Out of town clinical sites?

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How many of y'all are assigned clinical sites that in another town? Last semester, our program only offered one LTC facility for first semester that was in town. This semester, the one I will be starting, doesn't offer any in town.

There are 2 that are located in a town 29 miles away, and another that is 19 miles away. I know it doesn't seem bad but that is 35 mins to get to the first one and 25 mins for the second one. It seems like in a city of 40k people, our school would have been able to secure a clinical agreement with one of the dozen LTC facilities in this city.

That gas is going to get expensive on top of commuting to class 4 days a week. We have clinicals twice a week.

I have not started nursing school yet, but I was informed that our clinical sites can be up to 100 miles away.

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Specializes in OR.

I got to school on the edge of a large metropolitan area, and I live outside that metro area. I already drive 45 minutes just to get to school (in morning or evening traffic, closer to 30 minutes at other times of day), and some of the clinical sites that were discussed were even further from me. Of course, living rurally, I knew there would have to be a lot of driving involved. I'm hoping for some carpooling opportunities, but I'm sure that will depend who I get grouped with for clinicals.

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Specializes in Oncology/hematology.

I also live in a large city. But, I live on one edge of it and many of our clinical sites are on the opposite side. I have driven 45 minutes to a site, but this coming semester I am getting lucky and will only have a 20 minute drive for the first rotation. Unfortunately, I think it will be an hour for the 2nd rotation. It's worth it in the end. Just try to remember the ultimate, end goal. :)

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I had two semesters where my clinicals were one hour away at different facilities. I had two semesters where my clinicals were 45 minutes away. I only had one semester where my clinicals were 10 minutes away. My clinical that took 1.5 hours to get to we had to be there at 4:30 am. It didn't bother me though because I knew that it is something that you sign up for when you enter nursing school.

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Schools can only place you where there are openings to place students. You have to take into account how many schools (LPN and RN programs) there are around the area. The clinical sites can only accomodate a certain amount of students/instructors regardless of how many facilities may be close by to your school. Some clinical sites will not allow a certain school(s) because of problems in the past, some just don't want students, some have 'contracts' with a school affiliated with the hosptial, some already have their max allowed students, etc.

During my LPN schooling, we were told prior to even signing on the dotted line that clinicals can be up to a 50 mile radius around the school campus. Luckily, all of the sites were within a 15 minute ride for me, with one being 20-30 minutes depending on traffic and weather.

During my RN schooling, we were placed at the hospital that is affiliated with our college. However some of our 'out rotation' clinicals such as dialysis, mental health etc were outside of the hospital. The mental health clinicals was a 40 minute drive for me (however, what should be a 40 minute ride was always closer to 1 1/2 hrs due to outrageous traffic, plus it was during the winter this past year so we got slammed with enough cruddy weather that it made the roads a mess and the ride slow going but not 'bad' enough to cancel clinicals. It was aweful.

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Specializes in Medical/Surgical, Telemetry.

Some students in my cohort are placed at a hospital site 3.5 hours away. They are an hour ahead of our time and have a 5:30 am start time. Which means that those who are placed at that site for the semester have to leave no later than midnight or 1am at the latest the day of clinical to be there in enough time and have time to spare for traffic and bad weather. So 30-60 minutes to commute isn't as bad as what some students in my cohort have. But remember we are located in a somewhat rural area with a small community hospital, so travel to a good site that can offer great clinical experiences is required.

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Our closest clinical was 20 minutes from me. Farthest was 1 hour 15 minutes, about 70 miles. Clinical start time for that one was 7:00, the close ones had a 6:15 start time. Oh, the farthest one was 45 minutes off the interstate. You go where the school can get clinical locations and that's all there is to it.

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I think that the associate degree program at Butler, PA community college sends students from Butler to Kittanning (20-25 miles one way) and Franklin (50 miles one way), PA, and some other places. Associate degree schools have been getting short shrift from hospitals that are no longer hiring anything except BSRN grads. Some associate degree programs actually closed because they couldn't get clinical sites to take their students anymore.

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My school made me do clinicals at a place that was 2 hours away multiple semesters. They didn't provide gas, And you had to be there at 6:45 AM, plus they made you drive up the night before to collect clinical data and then you stayed up all night doing the careplan. It could always be worse haha.

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Specializes in ICU.
There are 2 that are located in a town 29 miles away, and another that is 19 miles away. I know it doesn't seem bad but that is 35 mins to get to the first one and 25 mins for the second one. It seems like in a city of 40k people, our school would have been able to secure a clinical agreement with one of the dozen LTC facilities in this city.

That gas is going to get expensive on top of commuting to class 4 days a week. We have clinicals twice a week.

You're pretty lucky to only be commuting 25-35 minutes. One semester I had a clinical site that was 50 minutes south and another clinical site that was 50 minutes north of where I lived at the time. I would be at the south clinical site and then to pick my patient for the next clinical, I had to travel 2 hours from the first clinical site to the second one. All on the same day. I commuted approximately 200 miles on those days.

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We are on the edge of the North Maine Woods so to do our Psych rotation we spend 3 day weekends 180 miles away in Bangor.

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Specializes in Med/surg, Onc.

I've driven only 2 miles for one clinical and 30 miles for another. It really just depends on the school and where they have contracts to hold clinicals. The one over 30 miles away took me over an hour to get to because I am on the far north end of the city and the clinical was on the very far south end. It happens.

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