Students explore many different opportunities to get hands-on experience in their fields of interest, such as internships, volunteering and even shadowing professionals. Few students, however, have the chance to gain hands-on experience as part of their undergraduate curriculum. Students in the University's Nursing School fall into this small group through their Nursing School clinicals -- required sessions spent in the hospital.
"U.Va. is unique in that they get their nursing students in the hospital by second semester of second year," which is when they begin taking part in clinicals, second-year Nursing student Ellen Carey said. "First semester second year we have a semester of clinical skills, which is where you learn to do basic things, such as [taking] vital signs."
Nursing school students are divided into different clinicals, with about eight students in each group. These groups work in different areas. Carey, for example, works with patients who have just had thoracic or cardiac surgery.
"They've had very serious surgeries," Carey said. "It's hard because we're working with really sick patients and we haven't had any experience. At first, I felt very inadequate, but like riding a bike, the more you do it -- the more that [you] learn in skills and the more that [you] see at clinicals -- the more you feel confident doing it."
Third-year Nursing student Jennifer Bates said she believes students get more out of the clinical experience as they take more classes and participate in more clinicals.
"I'm in my third and fourth clinical right now," Bates said. "I have a clinical [dealing with] digestive health, and I absolutely love it. I would never have thought that when I started out. I'm finally feeling like it's all coming together. I've been surprised at how much my thinking process has evolved."
This change in thinking, according to Bates, makes a major difference.
"The first clinical, you're all about getting everything done and checked off, and you're not really thinking about why you're doing it and how it's going to affect your patients," Bates said. "But at this point, it's not about tasks anymore, but more about the big picture and the patient. That's been the most rewarding part of the stressfulness of the workload this year -- how far I've come since my first clinical, which was only a year ago."
This awareness of the patient's needs and direct experience give Nursing students a glimpse into their future careers, an opportunity many other students do not receive.
"It's different when we're practicing the skill in lab and when we're doing it on a real patient," Carey said. "I think it's really scary -- the Nursing School is very practical. I do have papers to write, but they are concerning how I would make a nursing diagnosis and how I would treat a patient. I think there's more pressure for Nursing students than an average college student because we're dealing with real ... people, and my education affects their lives -- it's not just a grade on a paper."
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