My daughter is in the process of weighing her options and deciding where to go. One thing we are looking at is the clinical hours at each school. When they start and how many total hours students get. Schools seem to do the majority in junior and senior years.
It looks like schools need to give at least 400 hours total to be approved. The question then is what is the ideal number? Is more good because you are gaining lots of experience? Or are you just a free worker somewhere when you are doing a lot, when you could have a paid part-time job in a nursing aide capacity?
Anybody have knowledge or insight about this?
We are looking into what some schools offer and so far we have the following. Please feel free to add to this list.
University of Virginia:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 56 hours
Total programs hours: 728 hours
Case Western Reserve University:
Clinical Hours Start: Fall Freshman year
Freshman year: 100
Sophomore year: 300 hours
Total programs hours: 1300 hours
I wouldn’t be that concerned about when the clinicals start. I believe hospitals don’t let students do anything until they have some background classes. Therefore an early clinical may just involve watching.
@charliesch
Some schools start nursing classes immediately, and therefore start valid clinicals right after. Other schools wait until junior year before starting the nursing classes.
We’re still gathering information and I will update this post when I have heard back from more schools. But to start with, I would say the UVA and Case were most responsive in answering our questions.
When my D17 was looking at schools it seemed around 700 hours was pretty standard for the school here in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast region. Case stood out to us for offering significantly more but my D was not interested in the school much to my dismay. My D was able to secure an internship after her freshman year that gave her significant shadowing hours so she’s be able to make up for the difference.
My daughter said she learned a great deal working as a nursing assistant in a hospital while in nursing school, including many things she did not learn in clinicals. She only worked one shift a month while in school, but that put her in a position to work many more hours during the summer and on breaks.
Heard from a couple more schools, so I am now updating:
Case Western Reserve University:
Clinical Hours Start: Fall Freshman year
Freshman year: 100
Sophomore year: 300 hours
Total programs hours: 1300 hours
Clemson University:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 45 hours
Total programs hours: 900+ hours
Penn State:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 43 hours
Total programs hours: 900 hours
University of Virginia:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 56 hours
Total programs hours: 728 hours
Interesting question. Had never thought about it, but it was easy to calculate for my DD’s school by looking at how many classes have clinicals, and adding up the hours.
Fairleigh Dickinson University:
Clinical hours start Fall Sophmore Year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: about 150 (actual clinicals aren’t the whole semester)
Total program 900+ hours
Some of the schools have senior year preceptorships where the student follows a mentor for a significant number of hours. I will indicate that below for the schools I know about. Not sure if they all included it or not in their overall numbers. I know UVA did not.
Case Western Reserve University:
Clinical Hours Start: Fall Freshman year
Freshman year: 100
Sophomore year: 300 hours
Total programs hours: 1300 hours
*senior year preceptorship. Not sure if it’s included in that 1300
University of Virginia:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 56 hours
Total programs hours: 728 hours + senior year preceptorship (240 hours?)
Clemson University:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 45 hours
Total programs hours: 900+ hours
Fairleigh Dickinson University:
Clinical hours start: Fall Sophmore Year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: about 150 (actual clinicals aren’t the whole semester)
Total program: 900+ hours
Penn State:
Clinical Hours Start: Spring Sophomore year
Freshman year: 0
Sophomore year: 43 hours
Total programs hours: 900 hours
