Student Clinicals: which locations to choose?

U.S.A. Maryland

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Hello,

I will be registering for my summer and fall clinicals soon. I would love to hear some advice from current nurses about which clinical rotation may be *most* helpful both from a learning/hands on perspective and on my resume for jobs once I graduate.

If you feel like clinical rotations in school don't matter as much, please let me know. I am not really sure exactly what employers are looking for in entry level nurses!

I will most likely apply for jobs outside of MD in large (very competitive) cities, so have some thoughts about JHH being a bigger "name" on my CV. I know this will probably spark a big debate, however I know in California they care less about UM but JHH is known and respected everywhere. I do value experience over a name, but also need to get my foot in the door once I graduate.

[PS: I do not attend Hopkins so I'm only talking about clinicals]

Here are my options:

OB: Bayview, Franklin Square, Sinai, UMMS, JHH

Peds: Children's, JHH, Mt. Washington Pediatric, Sinai

Psych: UMMS, JHH, Sheppard Pratt (Ellicott City), Sheppard Pratt (Towson)

Thank you!

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In my experience, the quality of clinical rotations vary greatly based on your clinical instructor. Some let us do much more than others. And some hospitals have rules about how many students can give out medications and what students can do. I'm not sure where your rotations are matter that much when applying for jobs, unless you have the option to do a rotation on a unit where you might want to work later.

My peds rotation was at Mt. Washington and I really enjoyed it, but I obviously can't speak for the other sites. There were a lot of young nurses there who seemed happy to have students and willing to give you work to do.

We did psych at JHH. There are apparently 2 psych floors; one is geri-psych floor, which is kind of relaxed... a lot of depression and pain management and the other one is more intense with patients with schizophrenia and such. So I'd look into which floor you'd get and consider what you want out of your psych rotation. I've also heard Sheppard Pratt Towson is pretty nice.

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