WGU - RN to BSN - 90 hr clinical requirement. How are you meeting it?

maebowers · Mar 4, 2014

This is going to be my next course and I have been wondering what types of community health topics did people do....and who did you work with in the community???

thanks for any tips,

Kathy

casnee · Mar 27, 2014

I'm about to complete my clinical health practicum here in CA and my project topic is Substance Abuse Prevention in Youth. From what I have learned, the topic needs to be "prevention" oriented and involve a specific population (youth, elderly, Hispanic, etc.). The topic has to be an active issue within the community, and your "hours" must reflect your assessments of efficacy of programs, interventions, etc. through interviews, site visits, classes and you must develop a "plan" (your paper) to help combat the issue.

Because of the additional requirements for the practicum taking place in CA, I had a frustrating, lengthy process of finding a preceptor. In particular, my county was not familiar with this school and its processes, so explaining what I needed with the Public Health dept was time-consuming. So, after about 3 months, I finally was able to have the county's Nurse Practitioner (who works in substance abuse treatment) be my preceptor. Through her, I was able to get in touch with the different health dept (particularly youth prevention) and explore the programs and classes they had offered. So far, it has taken me 9 weeks to complete 76 hours. I anticipate finishing within the next couple of weeks. Then, I will just have the paper to complete and I'll be finished!!!

U2BCool · May 14, 2014

All I have to do is this paper and I graduate. Ughhhh!!! It is the biggest pain in the bum to complete 90 hours of interviews. The community health class was poorly organized, I felt not a lot of thought was put into the curriculum. The rest of the program was a breeze.

smartnurse1982 · May 15, 2014

Wait,so there is a clinical required?

This is the topic i am doing extensive research on as i do NOT want to do a clinical ever.

But this does sound like a clinical.

klone, MSN, RN · May 15, 2014

Under the old program, there was a community health requirement. Part of the requirement was actually going out into the community. The 90-hour requirement can me met in various ways. My capstone was on child abuse prevention. I met my 90 hours by interviewing leaders of the local church on what types of resources they have for parenting (the leaders just happened to be good friends of mine, so we sat down for coffee at Dunkin Donuts and chatted for two hours), interviewing a CPS case worker, interviewing some program administrators of a child abuse prevention task force, etc. It's not clinicals in the sense that you go to a hospital and work for set hours. You create it yourself and you can be quite creative.

All of what I wrote is with the caveat that this is an old thread, and the program has changed significantly since when it was started. I no longer know what the community health requirements are for the program. So perhaps Featherz or someone else who has finished it more recently can speak to that.

featherzRN, MSN · May 15, 2014

Under the old program, there was a community health requirement. Part of the requirement was actually going out into the community. The 90-hour requirement can me met in various ways. My capstone was on child abuse prevention. I met my 90 hours by interviewing leaders of the local church on what types of resources they have for parenting (the leaders just happened to be good friends of mine, so we sat down for coffee at Dunkin Donuts and chatted for two hours), interviewing a CPS case worker, interviewing some program administrators of a child abuse prevention task force, etc. It's not clinicals in the sense that you go to a hospital and work for set hours. You create it yourself and you can be quite creative.
All of what I wrote is with the caveat that this is an old thread, and the program has changed significantly since when it was started. I no longer know what the community health requirements are for the program. So perhaps Featherz or someone else who has finished it more recently can speak to that.

That portion of the program is still the same. 90 hours in the community - interviews, classes, etc. Not a 'clinical' - mine was on disaster planning and management so my interviews were at firehouses, jails, 911 dispatch centers, etc - no 'medical' places, or not many. :) If you are in california, it's a bit more structured as you need a home site to sign off on your community hours.

DisneyRNMSN · May 17, 2014

A practicum is not a clinical. I had to do a practicum for my MSN at Chamberlain and I learned a lot from a very experienced nurse educator.

ppassehl · Sep 18, 2014

I am currently in this class and I am stuck on what questions to ask when I go to the interviews. I picked the topic of Obesity. I have a few interviews set up and feeling panicked. HELP.

maebowers · Sep 19, 2014

look at the rubric for what you need to write about…ask them the for the answers- that is what this pap are is about. YOu need to figure out what the "experts in the community" would do to address your chosen problem. you need to narrow down your population also. Obesity is a great topic, but what is your population, and how are you going to implement your changes to a population? I chose adolescents, because they are all in school and any changes can take place through the school setting, that way all adolescents are benefitting from the change. I did phone interviews too. what types of people do you have interviews set up with? if you want moire guidance with this you can email me, maebowers at yahoo

hope this helps

Kathy

RonnieDita · Sep 19, 2014

I was under the impression there is no actual clinical requirement. That is why they require that you work the entire time you're enrolled. There is a practicum where you interview regarding a community health issue though. But I was never told about any hours required for it.

Redsox07 · Jul 17, 2015

I'm glad someone posted about this class -Community Health and the different requirements for California. I am only just now beginning C228 Comm Health and will start the C229 Field project in a few months.

MJB2010 · Jul 19, 2015

How do you document the 90 hours? Do you get each site to sign off on it? I am thinking ahead and there are a few topics that interest me that I think might be do-able.