What is a clinical?
Chamberlain’s pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program is designed to prepare nursing students through rigorous clinical learning experiences. Clinical learning occurs in a variety of settings, promotes connection between theory and practice, integrates clinical judgment, and develops practice readiness. Clinical at a partner site provides the opportunity for students to interact with patients, families, and healthcare providers. Each session clinical learning experiences are scheduled according to clinical partner availability and average 8-12 hours. This may result in more than one day per week for clinical learning experiences (including days, evenings, and weekends).
How do you prepare for clinical experiences?
Preparing for clinical experiences is essential for success and learning. All students should review the College of Nursing Expected Student Behaviors, Attendance information, Clinical Learning Evaluation information, Technical Standards, Code of Conduct and Clinical Uniform within the Student Handbook. Located on the Clinical Learning Information for Students page within the learning management system (LMS) course, students should review the Clinical Practice Guidelines, Direct Patient Care Documentation, Clinical Learning Evaluation, and concepts learned prior to arriving to their scheduled clinical experience. Practice time in open lab is highly recommended to review any concept/skill-based activity that may be performed at the clinical experience.
What are the requirements to start clinical experiences?
Chamberlain University nursing students are expected to demonstrate professional behavior, including good communication and effective interpersonal relationship skills, honesty, trust, integrity, and compliance with rules and regulations in a clinical setting.
Chamberlain University is concerned with both the health and safety of its students and the patients they care for. Students are expected to provide proof of their personal health, including such items as CPR Certification, 2 Step PPD, and their immunity to certain diseases in our compliance vendor system. They also must submit to drug testing, background check, fingerprinting, and be well-versed in patient confidentiality and workplace safety issues through completion of forms and quizzes in our compliance vendor system. For more specifics on your compliance requirements, please refer to your compliance workbook.
Students work closely with their location Clinical Coordinator and Corporate Clinical Healthcare Compliance to become and remain compliant with all requirements throughout their enrollment at Chamberlain.
When do I participate in clinicals?
Clinical experiences begin in Fundamentals – Patient Care, where students provide care to patients at a partner clinical site. As students’ progress through their program, Adult Health I & Adult Health II follow where the focus is on medical surgical nursing care before moving into specialty courses of Mental Health Nursing, Maternal-Child Nursing (“obstetrics”), Pediatric Nursing, and Complex Adult Health.
Community Health Nursing clinical experiences occur within a community, in which community-based health care is delivered. The Collaborative Healthcare clinical experience promotes leadership, patient care planning, delegation, relationships building, and confidence. This clinical may take place with an assigned preceptor. Capstone Course is the last clinical course in the program and where students may complete their experience in a variety of locations.
Where will I complete clinical experiences?
A variety of healthcare settings are utilized to complete clinical learning experiences and correlate with the specific course and program outcomes and clinical learning competencies. Chamberlain University nursing students may have clinical learning experiences in settings that include large and small hospitals, long-term care facilities, community and public-health agencies, faith-based service organizations, independent practices, ambulatory care centers, public health agencies, military services (Army, Navy and Air Force), Veteran’s Administration Medical Centers, schools, home health environments, or anywhere health care is delivered. Chamberlain University prelicensure nursing students are not responsible for finding their required clinical experiences. Our clinical model, featuring centralized coordination and national compliance, facilitates the process for our students and the organizations that receive them.