Clinicals provide experience for nursing students - News

This semester UTC nursing students will perform clinical time at one of three hospitals in Chattanooga, according to Dr. Kay Lindgren, director of the UTC school of nursing.

"The decision to have the nursing students complete clinicals at one hospital was made based on ongoing assessments and evaluations done on the nursing program," Lindgren said.

According to Lindgren, nursing students used to rotate hospitals in order to witness different practices.

"We wanted the opportunity for the students to be exposed to as many practices as possible while meeting the objectives in the courses," she said.

April Anderson, recruitment and retention coordinator for the school of nursing, said, "One of the reasons we decided to go through the change was for student consistency to work with only one instructor in the clinical settings."

According to Anderson, the first six or seven weeks of the first semester in the nursing school are spent learning clinical practices in labs.

The last half of the semester is spent applies those practices in clinical settings.

"I think this will be a positive change for the nursing students," Anderson said. "They will be able to see more things with different experiences."

Daniel Garner, a Cleveland, Tenn. junior said "I would prefer to be at one hospital per semester. We only go on Thursdays and Fridays so we don't get much time at the hospital."

Lingred Said "I think the students will be better served in one hospital with an opportunity to be immersed in the experience. They will be with only one instructor and oriented one time so they can focus more on the experience."

Garner said he believes the change will be better for nursing students.

"It takes a while to get situated at a hospital," she said. "If we went to different ones then I don't think that we would be able to truly get the most out of the experience."

"It is easier for the students to apply what they learn if they are familiar withwork."

"We are hoping the change will benefit the nursing students more instead of rotating hospitals," Lindgren said. "They will have more patient care experience and it's easier to achieve with greater specificity."

Sean Sexter, a Franklin Tenn. junior said, "With the new program, we'll get to know the hospital much better, but we won't be able to see what other hospitals are like."

"I'm a little nervous about starting, but it's going to be exciting no matter what. We don't know what we're really going to be doing and from what we've been told we are a very unique class... I think we're all just eager to begin period" Sexter said.