Just today, we were emailed our course calendar for next semester...and it made me get all excited. How lame is that? I didn't want to go back to school, and then I read the email and the calendar, and well, it brightened my day a bit.
In terms of the schedule and such, it's pretty similar to the fall semester...but we spend less time in the clinical learning lab, and have less class/lab time after clinical which is pretty exciting because going 7-3 is hard, and that's what we did a large chunk of last semester! We only have a handful of clinical days that go past 1 (9 out of 27), and that's awesome!
im in a diploma program and we have 16 (9 hour long) days of clinical first semester. i think it increases the next semester though. they said our class:clinical ratio is 1:1.5
Wow...that's very little clinical! Only 9 days last semester?!? We had 8 weeks of clinical (so 16 days).
You've had 9 days of clinical and you think that the exposure is too limited? You haven't seen anything because you've only had 9 days!
Yes, I do indeed think it's too limited because we're chained to one patient all day. If the acuity of that patient is minimal and/or there's little to nothing that can be done with him then by all means the exposure is limited. We can't float between patients or rotate between departments. We don't round. You're right we didn't see anything which is why our clinical was too limited. It'll be the same next semster too, but it'll only increase to about 12 clinical days. This isn't a new circus for me.
What I'm saying though is that you didn't see anything not because clinical is too limited but because you've had almost no experience.
I honestly don't think that would've mattered a whole lot. The sporadic nature of nursing clinicals doesn't lend itself well to getting into a whole lot.
For example, back when I worked part-time as a paramedic I wouldn't get called to a lot of acuity simply because I wasn't there as much as the full-timers. It was statistically less likely for me to come across serious encounters. That said, when I did work full-time I was a **** magnet. I was there so much that everything fell in my lap. If I were part-time I wouldn't have enjoyed that volume. The same can be said for nursing clinicals.
I think to fix that schools should complete their lecture requirement, test, pass it, and then take the last three weeks or so of the semester and do nothing but clinicals on a pass/fail basis. In that manner students would be there everyday and more likely to run across good teaching cases.
Heck, in the nine visits I had we didn't have a single patient on an IV even. However, yes, I believe the scope of nursing clinicals is far too limited. Read again my comments about being chained to one patient.
We only had nine clinicals our first semster but it equals out we go to school longer than most schools we have an extra semester and I guess I have been lucky I have had the pts with everything going on so I have seen alot in my time in school
Oh yeah I think it depends on your instructor because 1st semster we did'nt do a whole lot but 2nd we were on our own and did everything it as crazy and fun
Last semester we had clinical one day a week for 6 hours. We had 6-7 clinicals depending on the group we were in. Next semester, clinical is one day a week again but I think the hours are a bit longer.
This is going to be my last semester (Yay, me!). We have Community (online), Management, and Critical Care. We will go from 7-8 hour clinical days to clinicals that are 8 hours (community), 10 hours (critical care), and 12 hours (management) long, and not necessarily in that order. In management, we will go from two patients the first week to five patients by the end of the rotation! Scary, but of course we'll be doing more than that when we get out of school. We only have class on Wednesdays this coming semester, which doesn't sound like any big deal, but I know there will be a ton of work outside of class. I'm so glad it's my last semester!!
This semester is going to be different for me. Last semester for fundamentals we had class on mondays from 850-1050 and lab on tuesdays from 11-1 and clinical on wed from 8-230. This semester i have adults class on wed from 10-1230 and clinical tuesday and thursday 8-230 for 8 weeks (march-may) and then i also have gero- class on monday from 11-1 and clinical tuesday and thursday 8-130 (jan-march).
I am kind of nervous about the adults because we dont have a lab with that class, and we never learned how to put in iv's or how to draw blood. I am going to be at a major medical center...and i dont want to look stupid.
Also with my universtiy, you can choose to do adults and gero first or ped/ob... so there could be people in my clinical who are a semester ahead of me. I am so nervous...
Yes, I do indeed think it's too limited because we're chained to one patient all day. If the acuity of that patient is minimal and/or there's little to nothing that can be done with him then by all means the exposure is limited. We can't float between patients or rotate between departments. We don't round. You're right we didn't see anything which is why our clinical was too limited. It'll be the same next semster too, but it'll only increase to about 12 clinical days. This isn't a new circus for me.
I completely agree. Universally, nursing schools must address the problem of graduating clinically underprepared nursing students. Incorporating didactic & clinical work is not an easy task. Clinical experiences are limited for many reasons...not enough clinical hours, low acuity, instructor student ratio, etc...For this reason, I have chosen a 144 hour preceptorship on my unit of choice separate from my school. I will be precepting a nurse 1:1 who works for the facility. My school also offers a 48 hour clinical option. Half of those hours are precepting, half with the school's instructors. However, I believe I can learn the most with the greatest amount of hours and 1:1 with a nurse versus with 7 other students. IMO, 8 hours once a week is not nearly enough clinical time to become proficient. This is why the learning curve is so steep even after graduation & NCLEX.
I completely agree. Universally, nursing schools must address the problem of graduating clinically underprepared nursing students. Incorporating didactic & clinical work is not an easy task. Clinical experiences are limited for many reasons...not enough clinical hours, low acuity, instructor student ratio, etc...For this reason, I have chosen a 144 hour preceptorship on my unit of choice separate from my school. I will be precepting a nurse 1:1 who works for the facility. My school also offers a 48 hour clinical option. Half of those hours are precepting, half with the school's instructors. However, I believe I can learn the most with the greatest amount of hours and 1:1 with a nurse versus with 7 other students. IMO, 8 hours once a week is not nearly enough clinical time to become proficient. This is why the learning curve is so steep even after graduation & NCLEX.
I just finished my first semester of nursing school and I have to say that clinical was a total waste of time. It was useful for getting the hang of writing care plans but that's about it. Here is what all my clinical days were like: I went in, did my assessment and that's pretty much it. Spent the rest of the day chit chatting or having coffee or whatever. My first patient had chronic cancer pain and just wanted to be left alone. The next two patients were pretty much in a vegetative state so there wasn't a whole lot there to do. I absolutely hated clinical because I knew it was going to be like that. Next semester, though, we start med-surg so I'm hoping for a little more action.
However, yes, I believe the scope of nursing clinicals is far too limited. Read again my comments about being chained to one patient..thumb.gif.557c5203bd6f06724ecab47703960500.gif){kind=small}
SingDanceRunLife
952 Posts
Wow...that's very little clinical! Only 9 days last semester?!? We had 8 weeks of clinical (so 16 days).
You've had 9 days of clinical and you think that the exposure is too limited? You haven't seen anything because you've only had 9 days!