Samuel Merritt ABSN Clinical Rotations

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Hi, I was accepted to the Fall 2022 ABSN cohort at the San Francisco Peninsula Campus. I'd like to hear from current students and recent alumni about their experiences with clinical rotations.

  • How are clinicals determined?
  • At what types of institutions/organizations are they located?
  • Where (geographically) are they located?

Many thanks!

 

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Hey Congrats on your admission! I just graduated this Spring. You are supposed to be placed in clinical groups determined by your current address. The school then tries to place you at hospitals/healthcare facilities that are relatively close to your area but that’s not always the case. I was in the Oakland cohort and there were clinical placements in SF, Oakland, Berkeley, Walnut Creek, and other east bay locations. Hopefully this helps. 

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@mamabarz is it much easier to get hired at the hospital you had clinicals at?

I heard a lot of SMU graduates get hired at Stanford or UCSF. Just wondering if that's because students attending the Oakland/San Mateo campuses have clinicals there :).

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@mamabarz Thanks for your response and best wishes on your next steps!

I'd be interested to hear more about your overall experience in the program. If you're up for it, please send me a DM. Thanks!

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I too was accepted to the Fall 2022 ABSN cohort at the San Francisco Peninsula Campus. My friend is currently in her first semester in the same program and same campus and is doing clinicals at SF General. When I asked her the same question you have, she said there is no Oakland clinical placement for the San Mateo campus students. I live in the East Bay and was hoping to be placed there. ???

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I just finished my first year in the ELMSN program at the Oakland campus, and my experience has been really poor with clinical placements. If I even got placed, it was never in Berkeley or Oakland. I live <2 miles from campus and I’ve never been placed anywhere closer than 12 miles away, the farthest was 50 miles away (Santa Rosa). I don’t know any ABSN students but I do know traditional BSN students and they’ve had the same problems. If you got into any other schools, I’d really recommend going there. SMU cannot provide enough clinical opportunities and doesn’t have enough clinical instructors to support the amount of students they admit.

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@rjay01 - Hi! Thanks so much for your comment. I appreciate your feedback and your honesty. 

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I can only support what the student in the ELMSN program mentioned. SMU likes to make a lot of promises and then uses the excuse that the pandemic makes it challenging to place you in a hospital. SMU is notoriously bad at providing clinical opportunities and many students have to come back to finish their ours once they graduated. You can be happy if you get 50% of the required hours in a hospital, otherwise they will give you tasks on the computer. They'll tell you that this is great experience as well but the online games provide no real skills whatsoever. I wish someone would have told me about their bad infrastructure and leadership. SMU still has a good name among hospitals and leadership is willing to smile at you and take your money. Please save yourself and don't go into deep debt over something you are promised but won't be provided. Apply to a state program or any other. Except for a few really good and caring professors, this school is hiring people who have no interest or capacity at teaching you the skills you need. 

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