When do/did you start clinicals?

[cmonkey]

My program starts them one month into the first semester. My friend's program starts theirs in the second semester. I suppose both programs have their reasons, but I find it interesting that they're so different.

How about you?

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

The second week of nursing school. Yeah, surprised the s**t outta me, too!

[AOX4RN, MSN, RN, NP]

In our program we started the fifth week and went straight through until the last week before finals. All of the subsequent semesters we will start the first week.

[CrunchyMama, ASN, RN]

We started about 6 weeks into the 1st semester. The first 6 weeks we were in the lab learning the basics.

[dondk, BSN, RN]

at my school, it was possible to start clinical before the first day of theory. Otherwise, it is the first week of nursing school, no pity for the weary and yes we were all like deer in headlights.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

2nd week. Grab your boots and hit the ground running.

[Faith213]

We had nine weeks of lecture/lab in our clinical course before we were able to start our clinical rotations in the LTC facilities and hospital. We did return demonstrations on inserting catheters, tube feedings, sterile dressing changes, medication administration, and vital signs during that time.

[SingDanceRunLife]

My program starts them 6 weeks into the first semester.

[guiltysins]

Mine starts the 7th week into the first semester and lasts for the last 7 weeks of the semester. It's the only semester we have one clinical. All the other semesters are two seperate clinicals that are the full semester length (15 weeks) and can be on the first day of class.

[anon456, BSN, RN]

The 4th or 5th week of the first semester. The pattern in our program is to start each semester working on skills in the lab, then when those are signed off we can start clinicals with actual patients.

[CuriousMe]

Week 2