How early do you need to come to the clinicals?

[mmr2]

For those who have started clinicals already, how early do you have to come to the site? Say your clinical starts at 7, do you need just to come a couple of minutes early? or do you need to come, like one hour early to set up?

Is it OK to be late sometime? From my experience of taking pre-reqs at a local community college, there are always students who are late, and there seems to be no problem at all. Not sure about the actual nursing school.

I'm asking since I'm starting nursing school next fall. Already got accepted :biggringi! It's an evening program, clinical starts 4pm. I'm wondering whether it is OK to leave work at 3:30.

[Lilac]

As a former business owner, I totally agree with Daytonite.Form your good habits NOW.

Our school requires that we be on site at a certain time, no exceptions whatsoever. We can miss two clinical days in an entire semester, but we have to have a very good, documented reason.If we are late, it counts toward one of our absences.If we miss those two days, we get to do an assignment that involves about fifteen hours worth of work on top of our usual coursework,so most of us arrive on site a half hour early.If we miss more than two days, we are out of the program.

I have an hour drive to get to my clinical. My clinical day starts at 4:30 am.

[tddowney]

The key is to be there on time. That means having a buffer for the things that go wrong with some regularity.......traffic, dog runs off, kids sick, etc.

I usually get there 20-30 minutes early. We get our Pt assignments the previous day, but I can do a quick look to see what changed overnight. And I still have time for a cup of coffee and not feel rushed.

If you develop a reputation of being on time or early, when something really does go wrong, people are more understanding.

There was a multi-fatality MVA here a few weeks ago that closed a major highway for 10 hours overnight. Delays were three to four hours. It's unreasonable to plan for such things, as one can't spend every pre-clinical night at the hospital.

[michar]

Our clinical starts at 6 am, at that time of day it's a 5 minute drive for me and I leave the house the second DH gets home to be with the kids (he leaves the car running for me) which is sometime between 5:30 and 6 am.

I am kind of floored by 'is it ok to be late?' No, it's not. For anything (my own rules for me)

The best you can do if you do everything else perfectly at clinicals is a B+ if you are late, even 30 seconds.

I like being somewhere a little early so I have time to sit and relax and collect my thoughts.