Question about clinicals??

My experience with nursing school is that I don't get to choose anything! The schedule, students in clinical with you, location, and floor are pre-determined. Some clinical instructors did allow you to choose the pts though.

It is very unlikely that you will get to pick the hospital. We rotated into each department, so you get to know about all departments. Going to all the departments also lets you see what you have been studying. It helps to remember.

Dabuggy

We didn't get to choose anything for our first semester...I understand we get to make a request for the second semester between 3 hospitals, but nothing will be guaranteed....other than that, you get what you get....

My entire schedule (lab, lecture, and clincals) were chosen for me...and will again be chosen for me for spring semester. The only thing I know for sure is that I will be at the same hospital and will have the same clinical instructor....pleasssse help....i am dying here....the instructor has given out thus far all C's and only one B in clincals. The only thing I have been allowed to choose all semester is my clients:)

At my school we get to make bids for our 1/2/3 choice hospital, and the regular BSN students stay at whichever one they get for all of their clinicals. I'm applying to the accelerated program, and we get two hospitals we spit time between for the whole program. It depends where you go.

The only thing we got to choose was what section to sign up for. The only option that offered was what days you would have your clinicals on...even then it was not guaranteed that that would be your days...not until after the first day of class did we ever really know where we would be going or what day we would be going on. Nursing is all about being flexible and believe me my school taught you how to be flexible right from orientation on....

At my school there are 9 sections for Nursing 1 and Nursing 2 and we get to choose which one we want. We can sign up at our designated registration date/time and whichever classes still have openings, we can sign up for. I have 2nd day registration so my first choice was full, so I had to sign up for my second choice.

It seems to depend on the school. In my program you can bid for days and nights on the first three semesters and hope you get what you want. On the last semester we do get to choose which floor (med surg, tele, rehab) we want to go on, however if too many students pick the same floor, obviously not everyone gets what they want.

It will depend on your school. We had no choice in our first semester. Second and third semester we could choose from the three sites available (instructors put three lists at the front of the class and then stood back as we rushed the table to put our names on the papers, since only 7-8 students could go to each site). For our last semester capstone, we numbered our preferences from the hospitals and units available and spots were given according to our grades from past nursing courses. My clinicals (in order of semester) were in subacute care, thoracic surgery, neurology, and pediatric OR.

I know this is a silly question but how often in the semester do you have clinicals. I'm just starting my pre-req's but was curious. I work full time in a law office right now. Do they give you like X amount of days a semester or every Thursday or how does that work?

I believe every school works independently on how they schedule ANY and EVERYTHING, so first check with your school. My situation is odd in that my nursing class is a satellite offshoot of a large university (due to rural area in MO). We start a class of 40 every Aug and there are two hospitals (each 30 miles away), but in opposite directions. We put a preference of which clinical days we would like (days, evenings, weekends) and the school makes every attempt to place us with our choice. This semester I had M and T evening classes with clinicals on W and TH. Next semester we have the same class days with only one TH clinical, but the catch is that the clinical is all day long. So, I guess my point is that the only way to know what your school is doing is to contact them and ask because apparently there is no standard across the board system. Good luck to everyone (those of us in school, those of you about to attend school, and those of your waiting to hear if you get to attend school)!!!!!!!

I know this is a silly question but how often in the semester do you have clinicals. I'm just starting my pre-req's but was curious. I work full time in a law office right now. Do they give you like X amount of days a semester or every Thursday or how does that work?

It will depend on the school as you know but at my school (BSN program) we have clinicals either Mon/Tues or Tues/Wed for the junior year. 12 hours a week first year junior year, 24 hours a week senior year, days or evenings (sometime no choice in that--some clinicals are ONLY days or ONLY evenings. Other times you can request days or evenings but your not guarunteed anything).

Our first semester for example we have Med/Surg for 8 weeks and then Psych for 8 weeks (starting the first day of class).

I actually didn't even find out my clinical schedual until the FIRST day of nursing school and had to be at clinicals THAT same day! Ughhh.

HTH