All classroom, no lab???

Nursing Students LPN/LVN Students

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So far so good, I have straight As in the classroom. My instructors aren't the best but I'm learning their style. I will have them through the summer semester and get new ones in the fall. We start clinicals at the end of the term, for 5 days.

The problem that I have is the lack of lab time. They show us a video to demonstrate how we are to perform certain tasks but then we never get lab time during the day. We are expected to stay after to practice with an instructor or do it on our own. We have checks offs pretty soon and have had very little direction.

When I did my CNA, we had classwork the first few weeks and then we went to the lab for several weeks to practice with our instructor there. The instructor did the procedure while we watched then we were given several hours to practice with him there to ask questions. If we felt like we needed extra time, then we could practice in the labs on our own time. My CNA was at a different campus but same school.

Are most LPN programs like this? Or do you get more hands-on experience with an instructor?

Specializes in Utilization Management.

My LPN program was 5 days a week. Two days were theory, three days were clinicals. In my experience, there simply wasn't enough time on theory days for us to go into the lab. Don't get me wrong, we had lab time - it's just that the instructors couldn't take time away from the theory portion in order to herd everyone over to lab for practice during class time. Now that I'm in a RN program, any lab practice is done on our own time. Our instructors demonstrate the skill and it's up to us whether we practice or not.

We get two hours a week for skills lab and two hours a week for pharmacology lab. Then there is a lab instructor (not the same person who actually teaches during our scheduled lab time) that has a book where you can sign up to come in and practice on your own, but she's there to answer questions. A lot of the time our labs are done before the two hours is up, we often are done early and then we can either go or stay and practice. We get checked off on skills almost every week, and then at the end of the semester we will have to test out in each lab on a few different random skills.

Since I'm part time and not in clinical this semester, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage because I don't get the real life practice that everyone is getting at clinical.

I did my checkoffs for handwashing and vital signs today. We have plenty of time for lab instruction, they give us 15-20 minute breaks every hour and randomly, we get at least an hour for lunch. We leave an hour or two (sometimes more) early almost every day so there is PLENTY of time for them to take us to the lab and just do a REAL demonstration.

BUT I will say that when we were in there practices, they walked by and answered questions for us, so we did get some help.

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