What are clinicals like

shrimpchips, LPN · Sep 28, 2008

Hello all
What are clinicals like? When do they start and do you go every day? Or what?

It depends on your program. I'm in my first semester of nursing school (BSN program) and we go every Tuesday. We actually just started clinicals last week even though I've been in school since August 25th - we have to pass a drug calculation exam with a 90% or better or else we can't do clinicals and they give us 4 weeks to do it. Anyway, as of right now since I'm a n00b in this program, our clinical days are rather short. The alotted time is 7am-1:30pm but with we're not allowed to have more than 10 students at a site at a time so it is split and there are 2 "shifts." The first shift is from 7am-10am and the other is from 10am-1:30pm. I'm in the later shift for now and then halfway through clinicals we'll switch so I will be in the 7am-10am one. Last Tuesday (and this upcoming Tuesday and next Tuesday) we're just working on communication with our patients. Afterwards we are switching to a nursing home and that's where we'll begin to practice our "skills" - bed making, bed baths, recording I&O, foleys, basic patient care, passing meds, giving injections, vitals. Next semester (at my school) the clinicals are longer and then we transition to the hospital setting - it's kind of like a med-surg clinical even though the class is called Foundations of Nursing. Then next year we start with OB and the time is from 7am-7pm :eek: Again it really depends on your school - if you're going to NS through a community college (ADN program) they seem like they have more clinical days throughout the week than a BSN program.

I hope this helps a bit :nurse: