NursingZen

The first week of the fall quarter has been mellow, great for getting us back into the right mindset. Again, our class of 84 has been split into two groups, Schedule A and B. The exciting aspect of my group, Schedule A, is the two 12-hour back to back Med-Surg days at the hospital, which is from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. We’re supposed to take on more responsibility–instead of ‘helping’ a nurse, we’re going to start off with total care of one patient, then two, then three–and maybe four by December. Holy moley. Very cool.

Aside from the Med-Surg clinicals, we only have class 1-1/2 days and are free the rest of the week.

Schedule B folks reportedly have more relaxed clinicals, because they are doing Pediatrics, Labor & Delivery and Community Health. Many of the students are glad to see other units of the hospital and of nursing, instead of Med-Surg. I’m personally glad to be doing Med-Surg now, because I can continue to build on my relationship with the nursing unit I’d been working at over the summer. It seems like most people are happy with their group and can see the pros and cons of both schedules.

So, the eye-opener of the week is the fact that the illustrious UCSF MEPN program was scrambling to find and hire enough faculty/clinical instructors to accommodate everyone for the fall! Two clinical instructors were out of commission this week, so Schedule A’s clinicals had to be cut down to one day instead of the normal two (this week only). A clinical instructor had to be pulled in last minute as a favor to our full-time instructor! The teaching shortage is very real. Without faculty, schools can’t accept or train all the people that want to be nurses.

I’m really curious about how nursing programs are run at other schools, whether they are also scrambling for faculty, and whether the accelerated ones are just as hectic and crazy as UCSF’s. If there are any readers out there who are in a nursing program, please, please chime in!