moog

The schedule is currently 3 hours two nights a week. Clinicals are every Saturday for 12 hours. The program lasts about 22-23 months with very short breaks -- 2wks at Christmas, 2wks during summer, 1wk for spring break. Even though it is considered part time, it is very intense and many of the folks in class who work full time have struggled a bit, but others have done great. It might be a generalization, but the ones with flexible schedules do better than the M-F 8-5 ones. Good Luck

Hey Cardiac, I understood what you meant about Florence, but you should see it now, I went down to visit a friend a few weeks ago and was shocked, I was expecting the same rural community that I drove 10 or so years ago. There is another Anthem (similar to the one far north) down there, new development -- 1-2 years old at most -- really nicely done. Not what Florence used to be for sure, though not many of the out-lying areas are what they used to be either. nhnurse1, Sorry no ideas for you, I'm not very familiar with the east/south part of Phoenix area, and I'm clueless about Casa Grande or Tuscon. If you want to live in Florence like your mom, I don't think you will have that many close choices hospital wise close. But if you wanted to live in one of the eastern suburbs of Phoenix (Mesa, Queen Creek, Gilbert, Apache Junction, Chandler) I hear that there are several new hospitals opening and a lot of nice housing. And it wouldn't be a super long trip to visit your family. Good Luck!

I was wondering how the different colleges and clinical instructors differ in requirements for clinical. Is there a standard for each block district wide? How many patients do/did you take and in which block? I am in Block 2 and so far we have only had to pick one patient to do a careplan and pass meds on. Our instructor has said that some of us will be taking 2 before the end of the block, which sounds like not all of us will. But depending on the student and the nurse of the patient they picked, we can do much more. I have found that many of the nurses will let me take on a lot of the responsibilities of their other patients which is a great learning opportunity. Of course, since only one is required, there are some who just pick their one patient and then sit around talking about how long the day is or how slow it is. What is it like in your program?

I'm not sure but you might check the West Valley Skill Center at Estrella Mountain CC.

I think I remember that Rio admits student every other semester, so if they admited for Spring 2006 and Fall 2006, then the next admit would be Summer 2007. Its really easy to get a Rio advisor on the phone to ask, whether they will know the answer is another issue :nuke:

Yes, I was looking at how many were on the waiting list earlier this week. The chart is a bit confusing in that it seems that there are open spots (for non-employees) for fall in some locations, which can't be true really. I wish there were a way to find out which campuses were the most popular, more for curiosity's sake than anything else. I spoke with someone at Estrella since that is by far the closest for me but their program is only for Blocks 3 & 4 at this time. The West Valley Skill Center takes care of Blocks 1 & 2 there. She didn't know or wouldn't say what future plans are. Who knows, by the time I got to the top of the list Estrella might be a viable option. I did find out from Glendale that there is an accelerated program in the pipeline to start as early as next spring, but no details yet. Still waiting on fingerprint clearance to apply. Lindsay -- I would guess the waiting list to be about 1 year, or a bit more depending on which campus people are waiting for. I think 400 were placed for fall. Staric -- Are you already in a program or on the list?

Yes I did, thank you for the clarification. I always think of Maricopa County Colleges and leave out the Community, but then when reading posts I will read MCC as Mesa CC. Yes, Mesa would be totally out of the question for me. Boswell would be the closest for me, then Glendale and Phoenix. But I've heard such good things about Gateway too, and then there is a certain appeal to the Rio hybrid program...its just so hard to decide which to apply to as first choice. This week I plan to call around to each college and find out which programs they have starting and when they start. Hopefully that will help with my choices a bit.

I will be turning in my application as soon as I get the fingerprint clearance card back, which should be in the next 1-3 weeks. I'm in the far west valley so any of the colleges are going to be a hike for me, and I'm struggling which to apply to. Any thoughts or experiences to share?