How are your clinicals arranged?

babynursewannab · Jun 20, 2002

Kim,

I don't know anything either and I'm over at Kennesaw State. I guess it's policy to give you info when they're good-n-ready! :rolleyes:

Alyssa

amblessing · Jun 20, 2002

My school too is "keeping us in the dark" about these mysterious clinicals until August 9th! We did feel out a sheet after receiving our acceptance letters that asked us to rank time slots for clinicals in order of preference and turn them in ASAP. They try to accomodate everyone's 1st choice, but of course that is not always possible. I don't think they mean to keep you guessing, I think they just need that time to make any last minute adjustments with the hospitals and the instructors. Well, that's my guess anyway! :confused:

Ortho_RN · Jun 20, 2002

I just completed my first semester at University of Arkansas Fort Smith, and this is how our clinicals were laid out...... When we went for our "scheduling" appt, when were allowed to chose what instructor and day we wanted clinicals... Of course it was on a first come first serve basis.... Our first semester we only had 3weeks of actual hospital clinicals.. We did go visit some Retirement home people and did a full physical assessment on them.. But the hospital clinical was done like this: Tuesday morning we go to our assigned floor and get our patient... We go meet them and do a physical and getting as much information as possible... We had lecture that afternoon, then that night is BUSY... We had to do our nursing diagnosis for the information that we got on Tuesday. This can take a while if you aren't prepared... Then on Wed, we meet at 8, have pre-conference with our instructor, meet with the patients nurse.. Then we take care of the patient the rest of the morning... Bathing, feeding, etc... the at 1 we have Post conference with instructor.. Then on Thursday we do the same...

I am sure all programs are different...

NurseDixie · Jun 21, 2002

I attend WVU-P, we are placed in our clinical groups. I think there's 8 groups of 8 students and we have clinicals on Thursdays and Fridays from 8am--2pm. We usually get to choose between Med-Surg or Specialties. I chose Med-Surg for the 1st semester. Specialties consist of OB, Peds, and Psych.

jschut, BSN, RN · Jun 21, 2002

For our clinicals, we were allowed to choose whether we wanted OB/PEDS first or MED-SURG first. That was the only choice we had. In MED-SURG, we went to the hospital on the morning of clinical, found out who our patients were, took their history, did assessments, looked up all their meds, did a careplan and any treatments. Monday and Tuesdays were this way. On Wednesdays, we had clinical in the morning and class in the afternoon. All careplans and meds had to be turned in Wed. before we left. Of course, meds should have been looked up before then, because if an instructor asked you what one was and you didn't know....

Good Luck starting school~you're gonna be fine!

Julie

peaceful2100, BSN, RN · Jun 21, 2002

It could be that they are not giving out information yet because they don't have everything organize quite yet. Sometimes they work like mad before the start of classes or orientation in order to see which clinical instructors are going to do clinicals, at what times, what locations and which students are going to be in which groups. My instructors told us it takes more planning than what most people realize. So it could very well be that they could have an idea but don't want to give out any information that can easily change. So to be safe they wait to be sure that everything will be ok and not change. Also many times some clinical sites will turn away certain schools if there are too many students from different schools there at the same time so they have to be careful about that and then that means the instructors have to try and find other clinical sites. It happens all the time with the instructors at my school.