How far are your clinicals?

Ortho_RN · Jan 15, 2003

I guess I am lucky.. We use the two big hospitals in our town and from where I live they are both 10-15mins away... :)

Love-A-Nurse · Jan 15, 2003

the only hospital i will have to travel more than 45 minutes away is during our next semester's clinical rotation.

Stargazer · Jan 15, 2003

When I was in school, one of my med-surg clinicals was in a city hospital 25 miles away from my school. This involved driving in both freeway and city conditions during rush hour to be there by 7 AM, plus we were supposed to go to the hospital the evening before to pick our patient, introduce ourselves, and read their chart in order to prepare. Call me a big whiny baby, but I thought that was a hell of a lot of mileage to log and a huge timesuck besides.

Lucky for me, my oldest brother and his wife lived in the same city and offered their guest room to me on the nights before clinical. So I would go research my patient, go to my brother's house, eat a wonderful meal someone else cooked, study, and go to bed. Commute then ended up only being 15 minutes or so in the morning. It would've been horrible otherwise.

OBNURSEHEATHER · Jan 15, 2003

Nope. We also utilized the larger hospitals right here in town. But it all depends on your location. Some people that lived more out in the boonies had to travel to us for school and clinicals.

Heather

subec · Jan 15, 2003

Last semester, I only had to travel about 10 miles. This semester, one of my clinicals is about 30 min away, and the other is 45 min away. We also have to do a rotation through one of the state mental hospitals, and that is 80 miles away. It is a two day clinical, so a few of us are going to get a hotel room so we don't have to drive back the next day.

Personally, I don't mind the drive. I like that we get to rotate through many different hospitals. At the end of this semester (my second) I will have rotated through 3 different hospitals.

LoriAnnRN · Jan 15, 2003

I lived in the dormitory and it was actually connected to a large teaching hospital via a tunnel! Very convenient. I did my public health rotation at a senior center about 20 minutes away and I had to live out of town (3 hrs away from home base dorm) for about 3 months during my 'independant study' rotation. Not every program has this particular rotation; it was all paid for out of my tuition and we were used as slave labor at various clinics and hospitals. It was a tremendous help as far as developing clinical skills (I hated it at the time though).

kimmicoobug · Jan 16, 2003

I drive all of five minutes since I live close to both of the hospitals in town. In a few weeks, I go to the state penn for my psych rotation and that is about 10 minutes from here.

JudithL_in_NH · Jan 16, 2003

Originally posted by Stargazer
This involved driving in both freeway and city conditions during rush hour to be there by 7 AM, plus we were supposed to go to the hospital the evening before to pick our patient, introduce ourselves, and read their chart in order to prepare.

The school I hope to go to is 25 miles north of me, and the possible clinical sites are also 25 miles away, some in the same city as the school, some in another city south of me . . . so either way, I'll have a 40-or-so minute ride from home--traffic, luckily, is not awful in either direction.

We've already been warned about going to the site the evening before each clinical session, and that we should plan to spend an hour reviewing the patient's chart, etc . . . almost wish I could just go in an hour early, rather than make a special trip the night before, but I guess that'll give me a chance to look things up if I need to. I'm already factoring the extra time into my day care planning.

Do all clinical programs expect the "night before" visit to the site?

Stargazer · Jan 16, 2003

Originally posted by JudithL_in_NH
We've already been warned about going to the site the evening before each clinical session, and that we should plan to spend an hour reviewing the patient's chart, etc . . . almost wish I could just go in an hour early, rather than make a special trip the night before, but I guess that'll give me a chance to look things up if I need to. I'm already factoring the extra time into my day care planning.

Do all clinical programs expect the "night before" visit to the site?

Both of the programs I attended did.

OBNURSEHEATHER · Jan 16, 2003

Most of my clinicals also required the "night before" visit. The only ones that didn't were OB (the stay is so short-term that your patient may not even be there the night before) and psych.

Heather

Stargazer · Jan 16, 2003

Ah, that's right. Psych, OB, and...?community health? I can't remember.