy with the phone as well.

Now I'm not really looking forward to four semester. We have to take care of six patients. I have absolutely no idea how that would turn out but we just have to wait and see. I guess that would be a taste of how really world is like.

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Specializes in Med/Surge.

Our first semester we were in clinical for a total of 4 days 6 hours on the floor 2 post conference.

Second semester we were there for 1 and 1/2 days for a total of 8 hours.

Third semester we were on the floor 2 days at 8 hours a piece with a minimum of 3-4 patients and expected to have had 5 half way through the semester and until the end.

This 4th semester we went all over the place for clinicals-Home Health, long term rehab, cardiac rehab, dialysis, etc and are now doing our preceptorship where we work our nurses hours for a total of 96 hours with which I am halfway done..... :) What has been really hard for me this semester is now getting back into the "hospital" environment after doing strictly paper work for the past 5 months!! It was almost like starting completely over. Thank goodness it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things. I don't think I will be totally prepared to work but I don't think any student nurse will b/c we will be on our own!!

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Maybe it depends on the course...

I just finished first semester of Nursing Fundamentals: 0700-1500 1 day/wk. ...'course my instructor was going for her masters, and finished our days at 1300 most weeks - because she had stuff to do. :stone

This summer we are doing Maternity, and our clinical is 2 days/wk 0645-1515. They are squishing our maternity into a 7 week course, so to make sure we get the time in, we have 2 Looong days. (and yes our instructor has already visited with us to let us know to count on being in clinical the whole time.) We have a test our first day of class too... :uhoh3: (*hoping my book shipment comes soon!!)

We already registering for our fall session which is Adult Nursing, and our clinicals are scheduled for 0645-1400 2 days/wk for the full ...what is it, 16 weeks?

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there are so many different experiences in school, depending on where you go. looking at this, i feel i do not get enough experience. really, we do CNA work, and then hand out meds if we are assigned. most of us, including myself, already have jobs as cnas or techs or externs (as an extern, i love the time i get with the patients, which i know i wont have in the future)

we do not get expereince with foleys, or suctioning, even patients that have much to do with besides talking to them and bed/bath. (which is alot, but again, no experience) our teacher, who has her doct. in psych, has us spend alot of time on self concept and ipr's. (which is funny, cause she is the most UNAPPROACHABLE teacher i have ever had.)

and with only 3 hours a week, man this is gonna be hard.

we get 2 clinical days next semester in the fall, but our school doesnt even have a scheduel for that yet!!

but there are many nurses from truman who work at the hospital that i work at now, and they seem to be doing fine.

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Except for Peds, I have not learned a d*mn thing in clinicals. All of our clinicals are 2 day/wk, 6-7 hr days, if not a bit longer- but I've done squat- and I"m a tech. Only given a few IM injections, haven't done anything with foleys...I've learned more being a tech than I have at my clinicals. I ahve an externship on a stem cell transplant floor this summer, though, so I hope my clinical skills will get better as the summer goes on. I WISH I had clinicals where I had 2 patients, lots of IVPG's, etc....don't know how i'm going to be prepared for the "real world" when I've learned squat so far! Hopefully, the 2nd med surg clinicals will be better than the first....

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Specializes in Cardiac/telemetry.

Wow - what a difference in experiences. I am in a diploma program. My first semester I had only one day clinical - but we are on the floor from 6:45 to 3:00 (excuse me - I mean 1500!!). I did a Foley my first semester and administered meds (po, topical, aerosol). My first day actually my patient expired - so I actually removed a Foley, NG tube, and central line, and assisted an RN with a Foley insertion (very large, paralyzed male).

My second semester, I was on the floor for 2 days - same times as above. I have removed staples and suture, given all meds (including subcu, IVs in a needleless system), PEG feeds - can't think now of everything we have done. I assisted a fellow student with suctioning a trach. One of our students did a dressing change and packing on a lady with a HUGE cavity chest wound with 4 rolls of gauze - yikes! I even assisted a physician with a paracentesis. I looking forward to next semester - who knows what I will experience!!

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We start off from the 2nd unit (semester?) doing 7 weeks on the ward and then 7 weeks in University. When on the ward we do 3 x 12 hour shifts per week (might be nights or weekends, whatever your mentor is doing). We do get about 9 weeks holiday per year though. :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I think this is a very interesting -- and enlightening -- thread. Thank you all for being so open and honest about your school experiences.

I hope many practicing nurses will read this thread and learn more about the variety of experiences (or lack of experiences) that you are getting as students. Many nurses wrongly believe that all nursing programs (or at least all that offer the same degree) are alike -- and provide the same education they received as students years ago. There are myths about nursing education (such as that ADN's get so much more actual clinical experience than BSN's) that you guys are shattering.

I wish you all the best of luck in your careers. I don't know if this helps ... but I hope you realize that a GOOD hospital will teach you all the technical skills you need to know as part of your new grad orientation. So, while it is good to get some technical practice in school, it's really not that much of big deal if you don't get a lot. What matters most is that you learn how to think as a nurse -- that you learn how to assess, to identify and solve problems, relate what you see in the patient to what you read and hear, etc. and to work well with others. It's hard for a hospital orientation to compensate for poor intellectual and/or poor interpersonal skills. But hospital orientations can teach technical skills -- and the best employers are prepared to do that.

Take care,

llg

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Specializes in CCRN, CNRN, Flight Nurse.

My clinical experience went something like this:

I spent 1st semester (Fundamentals) in a nursing home 2 days a week from 0700-1200 (including pre and post conference) the last 8 or so weeks of the semester. We had to work up 1 patient each week (occasionally took care of the same patient twice in the 8 weeks). The NH loved us. We gave all the insulin shots, TB tests, and flu shots. If there were shots to give, they let us do it. Same with suppositories. If there was a routine straight cath or cath change, they rearranged the schedule/timing to let us do it. We each took a shot at helping out the medications nurse. After talking with my other classmates who were in the hospitals, we were the ones who got the most experiences. They just basically shadowed the RN.

2nd semester was Peds/L&D/High Risk OB/NICU 2 days a week from 0700-1400 (including pre - no post) starting about the 4th or 5th week of the semester. I was never so bored! You can only watch so many births and C/S and look at so many labor strips. I think I started 1 IV in L&D. Had to work up 2 patients on Peds. Was usually done with everything (including charting) by 1000. Gave less than a handful of meds. They would hardly let us touch the babies in NICU.

After 2nd semester we were eligible to sit NCLEX-PN if we wanted to. I did and passed though I kept working as a tech (LPNs only made $0.50 more than I did!).

3rd semester was critical care and psych 2 days a week from 0700-1500 (including pre and post) starting the 2nd or 3rd week of the semester. I had a blast in the critical care portion. :yeah: :smiley_aa I was at our local VA Med Center. Had to work up 1 patient. The nurses I worked with were wonderful. I got to do so many things. I felt completely at home in the ICU (doesn't hurt that I was an ER tech and a paramedic of 10+ years). During the psych stuff, I was even more bored than 2nd semester (we ALL were that bored)!! At the in-patient facility, we were nothing more than glorified baby-sitters. At the out-patient facilities, we only shadowed the nurses (how many different ways can you say "BORING!!). :sleep: :sleep:

4th semester was finally a challenge (general med/surg). Clinicals were 0700-1500 (including pre and post) 2 days a week, starting the 2nd week of the semester! We started out with 2 patients (had to work up patients for about 2 or 3 weeks) and were to end the semester managing a whole team of patients (5-6). After we quit working up patients, I went straight for a whole team - 6 patients. I had a ball!!!:w00t:

The biggest thing to remember is clinicals are what you make it. If you go in negative, it's not going to be all that grand. If you go in positive and seek out those opportunities for the rare procedures, you'll learn alot and have a great time learning!

Good luck

Roxan

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