Lancaster general or HACC

jhaf07 · Dec 7, 2012

Hi all nurses,I am currently a preclinical student at HACC. I will be ready for clinicals in aug of 2013 but someone said that lancaster general is better than HACC when looking for job. Is it true that hospitals prefer LGH graduates over HACC? If that is the case should i transfer to lgh? Has anyone done that? How smooth is the transition? I thank you all for trying to help me....

Hi there. I am not a nurse but I am a nursing student currently at HACCs york part time program and I actually have experience with both HACC and LGH. I started at HACC years ago and completed all of my pre-reqs there. A few months before I was to apply to part time clinicals a friend thay had transferred out of HACC to LGH talked me into applying. I live in York so I knew it would be difficult but I thought hey, it'd be nice to go through clincials with a friend. I actually applied to LGHs part time weekend program after the application deadline, and got accepted, granted I had a 4.0 and some good references, but I was none the less surprised. I started there August of 2011. The class was very large compared to HACCs part time program. The instructors all hammered into our heads that they were there to help and wanted everyone to succeed. I did like the instructors, however, I felt that we were pretty much thrown into the middle of chaos and given a lot of info all at once, our skills were not taught to us very well at all and we were expected to pass this practicum of ALL the skills at once at the end of the semester. We also expected to pass an ATI exam to move on to the next semester. Clinical weekends were definitly unorganized and we felt rushed through each "station", learning from many different instructors in one day. Well, my mother in law passed away in September from Pancreatic Cancer. It was a very stressful time for my family and she was also babysitting for us so I could make the commute to class 2x a week, my husband was off every other weekend when I had clinicals. As much as I did not want to drop out of clinicals, and leave my friend behind, I had to. On top of school, I had also returned to the work force after being home with my kids for five years and was working as an NA at a hospital, night shift, with a child still home during the day while my husband worked. It was a mess. lol

Fast forward to now: I have finals for my second semester of clinicals next week and I could not be happier to have returned to HACC. It has been, in my opinion, a much more gradual learning process. The skills we are to learn are demonstrated to us and then we set up a time to come in an test off on them, there are deadlines to meet, but it is not a "test all of it in one day" thing like at LGH. The class is smaller, our tasks at the clinical sight also progressed gradually, I did not feel like I was being thrown to the wolves to make it on my own. It is much nicer for me since I live so close, there is theory one night a week and a clinical night on a second night of the week, so it's two days a week instead of two days then clincials every other weekend. We still are doing ATI testing but we do not need some passing score on those exams to go on to the next semester. Many of the instructors are wonderful and understanding, then there are a few that are a little intimiditaing and harder on their students, but I have not met one yet who was actually mean. Now there are variations in different instructors' teaching styles and what they expect of their students, which can be a little frustrating when you switch clinical instructors each semester, but it was like that in some ways at LGH too. I prefer HACC, and here in York I hear that HACC nurses are the prefferred choice for employers, I am not sure how it is in Lancaster, I am sure they are partial to local nurses but I do not know. I do know that I had an interview at LGH before I started working at a local hospital here, and they were pretty snobby over there lol. Oh and LGH is about twice as much in cost compared to HACC, which was not cool.

Overall, I prefer HACC a lot more over LGH, i feel like I have a much higher chance of success here and I am very glad that I came back. I hope my rambling has given you some useful info to help with your decision. Have a nice day :)

ninuraj · Dec 8, 2012

Thank you for the insight. I am glad you took time out to answer in detail. It helps me to decide what to do. I will be taking classes full time at either one of the places. I have an appointment with the advisor at LGH on Monday. I will be sure to bring these things up and see what she has to say. My reason to go to LGH is same as yours. I have two friends that transfered there. I am not sure how they are doing at this moment as i havent been able to talk to them. It just made me curious as to why people were moving there. Another thing that has been bothering me and my husband is that HACC was in the news few days ago. There is some talk about HACC going to loose its accredidation if they are not able to fix few things before aug 30,2013. Did you hear about it? Does that concern you or not? I am just worried that if that happens then hospitals may say that they dont want to hire nurses that were trained here.

ElizaW · Dec 17, 2012

OP, I'm trying to decide between applying for fulltime day clinicals in Lancaster and part time evening clinicals in York. I like the idea of taking classes close to home in York, but I would finish more quickly if I went to Lancaster. Do you have anything to add that might make my decision easier? I will be applying as an advanced standing student. My advisor really wasn't able to tell which program was more likely to accept me, or even which facilities I would be going to for clinicals. I'm flying blind. Help?

ninuraj · Dec 17, 2012

Hi Eliza, Part time is not a good option for me because i have kids and i need to be home with them when they arrive. Moreover, full time gives you the benefit of having summers off. And i kind off like that as i would like to be able to go on vacation while i can because once we start working at first we wont have the luberty to choose our vacation time until we have spend a yeR or two. So i will tkae it while i can. Timewise i dont think it make a difference. You most likely would finish clinicals around the same time, because parttime is two and a half year including summers. I dont know if you have family or if you are too young for that. I dont mind driving to lancaster because i am sure we will all find company to go there and may take turns driving. I already am talking to girls who would be doing the clinicals at the same time as me. May be youshould do the same. My big problem is if to stick woth HACC or go to LGH. I am afraid if HACC looses accredidation then what? Would the hospitals still take the nurses that graduate from here or not. Do you ahve the dame concern? If i am driving to lancaster, i would like to go the right school. And lgh offers rn to bsn program too whoch is an interest to me. I look forward to hearing your point of view on this.

ElizaW · Dec 17, 2012

I'm not really concerned about HACCs accreditation problem. I believe they will resolve the problems before it becomes an issue. They can't afford not to.