Schools with clinicals backloaded all into one semester?(Texas is where I am looking)

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Specializes in Obstetrics.

I am trying to find out what ADN schools out there offer all clinicals in their final semester. I was just in orientation with some new grad nurses from Houston and Dallas who told me they did all the didactic classes first and then they basically just went to work for clinicals the last semester. Because we were in orientation I didn't really get time to ask them what schools, and now I am curious. (I didn't get names and we don't work in the same department).

Anyone know?

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That's not possible. There literally would not be enough hours.

And in a majority of the states you must have clinicals concurrent to theory in order to be eligible for licensing.

Edit to add. I have zero knowledge how Texas regulates nursing programs, but it still seems unlikely.

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I only know of one school that does that, but it's a BSN program. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has a program called Pacesetter that front loads all your didactic classes then the last semester (or maybe two, I can't recall) you take all your clinical work. However, you have to be invited to the program, you ant apply for it. I'm not sure what criteria they use to decide which accepted applicants get invited.

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.

Wow, I didn't think that would be possible. We've been in clinicals since the second week of the program.

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That's not possible. There literally would not be enough hours.

And in a majority of the states you must have clinicals concurrent to theory in order to be eligible for licensing.

Edit to add. I have zero knowledge how Texas regulates nursing programs, but it still seems unlikely.

^^ This. If you actually attend a program like this, you may run into problems if you ever want to get licensed in another state.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

It is not only "possible" but producing a much better outcome. Accreditation requirements list the components that have to be included in a program.... NOT the order in which they are provided or how they are arranged.

The UT-Houston program was developed based on feedback from major hospital systems in the Houston area. It is designed to overcome the well known "diploma programs are/were sooooo much better because they had more clinical exposure" issue. Essentially, the last part of that nursing program provides a very intense clinical experience rather than the 'bits and pieces' in most BSN programs. Here is their explanation: During the final semester, students have full-time clinical rotations over 16 weeks to truly “live the life of a nurse.” The more intense clinical experience in the Pacesetters option also helps produce a more “job-ready” BSN graduate. (https://nursing.uth.edu/about/overview/pacesetters.htm)

So far, it is working extremely well. Graduates have a lot more confidence & comfort level in their first jobs.

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Specializes in IMCU, Oncology.

I hope to attend an ADN program like this starting in the fall. They have clinicals every semester increasing in intensity with each semester. First semester you start with one, eight hour clinical day and progress up to the final semester where you complete three, 12 hour clinical days with a nurse preceptor.

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perhaps all those phillipine grads with concurrency issues should apply to texas???

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It is not only "possible" but producing a much better outcome. Accreditation requirements list the components that have to be included in a program.... NOT the order in which they are provided or how they are arranged.

The UT-Houston program was developed based on feedback from major hospital systems in the Houston area. It is designed to overcome the well known "diploma programs are/were sooooo much better because they had more clinical exposure" issue. Essentially, the last part of that nursing program provides a very intense clinical experience rather than the 'bits and pieces' in most BSN programs. Here is their explanation: During the final semester, students have full-time clinical rotations over 16 weeks to truly “live the life of a nurse.” The more intense clinical experience in the Pacesetters option also helps produce a more “job-ready” BSN graduate. (https://nursing.uth.edu/about/overview/pacesetters.htm)

So far, it is working extremely well. Graduates have a lot more confidence & comfort level in their first jobs.

So do they get no clinical experience before the last 16 weeks?

I'm in a hospital diploma program and we do that for 10 weeks at the end.... But we had clinicals twice a week starting the first week of school....

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.
It is not only "possible" but producing a much better outcome. Accreditation requirements list the components that have to be included in a program.... NOT the order in which they are provided or how they are arranged.

The UT-Houston program was developed based on feedback from major hospital systems in the Houston area. It is designed to overcome the well known "diploma programs are/were sooooo much better because they had more clinical exposure" issue. Essentially, the last part of that nursing program provides a very intense clinical experience rather than the 'bits and pieces' in most BSN programs. Here is their explanation: During the final semester, students have full-time clinical rotations over 16 weeks to truly “live the life of a nurse.” The more intense clinical experience in the Pacesetters option also helps produce a more “job-ready” BSN graduate. (https://nursing.uth.edu/about/overview/pacesetters.htm)

So far, it is working extremely well. Graduates have a lot more confidence & comfort level in their first jobs.

How many different units do they work in during that final semester? Part of what I've loved is getting experience not only in med/surg, but mother/baby, psych, peds, ED, ICU, etc.
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How many different units do they work in during that final semester? Part of what I've loved is getting experience not only in med/surg but mother/baby, psych, peds, ED, ICU, etc.[/quote']

They go through all the the units required by law, for all the required clinical hours, which in Texas means med/surg, psych, peds, OB, critical (which encompasses ER and ICU), community health, and the final capstone preceptorship.

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The UT-Houston program was developed based on feedback from major hospital systems in the Houston area. It is designed to overcome the well known "diploma programs are/were sooooo much better because they had more clinical exposure" issue. Essentially, the last part of that nursing program provides a very intense clinical experience rather than the 'bits and pieces' in most BSN programs. Here is their explanation: During the final semester, students have full-time clinical rotations over 16 weeks to truly "live the life of a nurse." The more intense clinical experience in the Pacesetters option also helps produce a more "job-ready" BSN graduate. (https://nursing.uth.edu/about/overview/pacesetters.htm)

So far, it is working extremely well. Graduates have a lot more confidence & comfort level in their first jobs.

16 weeks of full-time (40 hrs/week) clinical works out to 640 hours. That's the roughly amount of clinical I had in the first year of my diploma program, when we only had two clinical days a week. The second year, we had clinical three days a week and, the third year, four days a week (an additional 960 and 1440 hours, roughly, respectively, for a rough total of over 3000 hrs).

But I suppose most anything is an improvement over what most nursing programs are doing nowadays.

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