Online nursing school?

[Steph604]

Hey everyone!

So I am looking at becoming a perinatal nurse. I already have a general bachelors degree and found out that my local university offers a 7 semester online nursing post-bac degree.

There is a lab where you can practice and obviously there are clinicals. Im concerned though that the amount of clinical seems very minimal. The first two semesters you only do about 10 shifts, and then third semester you do 8 weeks of clinicals and then 4,5, and 6- you do about another 60 hours (total for all) I believe and then semester 7 is about 30- 12 hour shifts doing a preceptorship.

Does this seem like enough to feel competent when finished? I feel like compared to another nursing school here where you do 3 days of clinical a week, for four years is a huge difference. Apparently this school Im looking at also only has a mental health, surgical and then regular medical rotation. There is a peds/mat observation that consists of a few shifts.

Thanks for any insight!

[ThatBigGuy]

Nursing school doesn't prepare you to be a good nurse. It prepares you to be a minimally safe nurse.

I would look at the state BON of where the school is located, and make sure the school is accredited, and look at the NCLEX pass rates. If both of those are satisfactory to you, then go ahead.

Just keep in mind that online classes require more self regulation and structure to accomplish.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

I don't remember how many clinical hours my program required, but it was not 3 days per week for the entire program. It seems like it was 3-4 weeks out of the semester. Clinicals were scheduled throughout the semester, but the class was also divided into 3 or 4 groups who took turns going to the sites. That was to allow the students to not overrun the units, not have a shortage of pts, and so our clinical instructor could adequately supervise us.

[applesxoranges, BSN, RN]

Most nursing schools do not have 3 days of clinicals for 4 years. Most bachelor programs that I am familiar with have the first 2 years set up with general education credits and science classes like anatomy and microbiology. Then the final two years you have clinicals. Usually clinicals are one day a week and in my experience were 10-12 hours. We had an extra day to come in and research our patients on our own time usually the night before.

Peds and OB are usually combined or not full length semester classes.

It sounds more like an accelerated program. There are so many hours you have to do per each state.