Virtual Clinicals?

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Specializes in Emergency.

To make a long story short, I am currently in LPN school. My school lost most of our records required to go to clinicals (titers, immunization records, drug screen, background check). We have already missed a whole term of clinicals, which is 64 hours worth. Instead of going to the hospital, our school has us coming to class on the weekends and sitting in front of a computer doing 'virtual' clinicals, which is nothing more than a game requiring you to virtually give medications and read virtual charts. My school keeps telling me that the BON will accept this in place of clinical hours, however, after calling my BON, they told me over the phone that these 'virtual clinicals' are not accepted and do not count towards our required 400 hours of hands on patient care. My school keeps telling me they do. I am so frustrated!!! What should I do?

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Specializes in ICU/ER.

If I were you, I would get something in writing from the BON and then take that to your school and see what they say then.

If they still insist it is OK, then I would ask them to give you something in writing from the BON to them stating such.

Good luck!!!

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

Is your school accredited? I tell you I have seen the weirdest of things in nursing school. My first semester was a bit similar to that-we were the first class of a new LPN program in a community college. They didn't have a clinical site for us to go to for at least 8-9 weeks. We did practice things on dummies, student health fairs where we practiced doing blood pressures and glucose readings on students and then, had to give nursing explanations later on (I guess that was considered to be the post conference). This happened until we finally got approved for a site, and we had a whooping 4 clinical site rotations that semester.

Not sure what the response is in your situation. I'd find if this is an accredited program and if this has happened in the past (do you know former students who can tell you-those who have earned their licenses?)

For me, I just rode with the punches and, I am an LPN now. I do think that I was cheated out of a bit of knowledge, but, at least I got the license, and I follow a great deal of common sense by not doing something I am not sure about. I am not saying to do what I did (which was really nothing), but at least find out the status of the school. I do think that nursing education is getting worse and worse.

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Specializes in Cardiac Care.

I agree with the previous posters; I do not believe an accredited institution would act in the way. "Virtual clinicals"??? What an oxymoron!

I think the OP is being cheated out of a learning experience that he has bought and paid for. I think notifying the BON is a great first step.

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Specializes in Peds, PICU, Home health, Dialysis.

Notify the BON and I would personally confront not only the nursing school but also the college/university administration. If they do nothing to accomodate you all and get you into hospital clinicals, I would contact an attorney because if they do not put you into hospital clinicals, you should get your tuition reimbursed to you.

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I actually saw a website for a Virtual Phlebotomy Course.

How in the world......?

Would someone really hire a person who took this?

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Specializes in Dialysis.

actually I have heard that lots of schools are moving to "virtuals". i hate em! we have no site for our OB rotation, so guess who is getting 64 hours of virtual simulations? that's right. 10 night time hours during the week, 12 hours on Saturdays. can't stand em but it's life. and whenever we finish a class for the semester, there always seems to be 2 weeks of off time before the semester officially ends. what do we do in the mean time? you guessed it, virtuals.

boo.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.

I REALLY don't think that you can do all these virtual clinicals and have them accepted by the BON. If that were true, a lot more schools would be doing them because yes, it's tough to find clinical sites. You need to get a specific answer on this ASAP from the BON and confront the school with your classmates before you waste any more time and money.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I am hearing rumors of virtual CNA courses. How this is deemed safe for patient care is beyond me. Again, I felt cheated from my clinical experiences, but I think that the school has discovered ways to lie about the hours obtained. No wonder seasoned nurses are disappointed with the new grads...compared to their education, it was apples and oranges.

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