USM ABSN Clinicals

[ritcal24]

Hi everyone, i'm pretty new to this board but I had a few questions about the program. I'll be moving to Maine for the USM ABSN program this May and I was wondering a little bit about the clinicals. Do we start clinicals in the summer session or in the fall session? This is because I'll be moving from California and I'm still debating if I should to ship my car to Maine after I get settled into the program. Also the academic advisor said we'd definitely need a car as our clinical sites could be as far away as lewiston (and I know we're all at the mercy of the program as to where they put us in the clinicals), but I was hoping to hear from some alumni on the clinicals. Were they normally around the portland area or was it common to be sent to far off clinical sites. How many students were usually assigned to a clinical site (just wondering in case people wanted to carpool)?

ALSO, I've been looking for some affordable off campus housing near the campus with little success. any help in this area would be greatly appreciated. I don't have enough posts for PMs, but any advice either through this post or email would be awesome.

Thanks so much!! looking forward to meeting those in the May program!

[greygooseuria]

I did the program and graduated in 2009. I'm in the FNP MSN program now.

Clinicals start in the fall. The first two summer sessions are 2 classes each and have labs on campus. After that, you have 2 clinicals a semester. All of my clinicals were in Portland, but I was one of the lucky ones. I did my practicum in Boston but took the bus/train down there to do that. People do car pool to Lewiston if they need to for clinicals.

An option is ZipCar. We have ZipCar in Portland and you could rent that the one or two days a week you need to commute if you can't carpool. A lot of my other accelerated student friends did carpool though.

As far as rent, Portland prices are jacked up. Westbrook/Biddeford are cheaper alternatives, though you'd have to commute. Bayside Village offers student housing for about $500 a month.

[suern2b]

I am currently in the accelerated program and finishing in August. Clinicals start in September, and they can be all over. We have sites in Brunswick, Lewiston, or Portland for the first clinicals. Mental health can be lewiston or westbrook. The peds clinicals are all at Maine Med in Portland and High Acuity (3rd and 4th semester) is in Portland as well. Clinicals have 8 students and carpooling is possible. There is Amtrak and they are working on expanding to Brunswick but they won't be done in time for you. Also, the train runs to and from Portland south but there isn't a trip that will get to Portland early enough for clinicals. There are also community partnerships that can be all over, even though most are based in Portland. I commute from NH so I got all Portland clinicals. The clinical coordinator does take home location into consideration but that doesn't always work out. The only location you really can choose is Practicum at the end. If you find something near gorham there are the shuttles from the gorham campus to Portland. That doesn't help so much on clinicals but it does help with classes. South Portland is reachable by bike. It's getting tough to find clinical assignments so they may not be as flexible.

Hope that helps.

[ritcal24]

wow thank you guys for the info and advice!

right now i'm applying for on campus housing in the summer so looks like i'll be living in gorham, but I read that the school shuttle to the portland campus doesn't run in the summer. If I was living in the dorms would you guys happen to know which public bus location nearest the dorms/I should take to get to class on time. I think they only let us move into the dorms on the 15th and class starts on the 16th of May so I'll be trying to learn that area quickly.

thank you!

[suern2b]

Did you try Bayside Village? http://baysidevillagemaine.com/ This is a short walk to campus in Portland, just a few blocks. A lot of students live there. Very reasonable.