Working while doing clinical hours

[MillieT]

I'm in my first yr of FNP school. I will definitely need to work during my semesters with clinical hours. Can someone please share what their weekly schedule looked like when combining work and clinical hours? How many clinical hours did you do per week? Did you try to compact them in a few weeks while not working or did you do 2-3 days of clinicals/week while working 2 shifts a week?

If you worked while doing clinicals and also had a family, how did it affect you?

Thanks,

Mille

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

I've done an adult CNS (680 hour clinical) and a pads CNS (612 hour clinical).

Here's some of the ways I've done it:

1. Saved my PTO and took 40 hours off - did 12 hours clinical/day and managed to get 80 hours done in 7 days straight.

2. Did clinicals at night/weekend (these were in the ER/Urgent Care).

3. Worked full-time (3 12's week) and then did clinicals almost every single day off.

Overall, I worked full time throughout both programs but I did them as post-MSN programs so it was only adv path, adv pharm and adv assessment that I did plus the clinical hours.

[BCgradnurse, MSN, RN, NP]

I did 3 days of clinical per week plus 1.5 days of classes. I worked 14 hours per week while doing that. That was about all I could manage. I am married with 2 kids and it was tough on all of us. I missed a lot of the kids' activities that year, but we all survived.

[Lovanurse]

I work 2-3 nights per week (home care). I really don't like home care nursing, but they pay the most and plus there is time to do homework after everyone is sleeping. Also, I can pretty much pick my own schedule. That's a plus because I reserve Saturdays for the kids. So there are many days that I will get off work at 7a, take a shower and go to clinical. I can usually do that once a week without being completely exhausted. I also do flu shot clinics. The point is to do whatever pays the bills until graduation. Good Luck :-)