What's the furthest you had to travel for a clinical?

So I got my schedule for my next term with my clinicals. I am in night school which means I have weekend clinicals and I don't mind that at all. So my next term, is my med surge and it's at a hospital setting. The only hospital that would take lpn students is in 1 1/2-2 hrs away AND have to be there at 6:45am-7:15pm every Saturday.

Has anybody else had to travel far for a clinical?

[Elektra6, ASN, BSN, RN]

1 hour because the hospital they usually used had a nursing strike

I had a friend who commuted 60 miles way one way to attend school. Class started at 8am, he would leave at 6am and would barely make it in time for class. Did it for a whole year. When we had clinicals it was even further for him, about 80 miles one way. Of course there was always traffic, props to him!

A little over an hour. How many times a week and for how many weeks will you have clinicals at that site?

cs2014 I'll be there every Saturday for 5 weeks

My farthest away was 30 minutes. That sucks that you have to drive so far away.

Oh then that's not bad. Sucks for a little bit but it's super temporary.

Yea it's not that bad that it's only for 5 Saturdays. Only bad thing is that I'm not a morning person and with me gotta be up early, it's gonna be a long day

ouch that sucks. mine is 20 minutes away

[LPN709]

When I was in school my furthest clinical site was literally 5 minutes away. I lived right down the street. I always got their early though anyway. I'm sorry you have to drive so far but it will be worth it in the end!

[Palliative Care, DNP]

1.5 hrs each way and paying $17 in tolls each day I went. Whoever decided NP students should have to find their own clinicals needs a swift kick😣

My clinicals in a hospital was in Oklahoma and I am in texas. It was one hour and forty five min. each way.

I am commuting 2 hours and 15 minutes for an np clinical right now. My previously assigned preceptor had to have emergency surgery and was out if commission so my school had to send me somewhere last min! UGH!!!! Its 2 days a week so i have just been staying in a hotel overnight but a two hour drive one or two times a week for 3 months isnt the end of the world i suppose.....?

[FinallyRNStatus, BSN]

I had a friend who commuted 60 miles way one way to attend school. Class started at 8am, he would leave at 6am and would barely make it in time for class. Did it for a whole year. When we had clinicals it was even further for him, about 80 miles one way. Of course there was always traffic, props to him!

Wow, sounds like me!!! My nursing school and most my clinical orations were 65 miles+ from my house. Usually it took me 1hr 45mins and I would leave around 6am 3 days a week to get to class by 8am and twice a week I would leave by 5-5:30 to get to clinicals by 7am (thankfully little traffic before 7am and cut down my commute time!). Going home was worse though on days I got out of class at 4:30pm traffic was really bad often taking 2hrs or more if there was an accident. It was very tiring to be on that schedule 5days/week and some days I thought it was going to kill me, literally, as midway through my schooling I fell asleep at the wheel going over 45 miles hour and rammed into the back of a car that stopped at the red light and totaled the whole front end of my car. That shook me up for months!

In my opinion, a long distance commute 1 day a week is completely doable, esp if your school doesn't require a look up at the hospital the day before or an extensive care plan to be done Friday. That alone would mean your commuting that far 2days/week instead of just Saturday. Since you are getting off after 7pm hopefully there will be less traffic too. I know some nursing schools in rural areas require students to attend clinical 2-3hours away every semester, so one semester is not so bad.

Edited Oct 9, 2014 by FinallyRNStatus

One hour...

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Has anybody else had to travel far for a clinical?

Since I lived 95 miles from the LVN program that I had attended, I routinely traveled long distances to clinical locations. Now it's all water under the bridge because I have a nice job with mostly nice working conditions, so the sacrifices were worth it.

[vintagemother, ADN, CNA, LVN, RN]

One clinical site was 1.5 to 2 hrs away. Most were about 45 mins. Plus I had to drop my son off at child care first.

I barely remember it all now. It was such a blur of busyness and stress.

Like commuter said, it was worth it. As I'm now working as a nurse.

You can do it!!

Well I'm glad to say that I'm not the only one that has had to travel that far. I'm going on my 3rd weekend going and honestly it's not that bad of a drive as I thought it was. Only bad thing was that we were out in the middle of no where and it's a small hospital....it has been boring so far so MAJOR disappointment