How does your school work?

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I've been trying to do research on different nursing programs, but I wanted to hear what current students have to say. Some schools will do one big class (9+ credits) per semester and divide them up as:

Block 1 - Fundamentals with clinicals at a Rehab Facility

Block 2 - Med-Surg with clinicals at a med-surg or ortho floor

Block 3 - Med-Surg/OB/Peds with 3 clinical rotations, one for each

Block 4 - Critical care/Psych with rotation at ICU and ED for critical care and Psych facility

Other schools divide their programs into many different classes that don't necessarily have to be taken in any particular order such as Adult Health I, Adult Health II, Pharmacology, OB, Psych, Community Health, Peds, etc. This kind of program would give more flexibility, right?

My question is, how does it work at the school you went to? And what clinical rotations did you have in each semester?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Great question. I'll be very interested in the responses. THIS (lack of standardized approach) is the reason that clinical courses do not transfer.

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Specializes in mental health / psychiatic nursing.

My school works on the quarter system, each incoming class is its own cohort, and moves through specific requirements each quarter as a group. So while each quarter is done as a full quarter with a set of courses to take (e.g. pathophysiology I, pharmacology I, health theory, clinical) what we actually register for and when we take certain classes is set in stone. The only real flexibility is that we are allowed some in-put in where we would prefer to be placed for a clinical setting (e.g. we may have a choice between neurology, orthopedics, cardiac, or oncology for an acute care rotation).

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Specializes in NICU, RNC.

Ours were separated into different classes, but as a pp mentioned, we all were required to take them in the same order.

1st semester: Fundamentals, Med-surg, Pharm, clinical on med-surg floor

2nd semester: Med-surg, Maternal/Newborn, psych, 10 9-hour clinical days in each specialty.

3rd semester: Med-surg, Peds, 15 13-hour clinical days on med-surg/tele, 12 10-hour clinical days in peds (including NICU/PICU)

4th semester: Critical Care, geriatrics, clinical in ICU/ED with occasional days rotated out for geri clinical in the community (I think there were around 6 geri clinical days, the rest was critical care)

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My school is pretty much as you posted OP. All 4 semesters are broken into Nursing I, II, III, and IV and that's what your schedule will read. The content for each semester is similar except we do Psych in 3rd semester.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

One big class, ranging from 8 credits to 12.

Semester 1 fundamental

Semester 2 med surg

Semester 3 Advanced med surg and mental health

Semester 4 pediatrics and labor/delivery

In semester 2/3 we also go to surgery, ER, and ICU but only for one day each.

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Specializes in NICU, RNC.
One big class, ranging from 8 credits to 12.

Semester 1 fundamental

Semester 2 med surg

Semester 3 Advanced med surg and mental health

Semester 4 pediatrics and labor/delivery

In semester 2/3 we also go to surgery, ER, and ICU but only for one day each.

ICU for only 1 day? That seems like a pretty massive disservice to the students. :( I had 16 days in ICU and it was the most fascinating rotation and I learned so much every single day. That makes me sad that you missed out!

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

My school had a cohort system, where once you got into the program you progressed through it as a group. Disclaimer -- it's been over a decade and I may not be 100% accurate:

1st semester we had LTC and OB (L&D if we were fortunate, mother/baby, and well baby nursery)

2nd semester psych and med-surg, and I think OR/periop

3rd med-surg and community. For community we had 1-2 days each of private duty, home health visiting nurse, corrections (we gave the inmates flu shots and Mantoux), CD treatment facility, school nursing, ambulatory (primary care clinic and travel clinic)

4th med-surg, ED, and ICU the first half (we too only had 1 day in each); 2nd half was our final practicum

All of the med-surg clinicals built on the past one. We were given progressively more and more complex patients; by the end we were managing a regular RN assignment

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My school has a cohort system; we progress as a group. Our semesters are divided like this:

Semester 1- fundamentals, pharmacology, and health assessment with a total of 45 clinical hours at a LTC facility.

Semester 2- med-surg I and mental health with a total of 95 clinical hours on a med-surg floor and 45 clinical hours at a mental health facility

Semester 3-med-surg II and OB/Peds with 95 clinical hours on a med-surg floor and 95 clinical hours in L/D, newborn nursery, post-partum, or at a local school

Semester 4-med-surg III/critical care and nursing leadership with 84 hours for our preceptorships, placement depends on the student's preference/learning needs

In semesters 2 and 3 we got to go to specialty clinical days that consisted of the ER, OR, PACU, hemodialysis, Pre-op, cardiovascular surgery, or hospice.

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Specializes in ICU Stepdown.

Semester 1:

Fundamentals Concepts of Nursing Care (divided into lecture, seminar, clinical and lab) 6 credits

Pharmacology Concepts in Nursing I (online) 1 credit

Basic Care Skills 2 credits

Semester 2:

Pharmacology Concepts in Nursing II (online) 1 credit

Reproductive Health and Common Health Problems (lab, lecture, clinical and seminar;OB and peds) 7 credits

Semester 3:

Concepts of Pharmacology III (online) 1 credit

Patients with Complex Physical Health Problems (lab, lecture, clinical, and seminar; I'm assuming this is med surg) 5 credits

Patients with Complex Behavioral Health Problems (lecture, clinical, seminar; psych) 3 credits

Semester 4:

Capstone (lecture, lab, clinical, and seminar) 8 credits

These don't include other courses such as anatomy, microbiology, developmental psychology, physiology, etc. All of those are required, however, they are not required before entering the program. Some people (me) have almost all, or all, of them finished before starting the nursing program and others take them in the summer or alongside nursing courses.

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Our program is broken down into classes and the order we are allowed to take them in is set with absolutely no wiggle room. This semester (the first "clinical semester" i.e. when we begin our nursing courses) looks like this:

1. Intro to nursing practice (AKA fundamentals) with lab/clinical- 6 units/credits

2. Health assessment with lab- 4 units/credits

3. Research- 3 units/credits

4. Pathophysiology- 3 units/credits

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The cohort moves together, adding people (if they failed semesters 2-4; out permanently if failed semester 1--you get one redo semester before you fail out of the program.)

Semester One

Foundations (5 credits)

Skills Class (1 credit)

Clinical--4 days at LTC (1 credit)

Semester Two

Med-Surg One with a small taste of mental health and OB. A self-taught pharmacology course is included in this class. (5 credits)

Skills Class (1 credit)

Clinical--9 med-surg clinicals, 2 days shadowing a school nurse, and 1/2 days at pedi and OB clinics (4 credits)

Semester Three

Mental Health/OB/Med-Surg Two (5 credits)

Clinical--6 med-surg days, 4 OB days (one L&D, two postpartum, one antepartum), and 2 mental health days (4 credits)

Semester Four

The curriculum has been rewritten due to state requirements changing, and this is the first time this semester is being taught under the new curriculum. We're not exactly sure what they're doing. We've heard it's legal stuff and preparing for interviews, as well as some med-surg topics and NCLEX review.

Clinical is med-surg for the first half of the semester, then it's working with a preceptor--hopefully in the desired field.

I'm in semester three currently.

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