How much do they let you customize your program/select your clinicals at your school?

[priorities2]

I just had orientation and learned that we'll have 180 hrs of clinicals first semester that are randomly chosen for us. Second semester, we get a choice between various types of surgery and general medicine at a couple different hospitals. Third and fourth semester we have a wide range of options (I'll be able to choose inpatient psychiatry first semester and outpatient psych/substance abuse the next, since my interest is mental health). We rank our choices for clinicals and hopefully get our top choice (though, if your top choice is peds it's less likely you'll get it, since so many people want peds).

How does this work at your schools??

[springchick1, ADN, RN]

What she said with the exception of our Senior Practicum where we submitted a list of specialties (ER, ICU, Med/Surg, etc) and facilities and facilities where we wanted to go, then matches were made by our Clinical Coordinator.

I forgot about our preceptorship. I think we give them 3 choices and they will try and match us with one of them.

[RNnewbie2014]

Wow!! My university does not let us choose at all except when we are preceptoring in the last semester (if even then). Our program works like this... When you make your schedule for clinical, whatever your instructor prefers is where you will go.. Most people at my school will talk about the different floors they work, so I just try to choose the floor I am most interested in. I do not even get a choice on location.. We usually only have a choice of two different hospitals, but this semester of peds/OB I chose to stay in the location I am in, but nope! They moved me right outta that class and put me in one 30 minutes away! It's okay though. I will more than likely have to commute when I get a job, so I better get use to it now! Lol

[DoGoodThenGo]

Years ago now, (1980's) at least at the College of SI (AAS program) one could pick clinical sites when registering for each particular nursing class. That is say Med/Surg I had clinicals at Saint Vincent's Hospital, Victory Memorial Hospital, Staten Island Hospital. Same was mostly true for Med/Surg II, and Peds/L&D etc... The only exception was psych rotation which was only offered at one place.

Will say that much of this has changed in NYC and one assumes elsewhere as the healthcare landscape has over the past twenty or so years. There are fewer hospitals in many areas than before leaving programs to scramble for clinical sites. Know from a recent attendee that the aforementioned college now sends students to a local nursing home/skilled rehab for at Med/Surg I clinical.

[swansonplace]

We were required to pass on certain skills. So no matter where we went we were required to get a pass on drugs, assessment, foleys, iv's, trach care, wound care, knowledge of med's, and care plans.

It was generally first come first serve on clinicals, and hit or miss on the professor names as they started to hide who our instructors would be. But, we were required to do a rotation for peds, ob, med surg, psych and we could select er, icu, or other specialty based on availability of the floor.

It was the hospital that made the difference. Since some hospitals will let you go to a different floor then the one assigned. So try and get into hospitals that allow students to get hands on experience. Some of the first semester hospitals did not let students do anything except ADL's which is not great on learning nursing skills.

It's great fun, and so important to figure out where the great clinical professors are teaching.

[SummitRN, BSN, RN]

We were able to request which clinical site for each clinical and usually people received one of their top 3 site choices.

In some clinicals, site choice could dictate what your experience was in addition to simple facility preference and geographic convenience (eg bidding for the facilities with Level III NICUs for OB or choosing for community health a geriatric ED, HBPC, home care, or a public health clinic). Sometimes, specialty placements were available for bid, like PICU for peds or adult ICU in leui of M/S. We also had an option for a Junior Practicum where one could bid for a facility and unit type (ICU, ER, M/S, OR, Peds, Psych, OB, NICU etc) and the same for Senior Practicum. In addition, we could take ER and ICU specialty classes with associated clinicals.

My school was most excellent in facilitating student clinical choices. That lead directly to my new graduate position being exactly what I wanted: ICU.

[ixchel]

What she said with the exception of our Senior Practicum where we submitted a list of specialties (ER, ICU, Med/Surg, etc) and facilities and facilities where we wanted to go, then matches were made by our Clinical Coordinator.

This is the way it is for us as well. Bums me out actually. I think we register for classes before the department knows what's available for assignments. We can't even pick our instructor. I think even for our senior internship, we don't get to pick an instructor or placement. We sign up for clinical, then we get assigned an instructor, who gives us a handful of assignment choices.

[HM-8404, BSN, RN]

My program tells you any clinical site within 1 hr drive of your home is fair game to be placed in. They were not kidding either. They will try to work with you if you absolutely cannot do night or weekend clinicals, but with limited clinical instructors sometimes you have to just suck it up and go where you are placed.

[CacaoHeart]

Well of course you show up at the correct place and time. I'm just wondering to what extent other programs give you a choice for your clinicals. It sounds like most don't.

No choice. We can't even trade sites with classmates. You may end up with a site 5 minutes away or 45. We might be able to opt out of precepting, but that's it. The first semester is the only time we have any say in what our schedule is, when we're given 4 options. After that class/clinical times change at will with sometimes only a few day's notice and we simply have to hope we have enough notice to work the rest of our lives around the change. It's been ok for me so far.

[swansonplace]

I guess the size of the facility college matters. As it seems to be an issue everywhere. Adequate clinical sites.

[PalmHarborMom]

We have zero choice or options for where we do clinicals or what classes we take. Once we reach our 6th semester and do our Preceptorship, they do ask what area of the hospital we would prefer. But that in no way guarantees that we will end up where we requested.

[LittleWhiteDress]

At my old nursing school at a community college they gave us options on what they of the week we wanted to do clinical (I think it was either tue, thu or fri) and we also had 2 hospitals. We had clinicals every semester and each semester was on a different floor. First semester we started off in a nursing home.

[ixchel]

I guess the size of the facility college matters. As it seems to be an issue everywhere. Adequate clinical sites.

Might be a good point. Ours is roughly 100 students if you include the accelerated students who have adult clinicals with us. I believe it's about 75 without them. Our program is pretty small, I think.