lack of preceptor spots MCCD

I cant really help you RE: numbers for your school and am not quite sure which school this is/where it is...BUT...I am currently an Excelsior College student who lives in SW Phoenix. Ive completed their program but the AZ BON requires and additional 120 preceptor hours prior to graduation and obviously prior to taking the NCLEX. Ive been waiting since the end of April to get my 120 hours secured. I was not able to do this in Phoenix. I actually had to travel to Tuscon and am completing 8 twelves over the span of 2 weeks (already did 24 hrs in Psych up in Scottsdale). When I was trying to schedule I was told that there are "hundreds of students that are waiting for placement" and this was also true of some facilities in Tuscon as well. Good luck with your placement but I quickly learned patience (after ALOT of frustration and foul words)...

I am a nursing instructor and I heard the number was 75, although this is still very bad.

I am a nursing instructor and I heard the number was 75, although this is still very bad.

Why do you think this is happening Dorimar? Are there that many new students

that the hospitals don't have slots? Is it a sign of the economy that hospitals don't

want to "waste" nursing resources to precept some one that they don't intend to

hire?

There was such a nursing shortage not too long ago, and the government along with all of us and everyone else was pushing to increase nursing programs and nursing school enrollment. The nursing programs, enrollment and graduating nursing students is at a phenomenal high in Phoenix right now. We did what the government asked us adn put out lots of new nurses ready to take boards. Now the economy is failing and they don't need them anymore (for now). The clinical site availability (while big in the phoenix area) does not match our nursing program enrollments right now. And it is not just the clinical sites but the available preceptors too. First, schools must have a clinical contract with the facility before a preceptorship there can even be considered. Then you have to have enough nurses willing and able to be preceptors at those facilities. They need special training to be eligible. It is extra work too (Its difficult to precept). The preceptorship shortage is a huge deal and not taken lightly. the big wig people in nursing education and clinical coordination across the metro and non-metro areas just had a big resolution meeting. Everyone form every school has to meet together with teh big wig clinical coordinator of the MCC and PHoenix metro area preceptorship to negotiate and compromise.... The same is happening now for regular clinical rotations here in the Valley.... there just aren't enough spots.

Please keep us posted on their progress. As a student moving though the system I would hate to have my education delayed by bureaucracy, though it wouldn't be the first time