Pre nursing school jobs in Ontario

[bounceup]

Hi! I've been lurking around allnurses since early highschool, when I decided that's what I wanted to be. Now that graduation is only in another year, I was wondering if any of your had any advice concerning jobs I could get in the medical field before/during nursing school, and what kind of certifications I'd need for it, where to get them, etc. Or even if this is likely or possible, since I've been googling hard and have yet to come up with anything. Thanks.

[loriangel14, RN]

You could take a Personal Support Worker program. The length of the course I think would depend on what province you are in. In Ontario it's about 6 months. You would be able to work in the community, LTC and in some areas, a hospital. Once you have started school I know many places will hire people as PSWs after they have completed their first year. In my area there is at least one LTC facility that will hire you as an aid without the PSW certificate.This used to be common but these days more and more places want the certificate. Again, this could be different in other areas of the country.

[Oinseach]

You could apply to smaller clinics as you do your degree and get entry-level work in basic patient care - my colleague who is in first-year BScN managed to land a job at a clinic in a mall and it's excellent experience.

Volunteer experience is much easier to get before university/college though, maybe try nursing homes in your area? Most decent-sized hospitals have a lot of volunteer positions as well that will give you experience and a dot on your resume.

[RPN_2012]

You can take the PSW program at George Brown College, get a job as a PSW and then do the "pathway" program to get into the PN program if this is what you want to be being a PSW first will make the basic stuff reall easy and themn you can concentrate on the harder stuff, if you are planning to do BSN then you could still do the PSW program, and work part time, while going to school, it would give you an edge in you clinical placements because you will already know all the basic care and ADL stuff... it might give you and edge when aplying to nursing programs...

I'm a PN student right now, and if I knew better I would do the PSW program first then do nursing, instead I didn Pre-Health Science then PN, it was somewhat a waste of time except for the A&P and the electives, everything else didn't help me in the PN program.

[RPN_2012]

Another thing you can do is try to get some clerk position at the hospital just to see how things are run form the inside, and find a volunteer position at a hospital or LTC facility. Also google like the 50 or 100 most used drugs and start to familiarize yourself with them, and maybe even doing drug cards!

[RasberryTea]

You can do PSW and/or volunteer at a Hospital/Nursing home.

[Ladyj83]

Another thing you can do is try to get some clerk position at the hospital just to see how things are run form the inside, and find a volunteer position at a hospital or LTC facility. Also google like the 50 or 100 most used drugs and start to familiarize yourself with them, and maybe even doing drug cards!

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!

[loriangel14, RN]

Although these days most clerk positions demand that you have taken the course first.